A clear example of the way Tolstoy endows situations and characters with dual significance is our introduction to the Bolkonsky family in its country seat. The old prince, like the tsar himself, dominates and leaves his autocratic mark upon each member of his household. The situation we meet at Bleak Hills is a working model of old Russia.
By the same token, Andrey and Marya exemplify the special types of Russian personalities acculturated under the tsars. Marya's religious fervor enables her to accept and forgive the repression under which she lives, and Andrey's heightened understanding of the ravages this repression wreaks in the soul of the man in power — his father, in this case — causes him to develop his intellectual powers as a weapon to blunt the anguish of his observations. In a later situation, where Nikolay argues with Pierre about politics, Tolstoy again uses his personal characters for a similar sociological observation: Nikolay represents the obedient subject, while Pierre tries with reason and emotions to define individuality.
Natasha's career is also invested with dual significance. At the same time that she is a particular adolescent growing into womanhood, her emotional maturation is symbolic of the historic transformation, of Russia itself. Natasha's coming-of-age occurs when her personal values conflict with socially imposed values inimical to her nature, while, at the same time, Russia's great period of change occurs when the nation rises up against the foreign invaders. Both"wars" — the historical one involving the nation and the symbolic one Natasha fights — provide the necessities for self-definition.
In the same way individuals stand for more than themselves, events partake of the same dual quality. The evacuation of Moscow provides a good example of this twofold significance. On a private level, the citizens believe they leave the city for various vague and personal reasons, among these being the preference to appear as cowards rather than live under foreign occupation. On a historical level, this is the"deed that saves Russia," for the French arrive finding no one to conquer; thus Napoleon's dream of glory is robbed of all meaning and his conquest is a futile gesture.
