Existentialist Interpretation of Themes in Tolstoyan

Literature

Submitted By:

Suyash Saxena

MA Philosophy,

Centre for Philosophy,

JNU

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1. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to give an existentialist reading to certain themes in Tolstoyan

literature. For this purpose three themes have been taken up for discussion: Death, Desires

and Faith and Morality. Each of those three themes has been dealt with in three different

segments in this essay.

In each of the three segments an attempt is made at interpreting that particular theme as

situated in the works of Tolstoy in the light of Existentialist philosophy. In the first segment

that deals with Death, the focus is mainly on the interpretation of Tolstoy’s ideas on Death in

the light of Heidegger’s perspective on death. Ideas taken up for consideration in this

segment are ‘authenticity’, ‘human finitude’ and ‘death of the own-most self’ as developed by

Heidegger and dealt with in works of Tolstoy like The Death of Ivan Illytch, War and Peace

and Anna Karenina. The discussion on death which begins and engages with the questions on

meaning of life gets intertwined with the role of desires in providing a meaning to life. This

leads to the second segment—a discussion on Desires. In the second segment, the focus is

mainly on Camus’ idea of absurdity and the endeavour is interalia, to interpret the suicide of

Anna Karenina in the light of Camus’ idea of absurdity. This discussion leads to questions

such as “Who finally emerges as the moral hero of Anna Karenina?” and “If Tolstoy can be

compared with Camus can he be categorised as an absurdist like Camus or he sides more with

the existentialists like Kierkegaard and Shestov?” These questions are dealt with in the third

segment of the essay on Faith and Morality. This segment concludes that though Tolstoy

follows closely with Camus’ idea of absurdity, he does not follow him till the very end to

draw identical conclusions as those of Camus. He diverges from Camus at a critical juncture

and relates more with existentialist like Kierkegaard.

All these three discussions, though have an independence of their own, are inter-related such

that one discussion leads to the other. The endeavour is to bring out a glimpse of the

Tolstoyan way of life in its totality through these discussions on Death, Desires and Faith and

Morality.

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2. Death

“Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid

of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to

be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my real self, all myself. I’m dying now...”

-Tolstoy in Anna Karenina1

A constant theme that runs through all major works of Tolstoy has been well articulated in a

question that Tolstoy raises in his Confession. “Is there any meaning in my life that the

inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”2 This sustained and constant philosophical

search for the ‘True’ meaning of life has been the underlying theme in all his major works.

Tolstoy once wrote that “The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul,

whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful,

is Truth.” The point to ponder is that the word Truth has been mentioned with a capital ‘T’

indicating the ultimate nature of that Truth; that the aim of Tolstoy’s philosophical

endeavours through his literature is to reach out to the ultimate meaning of life. It is in this

reference that it was said at the start of this discussion that ‘underlying philosophical theme

of Tolstoy’s works was the search for the True meaning of life,’ wherein the word ‘True’ was

spelled with a capital ‘T’ to indicate the special meaning that Tolstoy has invested in the

word.

The idea of death plays an all important part in this philosophical search of Tolstoy. As a

philosophical investigation of Tolstoy’s works shall reveal, his search for True meaning of

life is inevitably related to his idea of death. This relation can be closely articulated in a

single sentence by Mitch Albolm, an author of a recent novel Tuesdays with Morrie who

comes very close to Tolstoyan philosophy when he remarks “The truth is, once you learn how

to die, you learn how to live.” The answer that Tolstoy appears to be reaching towards to the

question ‘Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not

destroy?’ which Tolstoy is trying to reach out to in all his major works is that there is no such

meaning to life that death destroys, rather it is only the death that creates the meaning of life.

1 Lines are taken from Part III of the novel. Anna says those line to Karenin while Vronsky is sitting beside her

and lamenting her looming death (though, as it turns out, death eludes her and she recovers) 2 Tolstoy, Confession

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Death is not a symbol of destruction but a token of creation. Death is not a dead end but it is

the root of possibilities.

An encounter with death acquaints oneself to the most authentic meaning of one’s life. Dying

is one thing that the other cannot do for oneself. Dying is the most personal moment—when

the individual is brought face to face with his individual self—his most authentic self. Death

as a cause of authenticity in life is the idea that brings Tolstoy close to the Existentialist

realm. We shall investigate this relationship between authenticity and death and hence

between Tolstoyan philosophy and Existentialism. However, prior to that attempt to

understand how Tolstoy uses death to reveal his philosophy of life in his novels by making

reference to the particular incidences wherein closeness to death made his characters

understand the meaning of their lives. In short, we shall endeavour to understand the role of

death in Tolstoy’s literary works.

The best starting point for that endeavour would be the work that Tolstoy wrote almost ten

years after writing Anna Karenina—a period that Tolstoy described as a ‘dark tunnel’ of ‘a

spiritual crisis.’ His novella The Death of Ivan Illych was the end of that tunnel. The central

theme of the novella was to philosophise death with an attempt to offer an answer to the

question that has always philosophically tormented Tolstoy and the one we stated at the

outset of this discussion: “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting

me does not destroy?”3

The novella revolves around a man- Ivan Illych who sustains some injury which, as it later

turns out, is life threatening. Faced with death Ivan is forced to ask philosophical questions

on his the way he led his life and the nature of his death. “Can it be that I have not lived as

one ought?”4 Imminent moment of death therefore serves as an opportunity that illuminates

the before Ivan the ‘Truest’ meaning of life. The meaning of life according to Tolstoy lay in

‘Love’ (again which must be spelled with a capital ‘Love’ to emphasise its universal nature.)

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all

else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”5 One hour before his death Ivan he

has a moment of clarity in which he realises that he had not been living his life well because

his life has been centred all around himself. Now he feels pity for the people he is leaving

behind and an unconditional love for his wife and daughter whom he had hated in the past

3 Ibid

4 Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych

5 Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book IV, Chapter IX

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few months. His lack of faith and even contempt for virtues of love had been expressed only

a few days before death when he said, “But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to

say that he loves (...) Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of

discovery that someone is in love! (...) It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly

utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive

others.”6 It was the moment of death that was the moment of philosophical and spiritual

awakening when he realised the futility of a self-centred life without a genuine universal

‘Love’ for others.

Ivan Illych is a common ordinary man. Tolstoy describes him as: “Ivan Illych's life had been

most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”7 It must be noted here that such a

characterisation is a stark departure from the grandiose characters created by Tolstoy in War

and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy’s portrayal of an ordinary and common man as the

central character of his story is symbolic of the fact that Ivan’s philosophising of life and

death as a result of anxiety as well fear of death is something that affects everyone, each

individual, every ordinary person. Each one of us knows that one is going to die, but no one

believes it. “The example of a syllogism that he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic: Caius is a

man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had throughout his whole life seemed to him

right only in relation to Caius, but not to him at all.”8 It is only when one is confronted with

one’s own death that one gets acquainted with one’s True and authentic self. One’s own death

is the realisation of one’s own finitude, temporality, limits and facticity.

This interpretation can be directly correlated to Heidegger’s perspective on death which has

been elaborated in Being and time within a specific chapter on death. Walter Kauffmann, the

celebrated Existentialist scholar in his essay Existentialism and Death wrote “Heidegger on

death is for the most part an unacknowledged commentary on The Death of Ivan Ilyitch.”9

Heidegger has dealt with various issues pertaining to death in order to elaborate the Being of

the Dasein in Time i.e. to highlight the essential element of temporality in Being. The

awareness of this temporality or finitude in time, argues Heidegger, is a necessity for an

authentic existence of the self. And coming to terms with one’s own death is central to the

understanding and awareness of one’s finitude. The term that Heidegger uses to refer to this

6 Ibid

7 Ibid

8 Ibid

9 Walter Kauffmann, Existentialism and Death

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awareness of one’s own death is ‘being-towards-death’ and he qualifies the term by saying

that as soon as the Dasein comes into Being “he is already old enough to die;”10

that is to say

that being-towards-death or the awareness of one’s own death is central to the idea of Being

of the Dasein. Therefore, the awareness of one’s own death (‘being-towards-death’) is what

gives fullest meaning to one’s life (‘Being’.) In the same argument Heidegger refers to those

who are ‘coward’ enough to lack the fullest awareness of their individual death as ‘they-self’

or inauthentic beings. The they-self is driven by the ‘crowd’ rather than by their own

individual, authentic free choices. The idea of authenticity is central not only to Heidegger’s

philosophy but also to the entire Existentialist movement. Through Heidegger’s arguments

this central idea of Existentialism can be seen to be squarely dependent on Dasein’s being in

time which in turn is dependent on being-towards-death or a direct awareness of one’s own

death. Being of they-self is inauthentic because it suffers a “coward fear” of its own death

and hence shies away from its direct confrontation.

The essential aspect to note in this argument is that Heidegger is concerned not with the

awareness of death in general. He is specifically concerned with ‘my death’ or the death of

own-self. We are regularly acquainted with the death of others but that does not lead to

authenticity in life. Authenticity arises only when one is confronted with one’s “ownmost”

death. Heidegger writes, “One of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has

nothing to do with us."11

It is here Heidegger and Tolstoy come very close to each other and

their philosophies seem to overlap. Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Illych writes, “the very fact

of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling

of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”12

This overlap of Tolstoy’s philosophy of death with that of Heidegger leads to another aspect

of conformity: in defining the attitude towards death. Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan

Illych distinguishes between two attitudes towards death: fear of death and an awareness of

own-self’s death. This distinction is made by Heidegger and other Existentialists like

Kierkegaard as well. Heidegger rejects the fear of death as a characteristic of inauthentic

being of they-self. He favours a positive anxiety which arises from the awareness of human

finitude and which is a necessity for possibility and freedom. Fear is always directed at

particular object, i.e. fear is always of something. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a state of

10

Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 289 11

Heidegger, Being and Time p.297 12

Tolstoy, Death of Ivan Illych

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mind and does not need an object for its sustenance. Whereas fear attaches the individual to

an object, anxiety frees him of those attachments and brings to him freedom and possibility.

This distinction between fear and anxiety is very well articulated by Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard connects the state of anxiety to Nothingness. He writes, “What effect does

Nothing produce? It begets anxiety.. .. One almost never sees the concept of anxiety dealt

with in psychology, and I must therefore call attention to the fact that it is different from fear

and similar concepts which refer to something definite, whereas anxiety is the reality of

freedom as possibility anterior to possibility.”13

The crux of the argument is that existential

anxiety or angst arises from the condition of freedom and possibilities. One could imagine

oneself standing on the cliff where one has absolute freedom to choose to fall or not to fall.

There is nothing that would prevent if one chooses to fall. This freedom to actualise any

possibility and thus the individual being squarely and solely responsible for his choices and

destiny is what creates the state of anxiety. “Man is condemned to be free” says Sartre.

