Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy born September 9, 1828-November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer, best known for his epic novels. Born into an aristocratic Russian family, Tolstoy wrote realist fiction and semi-autobiographical novels before shifting into more moral and spiritual works.
Full Name: Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Known For: Russian novelist and writer of philosophical and moral texts
Born: September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire
Parents: Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy and Countess Mariya Tolstoya
Died: November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russian Empire
Education: Kazan University (began at age 16; did not complete his studies)
Selected Works: War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1878), A Confession (1880), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Resurrection (1899)
Early and Epic Novels (1852-1877)
Childhood (1852)
Boyhood (1854)
Youth (1856)
"Sevastopol Sketches" (1855–1856)
The Cossacks (1863)
War and Peace (1869)
Anna Karenina (1877)
Literary Styles and Themes
In his earlier works, Tolstoy was largely concerned with depicting what he saw around him in the world, particularly at the intersection of the public and private spheres. War and Peace and Anna Karenina, for instance, both told epic stories with serious philosophical underpinnings. War and Peace spent significant time criticising the telling of history, arguing that it’s the smaller events that make history, not the huge events and famous heroes. Anna Karenina, meanwhile, centres on personal themes such as betrayal, love, lust and jealousy, as well as turning a close eye on the structures of Russian society, both in the upper echelons of the aristocracy and among the peasantry.
How Much Land Does a Man Need?
"How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy is a short story about the corrupting power of greed. The story opens as a woman comes from town to visit her younger sister in the country. They debate whether country life or city life is better, the younger sister says country life is superior because there is little chance that the Devil will tempt her husband. Pahom, her husband and a peasant farmer, agrees. He reflects that peasants are too busy in their work to fall prey to temptation and that their only problem is that they do not have enough land. He thinks that if he only had enough land, he would not fear the Devil; unfortunately for Pahom, the Devil overhears the peasant's boastful claim and decides to test him.
Soon, a local landowner decides to sell her land, and Pahom and the other peasants of the Commune attempt to buy it together as communal land. When the Devil "sow discord among them," they instead divide the allotment into individual plots. At first, Pahom is delighted with his land; however, as he gains more success, he becomes increasingly disgruntled when other peasants trespass on his land or his neighbors' livestock damages his pastures. Eventually, he begins to fine trespassers and sues Simon, a neighboring peasant, who Pahom believes has cut down some of his trees. Simon is acquitted, as there is no evidence against him. The people of the commune greatly resent Pahom for his fines.
Partially due to the trespassing of peasants and their livestock, Pahom feels that he is still "too cramped." When a traveling peasant from beyond the Volga River informs Pahom that the land beyond the river is better and more plentiful, Pahom investigates and eventually moves there with his family. With three times the land he had before, Pahom is initially content. But he does not have the correct amount or type of land to grow wheat as he had before. Thus, he must compete with other farmers and peasants to rent land and cart his crops long distances. He begins to desire "freehold land" so that his land will all be together and all his own.
When Pahom hears that another landowner is experiencing financial difficulty, he arranges to buy his land for a measly sum. However, before he finalizes the deal, a stranger comes to him and tells him that the Bashkirs, a group of people in a neighboring country, are selling their excellent land cheaply, provided that the prospective purchasers bring gifts. Moved by his greed, Pahom again goes to investigate.
The Bashkir leaders are charmed by Pahom's gifts and tell him they will sell him. however much land he wants for a thousand rubles. Pahom is skeptical of this unconventional offer, but the Bashkirs assure him that the deal is sound however much land he can walk around in one day will be his. However, if he does not return to the starting point by sundown, both the land and money will be forfeit.
Pahom believes that he can walk thirty-five miles in a day. He decides he will make a circuit of this area and then can sell or rent some of the lands to others and make a profit. While he sleeps, he dreams that the Chief of the Bashkirs is laughing outside his tent. He moves closer and sees that the laughing man is not the Chief but the peasant who first came and told him of the Bashkirs, and then he sees that it is not the peasant but the Devil himself. Pahom dismisses the dream upon waking up, laughing at its absurdity.
Early that next morning, Pahom begins his circuit, and the Bashkirs watch. At first, it seems he will successfully complete his journey, but as the day wears on, he becomes less and less sure. At one point, he sees a plot of land he feels he must have and extend his circuit to include it. Finally, the day draws to a close; Pahom knows that, at his current pace, he will return in time. Though exhausted, he begins to run, fearing the loss of his money, land, and dignity. There is plenty of land, but Pahom realizes God may not let him have it.
At the end of his run, as the sun sets behind him, he sees the Chief of the Bashkirs laughing ahead. Pahom reaches his starting point but collapses to the ground, dead of exhaustion. His servant buries him, noting that in the end, the only land Pahom needed was six feet, measured from head to foot, for his grave.
Themes
The Corrupting Power of Greed
The key theme of this short story is greed and its power to corrupt. At the beginning of the story, Pahom, the protagonist, believes that he would "not fear the Devil himself" if he only had enough land. The Devil begins to tempt him, and Pahom has opportunity after opportunity to acquire more land.
Though his land grows, Pahom is never satisfied, and he is increasingly willing to step over other people to get more and better land for himself; he fines those who were once his fellow peasants, tries to punish a peasant for a crime he didn't commit, and takes advantage of a landowner in financial difficulty. Pahom thus. begins to resemble his neighbor's harsh steward, whom he initially loathed for fining the people of the commune.
The Bashkirs inform Pahom that they will sell him however much land he can walk around in a day, and he mentally plots out a tract of land that will take him the rest of the day to mark out and sets to work. Though selling land by the day is unconventional, the Bashkirs" rate is reasonable: surely a plot of land that takes an entire day to walk around is plenty. However, not even this is enough to satisfy Pahom, and he alters his path to include more land as he goes along. He ultimately overestimates how far of a circuit he can walk, and his greed kills him.
