A Woman in Full

Tolstoy lost his mother when he was a toddler, and a mother-shaped hole seems to run all through his pages. No doubt, this partly explains his lovingly-crafted maternal characters, and high appreciation for motherhood generally. However, it also helps explain why feminine excellences, for Tolstoy, are strongly ordered towards motherhood and sometimes sublimated or subsumed as the woman steps into her true feminine vocation. A good woman, for Tolstoy, simply is a good mother.