Vasily Kuragin: a place in the novel and a description

Prince Vasily Kuragin is one of the most important characters in the epic novel War and Peace. His family, soulless and rude, impudent and acting in the open, when there is an opportunity to enrich himself, is opposed to the delicate and kind hearted family of the Rostovs and the intellectual family of the Bolkonskys. Vasily Kuragin does not live by thoughts, but, rather, by instincts. When he meets an influential person, he tries to get close to him, and this happens automatically.

Appearance of Prince Vasily Sergeevich

We meet him first in the salon of Anna Pavlovna, where all the intellectual and what a miserable color of Petersburg is going to be examined. So far no one has arrived, he conducts useful and confidential conversations with an aging forty-year-old "enthusiast". Important and official, with a high head, he arrived at the court uniform with the stars (he managed to get the rewards without doing anything useful for the country). Vasily Kuragin bald, bald, stolid, and, even despite his sixty years, graceful. His movements are always free and familiar. Nothing can take him out of balance. Vasily Kuragin grew old, having spent his whole life in the light, and brilliantly owns himself. His flat face is covered with wrinkles. This all becomes known from the first chapter of the first part of the novel.

Prince's care

He has three children, whom he loves little. In the same chapter, he says that he does not have a parental love for children, but he considers it his big task to build them well in life. In a conversation with Anna Pavlovna, he as if inadvertently asks who is the place of the first secretary in Vienna. This is his main purpose of visiting Scherer. He needs to attach a stupid son of Ippolit to the warm place. But, by the way, he agrees that Anna Pavlovna will try to marry his dissolute Anatole son with the rich and noble Maria Bolkonskaya, who lives with her father on the Bald Mountain estate . At least one benefit Vasily Kuragin from this evening received, because he was not used to a useless pastime. And in general, he knows how to use people. He always attracts to those who stand above him, and the prince has a rare gift - to catch a minute when you can and should use people.

Evil acts of the prince

In the first part, beginning with chapter XVIII, Vasily Kuragin tries, having arrived in Moscow, to seize the inheritance of Pierre, destroying his father's will. Julie Karagina more or less detailed about this unattractive story of Maria Bolkonskaya in the letter. Having received nothing and played a "disgusting role", as expressed by Julie, Prince Vasily Kuragin went to St. Petersburg embarrassed. But he did not stay long in this state. He seemed to have absentmindedly made efforts to bring Pierre closer to his daughter, and successfully completed the business with a wedding. The money of Pierre should serve the family of the prince. So it should be, in the opinion of Prince Vasily. The attempt to marry Anatoly's rake on the unrequited prickly Princess Marya can not be called a worthy deed: he is concerned only with a rich dowry, which a son can receive at the same time. But his immoral family is degenerating. Ippolit - just a fool, which no one seriously takes. Helen is dying. Anatole, having transferred the leg amputation, is not known whether he will survive or not.

Character of Kuragin

He is an arrogant, empty and indifferent person. In the tone of his voice, for decency and participation, a mockery always shines through. He always tries to get close to people of high standing. For example, everyone knows that he is on good terms with Kutuzov, and they turn to him for help, to attach his sons to the adjutants. But he is used to refusing to all, so that at the right moment, and we have already talked about this, take advantage of favors only for ourselves. Such small dashes, scattered in the text of the novel, describes a secular man - Vasily Kuragin. His characterization in Tolstoy is very unflattering, and with its help the author describes the higher world as a whole.

Vasiliy Kuragin appears to us as a great intriguer, accustomed to live his thoughts on career, money and profit. "War and Peace" (and the world at the time of Tolstoy was written through the letter i that was unusual for us and meant not only the world as the absence of war, but, to a greater extent, the universe, and there was no direct antithesis in this title) - a work in which the prince Is shown against the backdrop of high-society receptions and in his own home, where there is no warmth and cordial relations. The epic novel contained a monumental picture of life and hundreds of characters, one of which is Prince Kuragin.