Anxiety is not fear of falling off the cliff but it is the state of mind that anything is possible if

the free individual so chooses. Therefore, anxiety as an awareness of freedom is a

constructive psyche and not a destructive one which is fear.

Tolstoy makes the same distinction. Ivan feared his death till the time he came face to face

with it. Fear was inauthenticity or shying away from one’s own Being. But an awareness of

one’s death leads to authenticity in one’s life and hence gives meaning to one’s life. This

authenticity displaces fear and gives the individual freedom to make subjective choices by

removing the object-directedness of fear. This is what happens to Ivan at the precise hour of

his death. Tolstoy in describing the fear of death that torments Ivan writes, “Morning or

night, Friday or Sunday, made no difference, everything was the same: the gnawing,

excruciating, incessant pain; that awareness of life irrevocably passing but not yet gone; that

dreadful, loathsome death, the only reality, relentlessly closing in on him; and that same

endless lie. What did days, weeks, or hours matter?”14

When the hour of death approaches,

Ivan on self reflection rejects this fear in the pursuance of freedom and Love. Tolstoy writes,

“He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it."Where is it? What

death?" There was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light.”15

13

Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety 14

Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illych 15

Ibid

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In the end Ivan heard someone say, “He is gone.” But he said to himself “Death is finished. It

is no more” and took his last breath.”16

Tolstoy, therefore, sees death as something that gives meaning to one’s life. The possibility of

death is therefore directly linked to the Truth that Tolstoy is looking for and which always is

‘the hero of his tale.’ The Truth, for Tolstoy, is none but Love (capital ‘L’ indicate its

universal and ultimate nature) and the encounter with one’s “ownmost” death is often the

moment when the Truth is revealed. Let us elucidate this point further by making reference to

some other works of Tolstoy.

Numerous instances can be quoted from War and Peace wherein characters undergo

psychological transformation or spiritual and philosophical awakening only when they come

face to face with their deaths in a war. Each and every character of the novel discovers a new

meaning to his/her life after war brought them close to their death; be it Andrei Bolkonsky

who directly fought the war on the battlefield, or Pierre who was in a way caught in the war;

or the Rostov family who were displaced from their house and estate in Moscow. Let us

focus a bit on one character who encountered death closely twice- in Battle of Austerlitz and

in Borodino which changed his life completely: Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Andrei, one day

before the Battle of Austerlitz and says to himself, “Death, wounds, the loss of family- I fear

nothing. And precious and dear as many persons are to me- father, sister, wife- those dearest

to me- yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all at once for a moment of

glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I don’t know and never shall know, for the

love of these men here.”17

Bolkonsky was an ambitious man the meaning of life for him was

the achievement of desires and goals, of glory and honour. The next day as the battle begins,

Bolkonsky fights valiantly but is almost mortally wounded. He is rescued by Napoleon

himself who was inspired by his extraordinary gallantry. However, for the time he laid

wounded on the ground, he gazed at the lofty skies and those lofty skies alongside imminent

death become the cause of spiritual and philosophical awakening. He says to himself “how

differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that

lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all

falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not

exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!...’18

The ‘peace’ that Bolkonsky

16

Ibid 17

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter XII 18

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter XVII

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found not a physical peace after the end of the battle but a mental peace as the war within him

subsides and he finds true meaning of his life beyond ‘vanities’ and ‘falsehoods.’ Prof.

Andrew D. Kaufman, a scholar of Tolstoyan literature has argued that the ‘War’ in War and

Peace refers to a mental war within ourselves that rages due to inability to understand deeper

meanings of life, inauthenticity and all that Bolkonsky has called “vanity” and peace is peace

from that mental war that results from comprehending the True meaning of one’s life.

The second battle that Bolkonsky fights—The Battle of Borodino is again very crucial as it

lends him another opportunity to reach closer to the Truth of life. Bolkonsky went into the

war as a bitter and dejected man whose fiancé Natasha Rostova had attempted to elope with

Anatole Kuragin- handsome and amoral pleasure seeker who was also in the Russian army

alongside Bolkonsky. He was determined never to forgive Natasha who violated his trust and

to take his revenge on Kuragin. His sister Masha tries to persuade Bolkonsky to forgive both

for his own peace but Bolkonsky refuses to give in to those “womanly qualities.” In the

Battle of Borodino, Bolkonsky sustains mortal injuries and is being operated upon by crude

surgical equipments in a make-shift army camp. As he groans in pain he realises that next to

his stretcher lies Kuragin who himself is breathing his last. Both men shake hands as a

gesture forgiveness, love and departure. Bolkonsky even forgives Natasha and expresses a

desire to see her. Finally he dies while being take care of by her. His final words on his lips

were ‘One must Love, One must Live, One must forgive, One must Believe.’

Finally we must conclude this discussion on death by talking about the passage from Anna

Karenina that was quoted at the very beginning. “Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the

same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried

to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my

real self, all myself. I’m dying now...” Anna said those lines to her husband Karenin while

she felt she was about to die in giving birth to Vronsky’s baby girl Annie. Vronsky is sitting

next to her with his face buried in his hands while Karenin enters. Anna at that moment of

closeness with her death realises the futility and meaninglessness of all the unchaste desires

and urges within which she has endeavoured to find a meaning of her life. But an encounter

with death debunks all the falsehood and inauthenticity and exposes Anna to the Truth of life,

which for Tolstoy is universal Love. In that extraordinary moment, she makes an

extraordinary gesture- she asks her lover- Vrosnky to uncover his face and hold her

husband’s hands and ask for forgiveness. She says Karnin was a saint and would forgive both

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of them. Karenin who had developed some bitterness against Anna at that moment of Anna’s

imminent death, at once forgives both Vronsky and Anna.

