Moreover, Dolohov, to cite a minor character, exercises his cruelty against Nikolay during a card game, then against the drummer boy whom he wants shot during the last campaigns. The first instance of vengeance is necessary to explain Dolohov's character, whereas the second is another expression of that cruelty which helps Dolohov win battles.
The structural integrity of War and Peace thus derives from Tolstoy's two-leveled handling of his material through the vehicles of characterization, narrative, and setting. Individual parts of the novel are integrated into the whole through this parallel plot technique which, moreover, allows the author to enrich the significance of particular incidents by repeating them in another context. This duality enables Tolstoy to compare the nature of private experience with historical events, the"inner" and"outer" states of the human condition, unconscious with conscious motives, and, finally, to illustrate the conflict between"free will" and"necessity."
