Family composition
In his work, Tolstoy shows the lives of different personalities of high society, trying to convey their problems, experiences, sorrows and joys. And Kuragins occupy a special place in history. Despite their stupidity and dishonesty, they manage to achieve their goals, and for this they are ready to go over their heads. Family composition:
- Father - Vasily. In Anna Pavlovna Sherer's salon, Prince Kuragin became one of the first characters the reader introduces to. The author presents him as a man with a clean body, rich clothes, but a poor soul.
- Mother - Alina. Of the entire family, she receives the least amount of author time. This is a curvaceous woman who was once chosen by a prince for her beauty.
- Daughter - Helen (Elena). A girl of marriageable age with a beautiful face and impeccable aristocratic manners. But behind them lies her real personality.
- Son - Anatoly. A handsome, tall officer who became the dream of many court girls. He is mired in drunkenness and debauchery, too arrogant, and throughout the novel he reveals himself as an extremely unpleasant person.
- Son - Hippolytus. Unlike Anatoly, he is not so handsome, but he has adopted all his negative character traits.
Lev Nikolaevich does not leave his family unpunished. By the end of the novel, everyone gets what they deserve. This is how he demonstrates to the reader that people with small souls always have an unenviable fate. The prince loses two children, each of whom dies in terrible agony.
Essay 2
The Kuragin family is distinguished by exclusively negative character traits and the emptiness of their inner world. Heroes think only about themselves and their own well-being. The family is a reflection of the vices of an aristocratic society, in which it is enough to position yourself correctly and behave in accordance with established norms.
A prince named Vasily is the father of the family. In his character one can see: hypocrisy, deception, narcissism and lies. It is difficult to find positive qualities in the prince. Everything he does is dictated by his desire to get rich and accommodate his children. He never thinks about the people around him. For Vasily they are just means to achieve his goal. Unfortunately, Vasily’s legacy took over all his negative character traits.
Vasily is respected in society. This fact indicates that society superficially evaluates a person’s inner world. For the aristocracy, correct appearance and behavior are enough. Few people are interested in the inner world, which is why so many destinies are crippled.
Count Bezukhov is a relative of Prince Vasily. The man had a rich estate, but Kuragin tried to do everything possible to take possession of the wealth of the dying count. By hook or by crook, Vasily is trying to become an heir, but nothing works out. All wealth goes to Pierre. Vasily does not stop there and tries to marry his daughter to the newly-made count. The family is distinguished by deceit. Together they were able to convince the young man to marry Helen. Vasily himself perceives his children as a cross, despite this, he does everything possible for their well-being.
Helen Kuragina is a girl with a beautiful appearance, but with an absolutely empty spiritual world. She tormented her legal husband with constant betrayals and intrigues. The girl is used to living in luxury, changing expensive outfits. She was always surrounded by lovers. However, the girl's fate ended very sadly. She died at 32 years old.
Hippolyte and Anatole are two so-called fools. The guys were nothing of themselves. However, Hippolytus was the least fortunate. In addition to his stupidity, he had an unsightly appearance. Anatole was very handsome. His passion was girls, he changed them like gloves. He constantly organized drinking parties, parties and fights.
The entire Kuragin family is distinguished only by negative qualities; there is nothing to take from them, except an example of how not to act.
Other topics: ← Fictional story about the life of Princess Marya from the novel ↑ Tolstoy Comparative characteristics of Zhilin and Kostylin →
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Prince Vasily
The father of the family is assigned the role of founder. He is dishonest in everything, including his attitude towards children. A child always adopts the manner and behavior of his parent. It is because of Vasily Kuragin that his descendants behave inappropriately, constantly trying to take back what is theirs, even with the help of not the kindest deeds. This theory is confirmed by the classic patriarchal structure that reigned at that time.
The external characteristics of the prince are quite pleasant. This is a man about 50 years old, courteous, as any official should be. He has many connections and is friends with everyone for his own benefit. It is pleasant to have a conversation with him, Vasily knows how to maintain a dialogue, and also easily wins over him. In a sense, one can compare the German Berg with him, who was also always interested in his own benefit and success.
As soon as the author moves on to a personal description, the reader gets his first negative impressions. The prince conducts a lazy conversation , treats everyone calmly and indifferently. Relationships with children are considered separately. Vasily calls them a burden and his cross, and considers his sons completely stupid and narrow-minded. Constantly observing this behavior, Helen comes to the conclusion that she does not need her own child.