Susceptibility to Temptation
Part of the irony in Tolstoy's short story lies in the fact that Pahom and his wife believe that people in the country are less susceptible to the Devil's temptation. Pahom's wife believes that the men of the town are constantly in danger of temptation through "cards, wine, or women" and that they are corrupted by these things "often enough." Like the old proverb that the Devil makes work for idle hands, Pahom claims that the hard work of country life makes country people too busy to be tempted.
Though he is not tempted by "cards, wine, or women," Pahom is already at fault at the beginning of the story because he is discontent with what he has. Simply by giving Pahom what he desires more and more land the Devil corrupts him with greed and, ultimately, kills him. Pahom's story demonstrates, therefore, that anything can lead to temptation if one is not careful, and that anyone is susceptible to temptation.
Rural Russian Values
Tolstoy, like many Russian writers across history, often writes in praise of the Russian peasantry, whose simple lifestyle evokes a sense of bucolic elegance and national pride. Toiling in the fields, owning only such luxuries as can be handspun, and the humble pride of self-sufficient labor are all tokens of the lifestyle Tolstoy and many others write of and honor. However, this short story takes up the potential for the Russian peasantry to be led astray, motivated by desires not befitting their station, such as greed and temptation. Pahom's descent into. ceaseless ambition leads him to reject all that he once held true in favor of the alluring prospect of material wealth and social standing. His pride in the labors of the peasantry and his pleasure at a well-earned harvest evaporate, lost in the whirlpool of devilish greed.
As much as the short story is a warning against greed and temptation, it is also a praise-laden elegy for the humble peasant, a class and a lifestyle he feared might soon be lost to time, Pahom's failures act as a frantic look forward, predicting what might become of Russia's most virtuous and admirable institution and fervently hoping no such change might come to pass.
Characters:
The main characters of "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" are the two sisters, Pahom, and the Devil.
The two sisters, one of whom is Pahom's wife, have a conversation at the story's beginning about whether country people are inelegant or simply less likely to submit to the Devil's temptations.
Pahom, the story's protagonist, is married to the younger of the two sisters. He is not content with the land he has, and in his quest to gain more, he succumbs to greed and ultimately dies as a result.
The Devil decides to test Pahom's greed and wins.
Characters
The Two Sisters
"How Much Land Does A Man Need?" begins with a conversation between two sisters, the contents of which unexpectedly leads a man to uncontrolled greed, disaster, and, ultimately, death. The elder sister, who is married to a successful tradesman and lives in town, has journeyed to the rural countryside to visit her younger sister, the wife of a peasant farmer named Pahom. Uncomfortable in the unfamiliar countryside environment, the elder sister sneers at her sister's lifestyle, calling it inelegant and coarse. In response, the younger sister remarks that, in town, the call of temptation perpetually surrounds her husband, meaning he is far more likely to be drawn in by the "Evil One," the Devil. Her off-hand remark sparks an unlikely chain of events that culminates in the death of her husband who, after overhearing their conversation, arrogantly agrees that he is above temptation.
Though the two sisters catalyze the story's events, they are tertiary to the plot; the elder sister soon returns home to her life in town, and Pahom leaves his wife to care for their homestead while he pursues more land in distant places.
Pahom
Pahom is the main character of Tolstoy's didactic short story about the dangers of unchecked arrogance and greed. Married to the younger sister who appears in the first scene, Pahom is a peasant farmer driven by a desire for more land and money and is a firm believer that the hard work demanded by the country lifestyle makes people immune to devilish temptation. However, Pahom's discontent makes him vulnerable, and he soon falls prey to the machinations of the Devil, who he so arrogantly feels he "shouldn't fear."
Despite his shortcomings, Pahom is an ambitious man. He has lofty goals for himself and works hard to reach them. Unchecked ambition, however, is not desirable, and Pahom quickly indicates why; he remains unsatisfied and begins to exploit others in his search for material wealth and satisfaction. No land is enough for him, and his drive for more eventually leads to his death. Death humbles Pahom, proving that his life's striving for more land and greater profit margins- has been for naught: the only land he needed was six feet in length, just enough to lay his exhausted body to rest.
The Devil
The Devil is the quiet antagonist of the story and fuels Pahom's self-destructive urge to seek out more and better land. Tolstoy's depiction of the Devil is conventional, describing him as a trickster-inspired figure who toys with men for entertainment. His actions lead Pahom to his ruination, simply because he was affronted by a claim the peasant made in the quiet of his mind. While Pahom is responsible for his decisions, the Devil contrives the scenarios that lead the peasant to his end. He causes the peasants to disagree so that their land deal falls through, tempts Pahom with multiple opportunities to buy more land at increasingly cheap prices, and constructs situations that fuel Pahom's consuming need for more. In the end, the Devil wins, proving that temptation can seize anyone, not only city folk. The victory is humbling and teaches readers a lesson about the dangers of greed and ambition; however, the Devil himself is conspicuously absent in his moment of triumph, showing that his manipulation of the susceptible Pahom was nothing more than a sudden strike of caprice.
The Bashkirs
The Bashkirs are a group of people hailing from far out in the countryside who sell their land cheaply but with strange stipulations. The Bashkirs are easily pleased with gifts like clothing and tea and have an unusual rate for selling land: they sell it by the day. When Pahom expresses his confusion at this unconventional rate, they explain that they will sell a man however much land he can walk and mark in a day. Pahom's greed when faced with this temptation eventually leads to his death..
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