“Uncover your face—look at him! He’s a saint,’ she said. ‘Oh! uncover your face, do uncover

it!’ she said angrily. ‘Alexey Alexandrovitch (Anna’s husband), do uncover his face! I want

to see him.’ Alexey Alexandrovitch took Vronsky’s hands and drew them away from his

face, which was awful with the expression of agony and shame upon it. ‘Give him your hand.

Forgive him.”19

One’s own death is the most personal experience in one’s life. The moment of death is the

moment of greatest authenticity when the individual removes all falsehoods and garbs and

discovers his innermost and authentic self. It is the moment of death which gives the

individual an opportunity to understand the meaning of life. It is the temporal finitude caused

by death that gives a meaning to human life.

Throughout our lives we try to grapple with the meaning of our existence and make constant

endeavour to capture it with reason and understand it within a rational framework. Our goals,

ambitions and desires are all directed towards that attempt to rationally understand life. How

far is that successful or even meaningful? We shall investigate it in the next discussion on

Desires.

19

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part IV Chapter 17

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3. Desires

“Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired

what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.”

-Tolstoy in Anna Karenina

We had started our previous discussion on Death with an observation that the central theme

that runs through all of Tolstoyan literature is an endeavour to search for the True meaning of

life, and an answer to the question that Tolstoy asks in Confession “Is there any meaning in

my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”20

This philosophical lure to

search for the True meaning of life brings Tolstoy to investigate and philosophise the role of

Desires in human life. The role of desires is central to the meaning, or even the definition of

life. George Bernard Shaw had once said, “As long as I have a want, (desire) I have a reason

for living. Satisfaction is death.”21

Tolstoy sets out to philosophically examine this pivotal

role of desires in giving meaning to our lives.

With reference to Anna Karenina Logan Spies, in his book Tolstoy and Chekhov writes,

“Tolstoy’s theme is always the desire of people to be better than they are, and their failure or

partial success.”22

This failure of Tolstoy’s characters to make their desires reach fruition or

the failure of desires to culminate into happiness is not a mere accident but an intended

purpose of the great writer and philosopher. The philosophical point that Tolstoy wants to

highlight is that humans inevitably commit the mistake of attempting to understand the

meaning and purpose of life in terms of their desires and therefore inevitably confuse

achievement of desires with realisation of happiness. Tolstoy debunks the idea that mere

achievement or accomplishment of a desire shall result in happiness. Happiness or True

meaning of life cannot be grasped merely by attempting to realise one’s desires. The entire

novel Anna Karenina is devoted to bring out this philosophical idea.

Vronsky had desired Anna with all his heart. He believed that if he could be united with Anna

he will have achieved all the happiness he would ever want. When Vronsky met Anna at the

railway station, the conversation between the two brings out the deep feelings that Vronsky

20

Tolstoy, Confession 21

George Bernard Shaw, Overruled (1912) 22

Logan Spies, Tolstoy and Chekhov, Chapter 7- Tolstoy’s Morality in ‘Anna Karenina’

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had developed for Anna. “‘I didn’t know you were going. What are you coming for?’ she

said, letting fall the hand with which she had grasped the door post. And irrepressible delight

and eagerness shone in her face. ‘What am I coming for?’ he repeated, looking straight into

her eyes. ‘You know that I have come to be where you are,’ he said; ‘I can’t help it.’”23

However, as Vronsky is finally able to realise what he had so strongly desired did not find all

happiness that he had expected. Tolstoy writes, “Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the

complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt

that the realisation of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain

of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves

happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and

putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had

known nothing before, and of freedom in his love — and he was content, but not for long. He

was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires — longing.

Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire

and an object.”24

Therefore, despite our attempts to see a meaning in our desires and our actions we are

confronted with despair. It is at this juncture that Tolstoy is coming in proximity with Abert

Camus’ idea of absurdity.

The essential point Camus is making in Myth of Sisyphus (and also in his other works like

Suicide) is that each one of us is driven by a desire for happiness and there is a hope that our

actions towards our desires will bring us happiness. We charter the course of our lives and

actions on the presumption that the world shall reciprocate our rational judgements such as

that the realisation of our desire for say money shall deliver us happiness. However, we are

forced into a state of despair and anguish when we realise that there is a disconnection

between the world and the self and our ‘appetite for clarity’, ‘insistence on familiarity’ and

our desire for happiness are not reciprocated by the external world. “Man stands face to face

with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd

is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the

world.”25

23

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part I Chapter 30 24

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Part II Chapter 8 25

Camus, Myth of Sisyphus

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Let us dwell upon this ‘confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence

of the world’ out of which emanates the idea of the ‘absurd.’ Camus argues that there is an

inherent desire in the human being to look for certainty and rational clarity in the world and

then construct his actions in such a way that one is able to achieve what one desires.

However, this rational certainty, clarity and familiarity, much as it is desired, may not exist in

the world confronting the individual with meaninglessness and absurdity in life as is being

reflected in the passage from War and Peace about Vronsky quoted earlier. There is a

confrontation between what the individual human subject wants to find in the world and what

the world has to offer in its essence. Individual attempts to grasp the world within its power

to reason, but the world has a dominant irrational element, and from there the confrontation

begins. It is in this context that Camus said that ‘man stands face to face with the irrational.’

