On Nikolai/Marya
Ask I got on Tumblr;
Re Marya & Nikolai, I always thought it was genuine from Nikolai's side. I read somewhere that the reason it worked is because under the circumstances they met she was in a "damsel in distress" position, allowing him to be the hero which is essential to his personality & which he could never be with Sonia who was always sacrificig & taking on the "hero" position, if that makes sense?
That’s an interesting theory. As a gut feeling I’m not buying it 100%.
First of all, it’s true that Tolstoy has that line about how Sonya has all the things that “people are valued for” but little of what they are “loved” for (whatever that even means gah) and in context this seems to refer to Sonya’s self-sacrificing nature, but it’s also pretty clear that this is Tolstoy putting his own issues out there - it’s not Nikolai’s POV, But, on the other hand, I’m also not actually doubting that NIkolai was no longer in love with Sonya at this point. He hadn’t been truly in love with her for a while. But I think feeling duty-bound to her killed what remained of his feelings far more than her not letting him “be the hero.”
Secondly, while Nikolai certainly likes to perform chivalry and heroism that’s not really who he is. With Nikolai at the beginning of the book, this may have made some sense, because he was so desperate to be a hero that finding a girl who could help with building that image would have swayed him. Nikolai certainly built his identity around these values which he considered important. But, later on, Nikolai’s character arch moves him away from this idealization of heroism and chivalry. He becomes a lot more practical. (We see the final stage/culmination of this in the epilogue.) So, I’m not really buying that older Nikolai would really be so swayed by the chance to “play the hero.”
But it’s an interesting theory and probably deserves some further thought. I think for me it was just the suddenness of the thing. And even in the epilogue, while Pierre and Natasha are pretty obviously in love, Nikolai and Marya don’t give me that impression. Their marriage obviously works and works decently well, but they give off much more of an impression of two people who managed to make something work than two people who have been in love with each other.
Re Marya & Nikolai, I always thought it was genuine from Nikolai's side. I read somewhere that the reason it worked is because under the circumstances they met she was in a "damsel in distress" position, allowing him to be the hero which is essential to his personality & which he could never be with Sonia who was always sacrificig & taking on the "hero" position, if that makes sense?
That’s an interesting theory. As a gut feeling I’m not buying it 100%.
First of all, it’s true that Tolstoy has that line about how Sonya has all the things that “people are valued for” but little of what they are “loved” for (whatever that even means gah) and in context this seems to refer to Sonya’s self-sacrificing nature, but it’s also pretty clear that this is Tolstoy putting his own issues out there - it’s not Nikolai’s POV, But, on the other hand, I’m also not actually doubting that NIkolai was no longer in love with Sonya at this point. He hadn’t been truly in love with her for a while. But I think feeling duty-bound to her killed what remained of his feelings far more than her not letting him “be the hero.”
Secondly, while Nikolai certainly likes to perform chivalry and heroism that’s not really who he is. With Nikolai at the beginning of the book, this may have made some sense, because he was so desperate to be a hero that finding a girl who could help with building that image would have swayed him. Nikolai certainly built his identity around these values which he considered important. But, later on, Nikolai’s character arch moves him away from this idealization of heroism and chivalry. He becomes a lot more practical. (We see the final stage/culmination of this in the epilogue.) So, I’m not really buying that older Nikolai would really be so swayed by the chance to “play the hero.”
But it’s an interesting theory and probably deserves some further thought. I think for me it was just the suddenness of the thing. And even in the epilogue, while Pierre and Natasha are pretty obviously in love, Nikolai and Marya don’t give me that impression. Their marriage obviously works and works decently well, but they give off much more of an impression of two people who managed to make something work than two people who have been in love with each other.