Nataasha Rostova

Natasha Rostova is one of the literary examples through which Simone de Beauvoir examines girls’ adolescence: her self-admiration is neither simply private nor separate from the wish to be admired by others. In War and Peace, Natasha imagines herself praised by an approving male voice, while her friendship with Sonya offers a different form of intimacy, sustained by shared secrets and an act intended to prove affection. These scenes show how the girl’s emerging sense of self can take shape both through imagined recognition and through a close female witness.

The imagined male observer

In a scene from War and Peace, Natasha speaks of herself in the third person, imagining an intelligent and affectionate man describing her. She says that even her mother does not understand her, then supplies the imagined admirer’s judgment: Natasha is intelligent and sweet. The device makes self-appraisal sound like external praise. Her own voice divides into the girl who seeks recognition and the imagined observer who confers it.

Natasha’s imagined portrait expands beyond intelligence and sweetness. The approving voice praises her beauty and agility, her swimming and horsemanship, and her voice. The catalogue presents her as a whole person whose qualities are gathered into a single admiring description. Yet the praise remains imagined: the scene shows Natasha rehearsing how she might appear in another consciousness, rather than recording an actual declaration by a suitor.

The passage returns to Natasha’s self-admiration that same morning. Again she calls herself lovely in the language of an imagined collective male observer, adding that she is young and does not bother anyone, and wishes only to be left in peace. The change in emphasis is revealing: the fantasy of being admired coexists with a claim to her own quiet. Natasha’s self-regard is presented not as a settled independence from others, but as something that borrows the form of their approval even as it asserts a private space.

Friendship with Sonya

Natasha’s relation to Sonya appears in a separate discussion of the intense friendships girls form with one another. The book describes such friendships as spaces of confidences and shared secrets, often carrying the force of a love affair. It cites Natasha as the girl who falls in love with her best friend’s brother, showing how affection within a close friendship can also open toward a third person. The example places Natasha within a social world where friendship, romantic attachment, and the desire to be recognized are not neatly separated.

The account gives a specific gesture through which Natasha proves her love for Sonya: she burns her arm with a red-hot ruler. The action is presented as an extreme token of affection, not as a general definition of their relationship. Its significance lies in what it is meant to communicate: a private bond is made visible through a bodily proof, matching the broader account of girls exchanging ardent signs of tenderness, confidences, and letters.

Literary and thematic role

Natasha’s scenes connect two forms of recognition. In the imagined portrait, she stages herself for an admiring male gaze; in her friendship with Sonya, the witness is a beloved female friend, and affection is expressed through shared secrets and a concrete sign of devotion. Simone de Beauvoir uses these moments to distinguish neither a purely self-sufficient narcissism nor a single, uncomplicated romantic destiny. Natasha’s self-image and attachments take shape in relation to other people, but the relevant relationships differ in kind and meaning.

The examples also make Natasha part of a larger argument about adolescence as a period of experimentation with identity and intimacy. Her imagined admirer gives praise the sound of an external judgment, while the friendship with Sonya supplies an intimate counterpoint grounded in confidence and mutual attachment. The book does not provide a full account of Natasha’s later life or the outcomes of these particular moments; her role here is to make visible how self-regard, imagined admiration, and female friendship can overlap without becoming identical.