“He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. But all he gets is an absurd

emanating from the confrontation between his rational desires and the longing for clarity and

the irrational nature of the humanised world.”26

He exemplifies this disconnect or the contradiction and how it leads to disappointments. He

writes, “A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of

a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken

for the end.”27

The unflinching faith that earning money would beget happiness in life is

based on a presumption that there is rational clarity in the world—as if our actions towards

earning money, or for that matter realising any desire, are connected to our achieving

happiness and peace in life through a rational chain of cause and effect. However, that is not

the case because the humanised world cannot be understood through rationality alone. In

order to describe this desire to capture the humanised world within a rational essence Camus

uses the term ‘Nostalgia for Unity’—making an allusion to the belief that the humanised

world is unified through a rational essence. “But with its first move this world cracks and

tumbles: an infinite number of shimmering fragments is offered to the understanding. We

must despair of ever reconstructing the familiar, calm surface which would give us peace of

heart.”28

This summarises the essence of Camus’ argument. We despair for the peace of our

heart that can be achieved only through reconstructing the ‘familiar, calm surface.’

26

Ibid 27

Ibid 28

Ibid

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In light of the above argument views of Camus specifically to the subject of desire can be

articulated in a single line of his: “To will (i.e. to desire or want) is to stir up paradoxes.”29

The spirit in which Camus makes that remark is the same spirit in which Tolstoy writes, (as

has been quoted earlier) “He soon felt that the realisation of his desires gave him no more

than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the

mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires.”30

This theme has been very well brought out in various events and instances in War and Peace.

Let us take into consideration one such instance which we have already made reference to in

the previous discussion: The Battle of Austerlitz. One day before the battle Prince Andrei

Bolkonsky is quoted saying to himself that all that he wants and desires in life is glory and

honour. The same is reflected in the conversation between Andrei and his father Count

Bolkonsky who insisted that the glory of the Bolkonsky family was earned through

bloodshed and sacrifice and he must not hesitate even to lay down his life in military service

and service to the nation in order to maintain the glory and honour of the family. Therefore,

right before the Battle of Austerlitz, Bolkonsky makes to himself the following speech: “I

don’t know what will happen and don’t want to know, and can’t, but if I want this- want

glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it

and want nothing but that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! (...) Death, wounds, the

loss of family- I fear nothing. And precious and dear as many persons are to me- father,

sister, wife- those dearest to me- yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all

at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I don’t know and

never shall know, for the love of these men here.”31

This is precisely what Camus has called the nostalgia of unity. Bolkonsky desires glory and

honour and in order to achieve them he fights the battle. The desire is so intense that even

goes to an extent of defining the fundamental purpose of his life as the achievement of his

desire—“that I want it and want nothing but that and live only for that.” Little did he know

that realisation of his desire neither could lead him to the fundamental meaning of his life nor

could it deliver him to happiness.

Both meaning and happiness he achieved only when he sustained death threatening injuries in

the war and he came face to face with Nothingness, Emptiness and hence Peace. Tolstoy

29

Ibid 30

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Part II Chapter 8 31

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter12

15 | P a g e

writes: “He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the

gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon

had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the

sky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly

across it. ‘How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran,’ thought Prince Andrew- ‘not

as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened

and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty

infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have

found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing,

nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank

God!’”32

Tolstoy, in this passage, has exemplified the statement that Camus had made that ‘to

desire (as Bolkonsky did prior to the Battle of Austerlitz) was to stir up paradoxes.’

Happiness is achieved by rejecting falseness of such desires and the claim that one could

rationally grasp the essence of life and humanised world.

Regarding the rational understanding of human affairs Tolstoy gives specific arguments in

the two Epilogues of War and Peace. Let us consider the following example that was given

by Tolstoy as a part of his elaborate argument. Tolstoy writes:

“A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of bees and declares that

bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and

says it exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from

flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. Another beekeeper who

has studied the life of the hive more closely says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the

young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that

the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this

the purpose of the bee’s existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that

the bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the

ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes

the human mind can discern. The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these

purposes, the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our

32

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book III Chapter XVII

16 | P a g e

comprehension. All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other

manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic characters and nations.”33

Proximity to Camus’ idea of absurdity and meaninglessness is quite evident in this particular

passage from Tolstoy.

A much apparent anticipation of Camus is evident in the entire series of events that led to

Anna’s suicide and most specifically it is made manifest in Anna’s interior monologue that

has been devoted full four chapters prior to her suicide.

Chapter 28 of Part 8 of Anna Karenina gives a vivid description of Anna’s psyche right

before her suicide. The chapter is devoted to the description of the chain of thoughts going

through Anna’s mind through an interior monologue as she passes through the streets in her

carriage to go to the railway station. It was a bright summer day, with a brilliant sunshine

after the rains. The streets as lively as they can ever be. Despite liveliness around her, all that

tormented Anna sees and feels are her cooling love with Vronsky, her jealousy towards the

women she suspected Vronsky was attracted to or even attracted in the past like Kitty, and

pangs for her son Seriozha whom she had abandoned when she left Karenin. It is not possible

to give a detailed description of the situation but a paragraph quoted from that chapter can

give an insight into the Anna’s psyche:

“As she sat in a corner of the comfortable carriage, that hardly swayed on its supple springs,

while the grays trotted swiftly, in the midst of the unceasing rattle of wheels and the changing

impressions in the pure air, Anna ran over the events of the last days, and she saw her

position quite differently from how it had seemed at home. Now the thought of death seemed

no longer so terrible and so clear to her, and death itself no longer seemed so inevitable. Now

he blamed herself for the humiliation to which she had lowered herself. ‘I entreat him to

forgive me. I have given in to him. I have owned myself in fault. What for? Can’t I live

without him?’ And leaving unanswered the question how she was going to live without him,

she fell to reading the signs on the shops. ‘Office and warehouse. Dental surgeon. Yes, I’ll

tell Dolly all about it. She doesn’t like Vronsky. I shall be sick and ashamed, but I’ll tell her.

