Throughout War & Peace, Tolstoy presents us with common folk so flimsy in their convictions that they can be swayed by the simplest rhetoric. In Aristotle’s “On Rhetoric”, three modes of persuasion are discussed:
-Self-presentation: speakers must portray themselves as reliable, trustworthy and relatable.
-Appeal to emotions: Powerful human emotions like pride, fear and anger can often drive their decision making more than rationality.
-Argumentation: the actual act of proving your point through logic.
Tolstoy continually presents us with people who require only the first two modes of persuasion when it comes to their political opinions. Often real argumentation is ignored or cast aside in light of the more external aspects of rhetoric. When Pierre attempts to stand up and portray his fairly logical opinions regarding relations with the sovereign, he hesitates and stutters, portraying doubt about his own convictions. Thus, he invites others to doubt his reliability, and fails at self-presentation. On the other hand, the opposing arguments appealed to the pride of the nation-which throughout the story has been vested in the sovereign.
When Marya is struggling to control her servants in Bogucharovo, she also presents a quite logical argument without the necessary fluff that makes it convincing. She conjures emotions that work against her instead of for her. The servants are afraid of leaving their homes and have too much pride to face the potential of losing their pieces of the estate. Marya doesn’t portray herself as trustworthy enough, as they doubt that she will give them equivalent property if they leave. In addition, she does not instill enough fear in them. Realistically, they should dread the approaching French, and should also dread the wrath of Marya, who runs the estate. Rostov, on the contrary, is stern in his convictions and instills fear in the servants with his threats. This fear causes all of the servants to turn against their leader Dron in a full 180.
There are many more examples, but I thought the Rhetoric we often discussed in Enelow’s class last year applied well to recent events in the story.
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