Family of Prince Vasily Kuragin
Family of Prince Vasily Kuragin. For Tolstoy, the world of family is the basis of human society. The Kuragin family in the novel appears as the embodiment of immorality. Self-interest, hypocrisy, the ability to commit crime, dishonor for the sake of wealth, irresponsibility for one’s actions in personal life - these are the main distinguishing features of this family. And how much destruction the Kuragins brought - Prince Vasily, Helen, Anatole - into the life of Pierre, the Rostovs, Natasha, Andrei Bolkonsky! The Kuragins, the third family unit in the novel, are deprived of generic poetry. Their family closeness and connection is unpoetic, although it undoubtedly exists - instinctive mutual support and solidarity, a kind of mutual guarantee of almost animal egoism. Such a family connection is not a positive, real family connection, but, in essence, its negation. The real families - the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys - have, of course, an immense moral superiority on their side against the Kuragins; but still, the invasion of base Kuragin egoism causes a crisis in the world of these families. The entire Kuragin family are individualists who do not recognize moral standards, living according to the unchanging law of fulfilling their insignificant desires.
Prince Vasily Kuragin The head of this entire family is Prince Vasily Kuragin. For the first time we meet Prince Vasily in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer. He was "in a courtier's embroidered uniform, stockings, shoes and stars, with a bright expression on his flat face." The prince spoke “in that refined French language in which our grandfathers not only spoke, but also thought, and with those quiet, patronizing intonations that are characteristic of a significant person who has grown old in high society and at court,” “he always spoke lazily, like an actor speaks the role of an old play." In the eyes of secular society, Prince Kuragin is a respected person, “close to the emperor, surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic women, scattering social pleasantries and chuckling complacently.” In words he was a decent, sympathetic person, but in reality there was a constant internal struggle in him between the desire to seem like a decent person and the actual depravity of his motives. Prince Vasily “knew that influence in the world is capital that must be protected so that it does not disappear, and, once realizing that if he begins to ask for everyone who asks him, then soon he will not be able to ask for himself, he rarely used It’s influence.” But at the same time, he sometimes felt remorse. So, in the case of Princess Drubetskaya, he felt “something like a reproach of conscience,” since she reminded him that “he owed his first steps in the service to her father.” Prince Vasily is not alien to fatherly feelings, although they are expressed rather in the desire to “accommodate” his children rather than to give them fatherly love and warmth. According to Anna Pavlovna Sherer, people like the prince should not have children. “...And why would people like you have children? If you weren’t a father, I wouldn’t be able to blame you for anything.” To which the prince replied: “What should I do? You know, I did everything a father could to raise them.” The prince forced Pierre to marry Helen, while pursuing his own selfish goals. To Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s proposal to “marry the prodigal son Anatole” to Princess Maria Bolkonskaya, having learned that the princess is a rich heiress, he says: “She has a good name and is rich. All I need". At the same time, Prince Vasily does not think at all about the fact that Princess Marya may be unhappy in her marriage to the dissolute scamp Anatole, who looked upon his entire life as one continuous amusement. Prince Vasily and his children absorbed all the base, vicious traits.
Helen Kuragina Helen is the embodiment of external beauty and internal emptiness, fossilization. Tolstoy constantly mentions her “monotonous”, “unchanging” smile and “antique beauty of her body”; she resembles a beautiful, soulless statue. Helen Scherer enters the salon “noisily wearing her white ball gown, decorated with ivy and moss, and shining with the whiteness of her shoulders, the gloss of her hair and diamonds, she walked without looking at anyone, but smiling at everyone and, as if kindly granting everyone the right to admire the beauty of her figure, full shoulders, very open in the fashion of that time, chest and back, and as if bringing with it the sparkle of the ball. Helen was so beautiful that not only was there not a trace of coquetry visible in her, but, on the contrary, she seemed ashamed of her undoubted and too powerful beauty. It was as if she wanted and could not diminish the effect of this beauty.” Helen personifies immorality and depravity. The entire Kuragin family are individualists who do not recognize any moral standards, living according to the constant law of fulfilling their insignificant desires. Helen marries only for her own enrichment. She cheats on her husband because the animal nature predominates in her nature. It is no coincidence that Tolstoy leaves Helen childless. “I’m not stupid enough to have children,” she admits. Even as Pierre’s wife, Helene, in front of the whole society, is organizing her personal life. In addition to a luxurious bust, a rich and beautiful body, this representative of high society had an extraordinary ability to hide her mental and moral poverty, and all this was thanks only to the grace of her manners and the memorization of certain phrases and techniques. Shamelessness manifested itself in her in such grandiose, high-society forms that it aroused almost respect in others. Helen is completely devoid of patriotic feelings. While the whole country rose up to fight Napoleon, and even high society took part in this fight in its own way (“they didn’t speak French and ate simple food”), in Helen’s circle, Rumyantsev, French, rumors of cruelty were refuted enemy and war, and all Napoleon’s attempts at reconciliation were discussed.” When the threat of the capture of Moscow by Napoleonic troops became clear, Helen went abroad. And there she shone at the imperial court. But now the court returns to St. Petersburg. “Helen, having returned with the court from Vilna to St. Petersburg, was in a difficult situation. In St. Petersburg, Helen enjoyed the special patronage of a nobleman who occupied one of the highest positions in the state. In the end, Helen dies. This death is a direct result of her own intrigues. “Countess Elena Bezukhova died suddenly from... a terrible disease, which is usually called chest sore throat, but in intimate circles they talked about how the life physician of the Queen of Spain prescribed Ellen small doses of some medicine to produce a certain effect; but how Helene, tormented by the fact that the old count suspected her, and by the fact that the husband to whom she wrote (that unfortunate depraved Pierre) did not answer her, suddenly took a huge dose of the medicine prescribed for her and died in agony before help could be given " Ippolit Kuragin . “...Prince Hippolyte struck with his extraordinary resemblance to his beautiful sister, and even more so because, despite the similarity, he was strikingly bad-looking. His facial features were the same as his sister’s, but with her everything was illuminated by a cheerful, self-satisfied, youthful, unchanging smile and the extraordinary, antique beauty of her body. My brother, on the contrary, also had a face clouded with idiocy and invariably expressed self-confident disgust, and his body was thin and weak. Eyes, nose, mouth - everything seemed to shrink into one vague, boring grimace, and the arms and legs always took an unnatural position.” Hippolytus was unusually stupid. Because of the self-confidence with which he spoke, no one could understand whether what he said was very smart or very stupid. At Scherer’s reception, he appears to us “in a dark green tailcoat, in trousers the color of a frightened nymph, as he himself said, in stockings and shoes.” And such absurdity of the outfit did not bother him at all. His stupidity was manifested in the fact that he sometimes spoke, and then understood what he said. Ippolit often spoke and acted inappropriately, expressing his opinions when no one needed them. He liked to insert phrases into the conversation that were completely unrelated to the essence of the topic being discussed. The character of Hippolyte can serve as a living example of the fact that even positive idiocy is sometimes presented in the world as something of significance thanks to the gloss imparted by knowledge of the French language, and that extraordinary property of this language to support and at the same time mask spiritual emptiness. Prince Vasily calls Ippolit a “dead fool.” Tolstoy in the novel is “sluggish and breaking.” These are the dominant character traits of Hippolytus. Hippolyte is stupid, but at least with his stupidity he does not harm anyone, unlike his younger brother Anatole.
Anatol Kuragin . Anatole Kuragin, according to Tolstoy, is “simple and with carnal inclinations.” These are the dominant character traits of Anatole. He looked at his whole life as a continuous entertainment that someone like that for some reason had undertaken to arrange for him. The author’s characterization of Anatole is as follows: “He was not able to think about how his actions could affect others, nor what could come out of such or such an action.” Anatole is completely free from considerations of responsibility and the consequences of what he does. His egoism is spontaneous, animal-naive and good-natured, absolute egoism, for it is not constrained by anything inside Anatole, in consciousness, feeling. It’s just that Kuragin is deprived of the ability to know what will happen beyond that moment of his pleasure, and how it will affect the lives of other people, as others will see. All this does not exist for him at all. He is sincerely convinced, instinctively, with his whole being, that everything around him has the sole purpose of entertaining him and exists for this. No regard for people, their opinions, consequences, no distant goal that would force one to concentrate on achieving it, no remorse, reflection, hesitation, doubt - Anatole, no matter what he does, naturally and sincerely considers himself an impeccable person and highly bears its beautiful head: freedom is truly limitless, freedom in actions and self-awareness. Such complete freedom is given to Anatole by his senselessness. A person who consciously approaches life is already subject, like Pierre, to the need to understand and decide; he is not free from life’s difficulties, from the question: why? While Pierre is tormented by this difficult question, Anatole lives, contented with every minute, stupid, animalistic, but easy and fun. Marrying the “rich, ugly heiress” Maria Bolkonskaya seems to him like just another amusement. “Why not marry, if she is very rich? It never interferes,” thought Anatole.