She loves me, and I’ll follow her advice. I won’t give in to him; I won’t let him train me as he

pleases. Filippov, bun shop. They say they send their dough to Petersburg. The Moscow

water is so good for it. Ah, the springs at Mitishtchen, and the pancakes!’ And she

33

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue I, Chapter IV

17 | P a g e

remembered how, long, long ago, when she was a girl of seventeen, she had gone with her

aunt to Troitsa. ‘Riding, too. Was that really me, with red hands? How much that seemed to

me then splendid and out of reach has become worthless, while what I had then has gone out

of my reach forever! Could I ever have believed then that I could come to such humiliation?

How conceited and self-satisfied he will be when he gets my note! But I will show him....

How horrid that paint smells!”34

It is quite evident that Anna has reached the breaking point—a juncture where she has come

face to face with the futility and meaninglessness of all that she had desired. “Aren’t we all

flung into the world only to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and each other;”35

asks Anna. Further she says, “I’m not jealous, but I’m unsatisfied. But...’ she opened her lips,

and shifted her place in the carriage in the excitement, aroused by the thought that suddenly

struck her. ‘If I could be anything but a mistress, passionately caring for nothing but his

caresses; but I can’t and I don’t care to be anything else. And by that desire I rouse aversion

in him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different.”36

Camus would argue that Anna has confronted the absurd. Anna is being tormented by that

confrontation. Camus would then assert that the individual has to make a choice- whether to

live with that confrontation—that awareness of the absurd or to take a leap to escape the

absurd. From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, “the most harrowing

of all.” “But whether or not one can live with one’s passions, whether or not one can accept

their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt—that is the whole question.”37

One way and the easiest way to escape the torment of this most ‘harrowing passion’ is to

commit suicide. Anna chooses this easiest way. “‘What can I want? All I can want is that you

should not desert me, as you think of doing,’ she said, understanding all he had not uttered.

‘But that I don’t want; that’s secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over.’”38

This is how Anna ends her life. However, the question we are left with in the end is ‘Was

committing suicide the only course available to Anna?’ As from the plot one can say that the

only available course for Anna was to commit suicide as the plot has been so structured that

since the very beginning Anna’s character is gradually matured towards the suicide.

34

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VII Chapter 28 35

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VII Chapter 30 36

Ibid 37

Camus, Myth of Sisyphus 38

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VII Chapter 24

18 | P a g e

However, from a philosophical perspective and leaving the plot aside for a while, the answer

might be a bit different. We shall investigate that in the next discussion on ‘Faith and

Morality.’

19 | P a g e

4. Faith and Morality

“What we must live for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm, incontestable,

clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by the reason—it is outside it, and

has no causes and can have no effects.

‘If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness

either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.

‘And yet I know it, and we all know it.

‘What could be a greater miracle than that?”

-Tolstoy, Anna Karenina39

We concluded the previous discussion on Desires with a question: ‘Is committing suicide the

only course available to a person in Anna’s situation?’ Let us begin this discussion by

addressing that question.

For Camus the confrontation with absurdity is the moment of making a free choice: whether

to live with the absurd or to escape it by devising some means. Camus talks of three

perspectives of looking at the ‘humanised world’: the rationalists’, existentialists’ and the

absurdists’. Rationalist perspective is a broad generic category which included within its

rubrics all thinkers who endeavoured to explain the humanised world within a rational

framework on the presumption that world is universally rational. Of critical importance here

is Camus’ differentiation between existentialists and the absurdists. He argues that

existentialists like the absurdists, are concerned with the absurd and are aware of it. But

unlike the absurdists they are unwilling to confront and live with the absurd, rather they take

‘a leap of faith’ to escape the absurd. In the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus makes a specific

reference to Jaspers, Shestov, Dostoevsky Kierkegaard and Husserl and argues that after

being acquainted with the absurd they have all taken a ‘leap’ to escape the absurd.

Kierkegaard and Shestov have evoked the idea of god and religion to escape the absurd while

Husserl has resorted to exaltation of rationalism to escape the absurd. Camus compares this to

39

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part VIII Chapter 12

20 | P a g e

‘suicide.’ Suicide is a way to escape the absurd by instant termination of life. Taking a leap of

faith is therefore nothing more than a ‘philosophical suicide.’

Camus, as an absurdist, rejects suicide and the leap of faith and argues that once one is

confronted with the absurd one must live the absurd rather than escape it. Absurd, defined as

“lucid reasoning noting its limits,”40

must be acknowledged and false hope and desires be

rejected. This would require a constant revolt and constant confrontation.

In the light of above discussion the question we must address is ‘Where can Tolstoy be

located?’ In which of the three categories (Rationalist, Existentialist and Absurdist) can

Tolstoy be placed? Whether Tolstoy leans more towards the existentialists like Kierkegaard

who take a leap of faith to escape the absurd, or Tolstoy sides more with Camus in asserting

that life is absurd and we must live with it. As we investigate the question we shall do so

within a broad paradigm of examining Tolstoy’s perspective on Faith and Morality.

