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Marika Denise Wilkinson
Student number: 10701509


Sermonizing Sex
Depictions of Sex and Sexuality in Tolstoy’s War and Peace





Recounting the loss of his virginity in a brothel at the age of sixteen, Leo Tolstoy writes:
“I performed the act, I sat at the foot of the woman’s bed and cried”1
...
Governed by an uncontrollable sexual libido throughout his lifetime, Tolstoy’s
relationship with sexuality is fraught and problematic
...

Yet despite his constant, general moral frustration, the six-year period immediately following his
marriage to Sofia Andreyevna, was a happy one, which provided Tolstoy with a peace and stability
previously unknown to him
...
It is during these years of marital happiness and moral conciliation that
Tolstoy composed his epic, War and Peace
...
Boot
maintains that “Tolstoy’s take on anything at all” was in fact “solely based on his own experience”4
...
From this he creates an unofficial


1 Alexander
2 Ibid
...


3 Caryl

Emerson, "The Tolstoy Connection in Bakhtin," Modern Language Association 100, no
...

4 Alexander Boot, God and Man According to Tolstoy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 123
...
As Jeff Love states that “few could be said to have sought authority
more passionately, more violently, and more immoderately”5 than Tolstoy, so it is disputable that the
moral manifesto he creates for the characters in War and Peace, is as much a manifesto or code of
conduct for himself, as much as it is for his fictional creations
...
Tolstoy’s depiction
reveals a fraught and conflicted mentality, one that secretly desires the transgressions it damns as much
as it seeks to stifle them
...
Through this depiction of Andrei as the epitome of heroism, it is arguable that Tolstoy also
discloses his vision of the ideal man, or at least, of the man who strives for the ideal
...

When Nicolai Rostov encounters his idol, the emperor Alexander, he develops an ambiguous
infatuation, which, according to Tolstoy, was not uncommon amongst the Russian soldiers: “he was not
the only man to experience that feeling”7
...

Jepsen, "Prince Andrey as Epic Hero in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"" South Atlantic Bulletin 34, no
...

7 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 23%
...

9 Ibid
...
He really was in love…10

Prince Andrei’s infatuations are of a different kind
...
What Andrei admires in Speranski is his social standing as a “man of
genius”11 who enjoys close proximity to power
...
Prince Andrei recognised him at once, and felt a throb within him… whether it
was from respect, envy or anticipation, he did not know…This was Speranski, Secretary of
State, reporter to the Emperor… [he] expected to discover in him the perfection of human
qualities
...

This appears to be problematic when considering that Andrei is romantically involved with
women throughout most of War and Peace
...
He finds the general company “tiresome”13
and uninteresting:

among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to bore him so much as that of his
pretty wife
...


11 Ibid, 83%
...

13 Ibid, 4%
...


3

Andrei finds little interest in his wife, so much so that his own handsome features become “distorted”
when he contemplates her, he later confesses to Pierre: “what would I not give now to be unmarried!”15
...
However, as the act itself takes place
before the novel begins, thus, technically occurring ‘off-stage’, it follows that there is no direct and
unquestionable evidence to be found regarding the possibility Andrei’s sexuality, even whilst he is
married to Lise
...
Indeed Andrei
rebukes his friend for his unruly habits: “It suits you so badly- all this debauchery, dissipation, and the
rest of it!” and adds “women and wine… I don’t understand”16
...
By this, presumably, he means women who, like Lise, are
considered to be respectable by society and abide by the norms of conventional courtship and behaviour
...
However, unlike his forerunners, Andrei
displays no sexual desire for her, even while intending to make her his wife
...
Indeed while
contemplating the marriage between her daughter and Andrei, the Countess reflects about “how there
was something unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage”18, namely the lack of sexual tension
and excitement common to a young couple who marry for love
...


16 Ibid
...


18 Ibid, 45%
...
19

It is crucial here to note that it is not “Natasha” whom he muses about, but her image, denoting that
ultimately, to him, Natasha is more of a symbolic representation of an ideal or concept than an
individual human being
...
To Andrei, this
is the essence of happiness: to understand one’s ideal state of being
...
Sexual desire is thus a carnal, materialistic and earthly element that
disconnects man from the divine
...
This is also true in War and Peace, where Tolstoy constructs a precise
moral manifesto depicting his convictions on the appropriate way in which to approach and engage with
one’s sexuality
...
Indeed, although
a Christian anarchist himself, it is arguable that Tolstoy’s view on the nature of wedlock is best voiced
by the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which warns that marriage should not be taken “lightly, or
wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites like brute beasts that have no understanding… but


19 Leo

Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 40%
...


