I was really interested in Pétya's death. First of all, I think that it was definitely necessary for a number of reasons. Aminata, I think it was you who was so fond of Pétya and who said in class that you still saw him as a baby. I'm positive that Tolstoy was manipulating us to think that way. I mean, Nicholas was 16 when he first went into battle and he wasn't portrayed that way to nearly the same extent. Here we have Pétya literally submerged in his own "fairy kingdom," conducting orchestras in his head and being not physically able to contain his feelings of love for men not that much older than him. He is completely a rosy-cheeked baby, who is meant to tug on the readers' heart strings. So why did he have to die? I think that Tolstoy wants to show us that war can be the worst. All throughout the book he's been making it out to be terribly exciting with all the battles and adrenaline rushes. Pierre wants to become a soldier because he wants to be part of something big and Nicholas and Andrew both wanted glory. The best way obviously to obtain these things is through killing each other on a battle field. So now the truth comes out and a young, innocent boy gets too excited to be part of something/prove himself and he dies. I think that this shows that war can be cruel and that it can hurt everyone, not just men. Now we're about to read about the Rostov's grief and (unless I'm mistaken) this will be the first time we see a family grieve for a loss sustained during battle. Already we've seen Denisov bury Pétya in a flower patch. I'm not going to lie, that almost evoked some tears.
What do you guys think? Is Tolstoy about to give us another perspective on war?
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