The novel Anna Karenina could have very well ended with the death of Anna. The name of

the novel is Anna Karenina and therefore, intuitively one might say that with the end of Anna

the novel must also end. However, Tolstoy does not end the novel with the death of Anna. He

devotes an entire part (Part 8) after the death of Anna in describing the life of his characters

after Anna’s death and specifically that of Levin. Tolstoy has an intended purpose or rather

intended purposes. The pivotal purpose of Tolstoy extending the novel beyond the death of

Anna was show that the end of Anna was not the morally desired end. Tolstoy conveys this

by providing a contrast between Anna and Levin throughout the novel and especially at the

end. Both Anna and Levin are tormented by questions of meaning and purpose of life. Both

are faced with the absurd. Anna chooses to escape the absurd by committing suicide. Levin,

on the other hand, resorts to study of philosophy and science to understand the meaning of

life in Part 8. However, he finds meaning and “peace” not in science, philosophy and

reasoning but in faith. And morality or the judgement of good, for Tolstoy, is directly

connected with this idea of faith.

A philosophical reading of Levin’s character, especially in Part 8 shall thus show that Tolstoy

by exalting faith, Tolstoy is differing from Camus and drawing closer to Kierkegaard.

Tolstoy and Camus seem to have shown connectedness in reaching the notion of absurd (as

discussed previously) but then they part ways in their dealing of the absurd. While Camus

40

Camus, Myth of Sisyphus. He writes, “Absurd is lucid reasoning noting its limits.”

21 | P a g e

rejects leap of faith as a philosophical suicide, Tolstoy embraces faith not only to deal with

the confrontation with the absurd but also to give mooring to his idea of good and moral.

In the second epilogue of War and Peace Tolstoy tries to explain the role of faith in the

“mysterious forces that move the humanity.” He is not giving any explanation as to what

causes the movement in human life because he calls it “mysterious.” However, he is certain

that those forces “whose laws of motion we do not know41

” cannot be understood by reason

or rationality and that the element of faith plays an important role in that movement. He gives

the following example.

“A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: ‘What moves it?’ A peasant says the devil moves

it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its wheels go round. A third asserts that

the cause of its movement lies in the smoke which the wind carries away. The peasant is

irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To refute him someone would have to

prove to him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is

not the devil but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the

contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who says that the

movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for having once begun to analyze he

ought to go on and explain further why the wheels go round; and till he has reached the

ultimate cause of the movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he

has no right to stop in his search for the cause.”42

The movement of the locomotive in this quoted extract is simply symbolic. The chief concern

of Tolstoy is the movement of life of men and that of humanity. However, as regards to his

chief concern, there are two points that one could draw from this example of Tolstoy. First,

Tolstoy is rejecting reason as a tool to explain the movement of the locomotive. Second, and

more importantly, he is exalting the faith of the peasant that the devil moves it. In doing so,

the peasant has given both—complete and irrefutable explanation of the movement of the

locomotive. The same is true for the movement in the lives of men and humanity wherein

faith plays an important role in that movement. He rejects the method of History which

attempts to understand human life and humanity through reason and has no space for faith as

a driving force in the movement of humanity. In fact Tolstoy sees a correlation of faith with

the very possibility of life. Andrei Bolkonsky expresses Tolstoy’s opinion: “Pierre was right

41

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue 1 Chapter 1 42

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue 2 Chapter III

22 | P a g e

when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I

now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be

happy.”43

When Andrei Bolkonsky who was a man who had rejected faith in God and belief

of his sister Masha earlier, died after getting mortally wounded in the Battle of Brordino the

only thing kept saying was; ‘One must Love, One must Live, One must believe.” Regarding

reason and rationality Tolstoy writes, “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason,

then all possibility of life is destroyed.”44

Let us now return to the discussion on the character of Levin and his speech that we quoted at

the start of this discussion. Levin, after having not been able to understand the underlying

meaning and purpose of life and resolve the internal conflict that tormented him despite his

scholarly studies of science and philosophy, is seen in Part 8 having a conversation with the

peasants. The seemingly trivial conversation proved to be an awakening moment:

“ ‘Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else,

like Mituh, he only thinks of filling his belly, but Fokanitch is a righteous man. He lives for

his soul. He does not forget God.’ ‘How thinks of God? How does he live for his soul?’ Levin

almost shouted. ‘Why, to be sure, in truth, in God’s way. Folks are different. Take you now,

you wouldn’t wrong a man...”45

Morality and faith in God, are evidently seen to have been connected here by Tolstoy. An

insight of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is also made evident when a little later in the next

chapter, Tolstoy endeavours to show how Levin’s rediscovery of his faith led him to freedom

and emancipation.

“He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested this new thing, not yet

knowing what it was. (...)

‘Fyodor says that Kirillov lives for his belly. That’s comprehensible and rational. All of us as

rational beings can’t do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a sudden the same

Fyodor says that one mustn’t live for one’s belly, but must live for truth, for God, and at a

hint I understand him!’ (...)

43

Tolstoy, War and Peace (a speech by Andrei Bolkonsky) 44

Tolstoy, War and Peace, Epilogue 1 Chapter 1 45

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 8 Chapter 11

23 | P a g e

‘What is it makes me glad? What have I discovered? ‘I have discovered nothing. I have only

found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives

me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master.”46

Having discovered his ‘Master’ Levin is ‘set free.’ This connection between faith and

freedom directly relates to Kierkegaard’s idea of the ‘leap of faith’ that delivers the individual

to the last stage of the dialectic which is the religious stage giving him the maximum freedom

and possibility.