21 Ibid, 25%
...

23 John Bowden, Christianity: The Complete Guide (London: Continuum, 2005), 723
...
There are three purposes to marriage as defined by The Form of
Solemnization of Matrimony:

First, It was ordained for the procreation of children… Secondly…for a remedy against sin and
to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep
themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body
...
25

These precepts feature very strongly in Tolstoy’s view of the appropriate union of man and woman
...
Throughout
War and Peace the protagonists are constantly struggling to come to terms with their own sexuality and
its purpose
...
Hence, the
protagonists who begin their journey unmarried must face a series of obstacles that will help them
unravel and determine for themselves what the nature of such a mystic union truly is
...

To convey his vision of the ideal function and application of sex and sexuality, Tolstoy therefore
illustrates how it should not be practiced, and cautions against the dangers of such abuse
...
The latter is a destructive force, which, because of its self-serving nature, only
leads to alienation and loss of meaning
...

25 Ibid
...




6

The first illustration of this malpractice is seen with the marriage between Helene Kuragina and
Pierre Bezhukov
...
Pierre was so
used to that smile, and it had so little meaning for him, that he paid no attention to it
...
“You had not
noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman who may belong to anyone-to you too,” said her
glance
...
Thus, the fortuitousness that Pierre associates with the possibility of possessing Helene
denotes an underlying feeling of un-belonging, a feeling that because she could just as easily be
somebody else’s, she should not really belong to him
...
It follows that
what is lacking in their union is an abstract feeling of connection and exclusivity necessary for the
mystical covenant of marriage
...


28 Ibid
...




7

Her bust… was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the living charm
of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need only have bent his head a little to have
touched them… And at that moment Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his
wife
...

Ironically, in a previous attempt to encourage the match, Helene’s father had referred to Pierre as an
uneducated “bear”, who would benefit from “the society of clever women”32, namely, Helene
...

Having married for wanton and superfluous reasons in the first place, Pierre and Helene’s
marriage ensues in failing in all three marriage precepts: they do not procreate, both engage in adultery
and abandon one another, and both fail to provide the other with comfort and support in the face of
adversity
...
34

Helene’s illness is, of course, an unwanted pregnancy resulting from her adulterous liaisons
...


31 Ibid, 19%
...

33 "The

Form of Solemnization of Matrimony," in Book of Common Prayer (Cambridge University Press,
1968)
...




8

old count suspected her”35 and grieved by Pierre not answering her letter, Helene takes “a very large
dose of the drug” originally prescribed in small doses “to produce a certain effect”36, and dies in agony
before anyone is able to assist her
...
With this example Tolstoy demonstrates that even within the marriage covenant, sex can be
a dangerous and destructive force, which may spiral out of control resulting in both physical and
psychological chaos
...
In the domestic social milieu of War and Peace, an acquaintance that takes on a
romantic nature is generally defined as a courtship
...
What distinguishes Anatole’s courtship is the fact that he vehemently defies
such social protocol and, as a result of his egotism and uncontrollable sexual desire, leads Natasha into a
realm of disconnection and uncertainty
...

As a result of this, his courtship of Natasha is secretive and uncertain in its intent, as he must work
outside of the social norms he has previously disobeyed
...
In this
space Anatole is able to invert his inconvenient situation and operate at an advantage
...

Never having attended an opera before, Tolstoy takes advantage of Natasha’s lack of
experience to defamiliarize the performance through her eyes:


35 Leo

Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 78%
...

37 Ibid, 49%
...
38

By deconstructing the scene to its bare essentials, Tolstoy invites the reader to reflect on what Natasha
describes as the “pretentiously false and unnatural”39 nature of the performance
...
Yet paradoxically, because the artificial setting of
the opera is but a surreal imitation of reality, Natasha allows herself to be “intoxicated”40 by it and
fantasizes about breaking away from the unnatural and rigid boundaries of the social code:


...

to touch with her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to Helene and
tickle her
...
It is fitting then that Natasha’s desire to
evade social norm, with its pressures and responsibilities, is readily answered by the arrival of a man
who has already evaded them
...
In this case the boundary is the “moral barrier” described by Natasha, and the wrong
reason is sexual desire: as George R
...


