TOLSTOY’S TREATMENT OF INNER SELVES AND EXTERNAL REALITIES, ACCEPTING LIFE WITH ALL ODDS AND DEFEATING DESPAIR: WAR AND PEACE

Abstract

Human beings are the most complex and sophisticated evolving entities on this planet. They consider themselves as rational and curious beings, who question everything. Therefore, from the very beginning of their existence, they keep on searching the true meaning of their life, their purposes in this universe, and existence of this universe and its creator. They further go on questing the meaning of God or any transcendent force, the meaning of selves, soul, subjectivity, morality, religion, reality, and so on. But their rational intelligence comes to bring nothingness into the irrational universe, which is beyond their logic and their capacity. They come for nothing and go for nothing and wait for waiting because every action they have taken is insignificant logically but, it has a profound meaning spiritually. In this context, the meaning outer action is shaped by the management of inner selves and awakening of inner world. This paper looks at select samples from the novel War and Peace of Leo Tolstoy and correlates them with Tolstoyan notion of how our inner selves defeat the despair.