The character of Levin is of critical importance. Tolstoy creates certain dominant characters

in his novels through whom he expresses his philosophy. In War and Peace it was Pierre

through whom he states his opinions and ideas. Character of Levin in Anna Karenina can be

seen as Pierre’s counterpart. He exists to provide a contrast to Anna and the meaning to the

opening line of the novel: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in

its own way.” While Anna symbolised the latter half of the sentence, Levin was the former

half.

46

Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 8 Chapter 12

24 | P a g e

5. Concluding Remarks

We had opened this essay by making a reference to the question that Tolstoy raises in

Confessions “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not

destroy?” As we conclude our discussions on Death, Desires and Faith and Morality let us

revisit the question with which we began and ask ‘Has Tolstoy discovered the meaning of

life?’ ‘Has he discovered the ‘Truth’ that Tolstoy has been looking for in all his works?’

Whether or not Tolstoy has been able to arrive at any kind of finality is subject to

interpretations and different commentators on Tolstoy have different perspectives. However,

in the light of this essay, one could conclude that Tolstoy’s perspectives and views have

shown some level of evolution over time but the fundamental tenets that constitute the core of

the Tolstoyan way of life have remained constant. This essay has highlighted those

fundamental tenets that make the core of Tolstoyan way of life and has interpreted them in

the light of Existentialist philosophy. However, in conclusion to the essay let us dwell upon

these fundamental tenets discussed in the essay which have remained stable amidst slight and

apparent evolution of Tolstoy’s views. For this purpose let us consider the discussion on

death.

It has been argued by certain commentators that Tolstoy’s views on death as reflected in War

and Peace and Anna Karenina underwent an evolution by the time he wrote The Death of

Ivan Illytch which was after a time gap of about ten years. In Anna Karenina, it may be

argued, the pivot of the plot was on Anna’s suicide whereas in The Death of Ivan Illytch

Ivan’s death is a very peaceful one not even remotely related to the violent suicide of Anna.

Though there is some merit in the argument, however, in view of the discussions in this essay

one may argue that there is no fundamental change in Tolstoy’s perspective if one considers

Levin as the moral hero of Anna Karenina. It is the character of Levin and not that of Anna

that has been given the prominent and pivotal role of bringing out Tolstoy’s own perspectives

as is the character of Pierre in War and Peace. It is made quite evident in the essay that the

same final salvation is reached by all of Tolstoy’s prominent characters: Pierre, Andrei

Bolkonsky (War and Peace), Levin (Anna Karenina) and Ivan (The Death of Ivan Illytch).

There might be some outward dissimilarities as dictated by the plot of each of the novels but

the core tenets that constitute the way of life that Tolstoy endeavours to bring out and

25 | P a g e

philosophise remain constant. Those fundamental tenets have been picked up in this essay

and interpreted in the light of existentialist philosophy.

Through this existentialist interpretation of the Tolstoyan way of life that this essay has

endeavoured to develop, one could also conclude that Tolstoy shows patterns of similarity

with several existentialist philosophers like Heidegger, Camus and Kierkegaard but at the

same time Tolstoy has developed an entirely independent and autonomous philosophy of his

own. He may relate to Heidegger, Camus and Kierkegaard but as the essay highlights Tolstoy

enjoys an originality of his own. Therefore this essay seeks to conclude that Tolstoy has

developed his own original version of existentialism reflections of which are found in totality

of the Tolstoyan way of life as depicted in various of his works discussed in the essay.

26 | P a g e

Select Bibliography

I. Works of Tolstoy referred to in the essay:

1. Anna Karenina, Penguin Classics Edition

2. War and Peace, Wordsworth Classics Edition

3. The Death of Ivan Illytch, Electronic Classics Series

4. A Confessions, Merchant Books Publication

II. Books:

1. Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, Justin O’ Brein translation, 1955

2. Being in Time by Heidegger, Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint

edition (22 July 2008)

3. Understanding Tolstoy by Andrew D. Kauffmann, The Ohio University Press

4. Tolstoy and Chekhov by Logan Spiers, Cambridge University Press, 1971

5. Russian Literature and Ideology: Herzen, Dostoevsky, Leontiev, Tolstoy,

Fadeyev by Nicholas RzhevskyUniversity of Illinios Press

6. Religion from Tolstoy to Camus by Walter Kauffman digitized edition

(degitized by internet archives)

III. Essays, Commentaries and Papers

1. Life and Death: Spiritual Philosophy in Anna Karenina by Jillian Avalon,

2. Anna Karenina Revisited by Nanthiel Goodman, Source: Jstor

3. Scapegoating, Double-Plotting, and the Justice of Anna Karenina by

Catherine Brown Source, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 106, No. 1

(January 2011)

4. Absurdity, Incongruity and Laughter by Bob Plant, Philosophy,Vol. 84, No.

327 (Jan., 2009)

5. Existentialism and Death by Walter Kaufmann, Chicago Review,Vol. 13, No.

2 (Summer, 1959)

6. Introduction: The “Late” Tolstoi by Jeff Love, Slavic Review, Vol. 70, No. 4

(WINTER 2011)

27 | P a g e

7. Psychology, Rhetoric and Morality in Anna Karenina: At the Bottom of Whose

Heart? by C. J. G. Turner Source: The Slavic and East European Journal,Vol.

39, No. 2 (Summer, 1995)

IV. Lectures

1. Tolstoy’s Ivan Died so that We can Live by Andrew D. Kauffman at Regent

University 2009

2. Dying Alone, the Badness of Death by Prof. Kagan, Yale University Open

Lecture Series, Lecture 16