Short chapter.
Yikes, everyone's getting shot at, the French are closer than anyone thought. Pandemonium. The men begin to flee, and Andrei finally has his moment, where he picks up the standard, and men are falling about him, dying. He keeps charging forward. He feels something hit him on the head, and then he's suddenly aware of the vast sky and clouds. He is happy finally at seeing how wonderful the sky is, and says Thank God....
And that's the end of the chapter. Is he dead? Cliffhanger!
I guess we're supposed to be happy he gets his moment of glory, as Kuzutov has been shot twice and he takes over to try to rally the retreating men. I don't really feel that way. It's quite annoying for some reason to hear him (and Nikolai) just obsess on how great they could look and what kind of glory they can get from this. I guess it's actually deeper, considering they're okay if they die for it, but it really strikes me the wrong way for some reason. I just want to say, "do your job the best you can and quit worrying so much about how great you can look", but I guess Tolstoy's showing us the humanity. I'm sure that's why many soldiers fight. Especially when war was so romanticized. Ah, well, I still like him, just don't love that portion.
I hope he's not dead. To be sure, I flipped forward to see if I could find his name. Shhh. Don't tell anyone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment