Tolstoy's heroes have a single aim: they search for a way to live life without its transience and want of purpose. Andrey despairs of finding such a purpose when, in Book IX, he says life is a series"of senseless phenomena following one another without any connection." Pierre, on the other hand, discovers that most human beings live life like soldiers under fire, diverting themselves with cards, women, horses, parties, to avoid thinking about the ultimate problem in life, which is death.
Death, therefore, provides the individual with a definition of life, just as suffering provides an understanding of what man's basic needs are, as Pierre discovers in Book XIII. Understanding the existential opposites of life and death are essential to the growth of a human being. Stated in many ways throughout the novel, these opposite values provide the illumination that defines the main characters. Thus Pierre learns freedom through imprisonment, and Andrey achieves love through hate and a knowledge of life as he lies dying.
Tolstoy exposes these polar values during the moments of crisis his characters face, and each crisis carries with it a measure of personal growth for the protagonist. The crisis provides the"necessity" — that is, the outer structure — within which the individual must grow and extend himself in order to adjust to the new situation. The crisis is the moment at which the individual must retrench his values through self-reflection, or"consciousness," in order to overcome the forces that threaten him. The rest of Tolstoy's themes, including his interest in history, derive from these ultimate unities of life and death.
