Marya on Social Media

     While many of the characters in War and Peace may have benefited from having constant contact through social media, I believe Marya is someone who would have LIVED for Facebook. In the beginning of the novel, Marya is basically a prisoner in her father's house. She is rarely seen going out into society, and therefore, is deprived of any social contact. A social media site such as Facebook would have been a dream come true for lonely Marya. However, due to her sheltered lifestyle, Marya also may have been a tad socially awkward. In the beginning of my Facebook portrayal of Marya, I tried to make it apparent that she had a hard time finding her own voice. My first several statuses and pictures were bible verses or religious symbols because Marya found her identity almost exclusively in religion when she had nothing else in her father's house.
     I posted Marya's first non-religious status about the death of her father, as I feel this was the turning point in Marya's character. Although after this point she still found her identity in religion, she also began to make decisions for herself based on her own desires. She found the courage to love Nicholas, the humility to forgive Natasha, and the strength to let her brother go. I posted statuses about each of these life events, as well as engaged in conversations through comments on others' statuses or pictures. Through each consecutive status and comment, I portrayed Marya as a little less socially awkward. In the last status I posted as Marya, I summarized the dynamic change from Marya's character at the beginning of the novel to the end. As Marya learned to make her own decisions, I think she also learned to set aside the Christian value of the “joy of suffering” and instead value relationships and love. Tolstoy writes on page 1038 that “Marya's soul strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could therefore never be at peace.” However, I think in her own way Marya does find a bit of peace and joy in her family and friendships with Natasha and Pierre.