Selfish beauty Elena
Helen appears before the reader as a girl of marriageable age, a young beautiful person who arouses the admiration of every man who saw her. Its characteristic is twofold. On the one hand, she is as smart as she is beautiful. She has impeccable manners. Sociability is characterized by a short quote that all of St. Petersburg is close.
Despite her age, Elena is already full of prudence and self-interest. She views marriage only in terms of wealth. Her husband himself does not interest her - appearance, age, personal characteristics fade into the background. If there is a lot of money, the beauty is ready for the wedding. Therefore, her marriage to Pierre Bezukhov was doomed from the beginning.
Helen and Anatole Kuragin are very close to each other, their relationship is friendly, connected by beauty and the same aspirations. Both children see certain behavior within the family, so they build their manners in a similar way. Mutual sympathy gives rise to unpleasant rumors about the prince’s children, and the author is in no hurry to refute them.
The relationship with his older brother is not bad. Unlike Elena and Anatoly, Ippolit looks worse, and also puts his stupidity on display. At the same time, the Kuragins try to help him in every possible way, which is caused by self-interest - everyone in the family should occupy high positions and be recognized in society.
There are no changes in Helen's behavior after marriage. She behaves much worse than before. The bonds of marriage could not curb her:
- wears revealing outfits;
- does not miss social parties;
- arranges meetings with friends at her husband’s house, which often end in betrayal;
- behaves depravedly, in a manner unbecoming of a married woman.
Maintaining marital fidelity is too difficult for Elena. The table with lovers is constantly expanding and supplementing. She calmly deprives Pierre of the joy of fatherhood, because she is afraid to give up social parties and wild life. Over time, marriage begins to weigh on the young beauty, and in order to give it up, she is even ready to convert to Catholicism. But her plans are not destined to come true - Helen will fall ill and die suddenly.
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Officer and rake Anatoly
The prince's youngest son is akin to Elena and enjoys success with the opposite sex. Actor V. Lanovoy managed to perfectly convey the image in the 1966 film. He is handsome, stately, tall and with large expressive eyes. Vasily took care of Anatole's education, but this did not make him smarter. In society he is known as a seducer of women, a reveler and a rake. He tries to take part in every party and behaves extremely aggressively under the influence of alcohol.
The characterization of Anatoly Kuragin is brief but succinct. He, like the rest of the family, is characterized by selfishness, the pursuit of his goals regardless of the means. At the same time, he tries to find simple ways to satisfy his needs. If an accessible lady appears in society, he will immediately pay attention to her.
A riotous life made the younger prince a womanizer and a seducer of women, although he was married. Even experienced ladies succumb to temptation, how can young Natalya Rostova resist? Her relationship with Andrei Bolkonsky is initially complex. A young girl craves emotions, but a reserved officer is unable to clearly demonstrate his feelings.
The postponed engagement to Bolkonsky contributes to the formation of a new couple. Natasha Rostova and Anatol Kuragin, whose relationship has already begun, become even closer.
The prince sees what the young girl needs and plays with her naivety. Artistry, the ability to seduce, hypocrisy - all these qualities help in the plan. The young lady is not able to understand people; she sees only positive traits in a rake and an egoist. The couple wants to run away abroad and get married secretly, but at the last moment the plans are revealed and prevented.
Lev Nikolaevich gets rid of Kuragin through the hands of Bezukhov. At his insistence, Anatole is expelled from Moscow. Then he loses his leg in the Battle of Borodino. And in Chapter 9, Volume 3, Pierre hears rumors about the death of the prince, but there is no confirmation for them. Nevertheless, this selfish and stupid man does not appear in the novel anymore.
Alina and Ippolit
The mother and eldest son of the Kuragin family are allocated the least amount of reading space. Lev Nikolaevich looked at these heroes very briefly. The only information about the princess is that she envies her daughter, her marriage with Pierre, her beauty, sociability and social status.
Ippolit works at the Austrian embassy thanks to his father. He leads a secular lifestyle in St. Petersburg.
But friends and other officers constantly make fun of him. However, the prince's eldest son is so stupid that he does not even realize the ridicule of him and supports mocking jokes. Despite his homely appearance, grumpiness, not the best physique and ridiculous clothes, for some reason he enjoyed success with women and became the cause of quarrels based on jealousy in different families.
