Facing Mortality
Andrew seizes the standard, runs toward the guns, and is struck down. On his back there is only the lofty sky, grey clouds gliding, nothing like the scramble for glory. Napoleon, when he later stands over the wounded, looks like a buzzing fly. Rank, victory, and the mystic power Andrew chased through the mist fall away against that height.
Key Insight
Mortality strips the story ambition tells. The first honest look at death is often not terror alone. It is a strange clarity about what was never as large as you needed it to be.
“How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last!”Explore full theme analysis