39 Ibid, 48%
...

41 Ibid
...
Yet because her sexual desire is self-serving and lies outside of the moral
boundaries as defined by Tolstoy, it is necessarily a negative and destructive force, which ultimately
leads Natasha to shame and attempted suicide
...

Indeed, it is implied that those who tempt other characters to overstep such boundaries and indulge in
their sexual desires, are also those who have already indulged in them themselves, like Helene and
Anatole:

… I have been told that her brother Anatole was quite in love with her and she with him, and
that there was quite a scandal and that is why he was sent away…43

While their incestuous relationship is openly implied and easily credible due to their constant
association with pejorative adjectives such as “nasty”44 and “unnatural”45, there are other less defined
instances of such potentially “unnatural” behaviour
...
he thought: “How charming this Natasha of mine is! I have no other friend like her and never
shall have
...
Yet when understood in the context of his thought,


42 George

R
...

43 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 19%
...

45 Ibid
...
Clay, Tolstoy's Phoenix: From Method to Meaning in War and Peace (Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1998), 48
...
Natasha’s thoughts, as often
happens, coincide with her brother’s as she also thinks: “What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!”
...
Again this is a strange thought for a young girl who is soon to be married to a charming
Prince
...
Tolstoy warns that these are
the thoughts that occur in “moist velvety darkness”50 and that like velvet, we are inclined to caress them,
but the danger is that our hand may sink too deep
...

Another case of ambiguous familial interaction is found in the relationship between the old
Prince Bolkonski and his daughter Maria
...

The allegation here is that Prince Bolkonski feels that his love for Maria is something that deserves
punishment, and is therefore wrong on some level
...
As Otto Rank explains in his examination of incest in
literature,


48 Leo

Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 44%
...

50 Ibid
...


52 Ibid, 46
...




12

…the tendency for repression
...
54

While the old Prince Bolkonski is certainly a violent man, subject to sporadic fits of rage, which may be
ignited and directed towards anything and anyone, he is adamantly at his most wrathful and unforgiving
when he is with Princess Maria
...
could think only of how to get away
quickly to her own room
...
Not only
does he prevent her from leaving the house to enter society, he also humiliates her in front of potential
suitors, discouraging their interest
...



54 Otto Rank, The Incest Theme In Literature and Legend: Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary
Creation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 301
...

56 Ibid
...




13

Later on in the novel Prince Bolkonski takes to tormenting his daughter by showing preference and
affection for Mademoiselle Bourienne
...
58

This suggests that, ultimately, his perception of his daughter’s role in his life is somewhat unclear
...
temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of how things
would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life would be ordered
...

Boot suggests that Tolstoy makes use of Pierre Bezhukov, whom he calls “Tolstoy’s alter ego”60
in the novel, as a means to “exorcise his own demons”, many of which are of a “sexual variety”61
...
Where Pierre battles with Tolstoy’s weakness for
adultery and whoring, Andrei carries the weight of Tolstoy’s idyllic, asexual aspirations and his search


58 Leo

Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 46%
...

60 Alexander
61 Ibid
...


14

for God
...

War and Peace itself may then be interpreted as a work of psychological catharsis where,
individual narratives serve to explore different aspects of what Tolstoy considered to be a most
devouring yet irresistible life-force
...
Carnality and sexual desire for their own sake must be understood
as destructive and dehumanizing, as when these lie outside of the ordained union of Christian marriage,
they cease to hold a Christian purpose and therefore cease to be connected to God
...







Marika Denise Wilkinson
Word Count: 4315




















62 Alexander
63 Ibid, 126
...


15



Bibliography
Boot, Alexander
...
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
...
Christianity: The Complete Guide
...

Clay, George R
...
Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1998
...
"The Tolstoy Connection in Bakhtin
...
1 (January
1985): 60-80
...
JSTOR
...
" In Book of Common Prayer
...

Heldt, Barbara
...
Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1987
...
From Achilles to Christ: The Myth of the Hero in Tolstoy's War and Peace
...

Jepsen, Laura
...
4
(November 1969): 5-7
...
JSTOR
...
Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in "War and Peace" Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1987
...
The Incest Theme In Literature and Legend: Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary
Creation
...

Tolstoy, Leo
...
Cambridge World Classics
...

Weir, Justin
...
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011

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