Page 55 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Elective English–I

Notes Occasionally the narrator’s stance is more objective and neutral, as in “Two Brothers and the
Gold.” In no case is the voice of the narrator sarcastic, as it can often be in Tolstoy’s depiction
of upper class society.
The setting of the stories may be popular and Russian, or legendary or exotic. Major characters
are drawn from among the common people, most frequently the peasants. Characters from
other backgrounds appear in major and sympathetic roles only when they are distanced in
some way. For example, “A Grain As Big As a Hen’s Egg,” in which a king has a major role,
takes place in the distant past. In “Il’ias,” featuring a rich landowner, the setting, vaguely
middle-eastern, is far away. Supernatural characters, both angels and demons (including the
Devil himself), appear in all but three of the stories. By contrast. In other, non-popular, late
works by Tolstoy popular characters play only supporting or comparative roles, and the supernatural
is almost never introduced. When it is, as in The Fruits of Enlightenment (Plody prosveshcheniia,
a play about the attempts of a group of occultists to contact the spirits of the dead), it is ridiculed.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the stories for the people is their language. The syntactic
foundation of all the stories is the simple sentence, pruned of all but essential elements and
frequently elliptical. Longer sentences tend to be constructed of a string of principal clauses
rather than subordinate clauses grouped around a main one. Constructions have either a
Biblical or a popular colouring, or both. In most of the stories, the narrative is markedly
popular. The popular flavour is achieved by the consistent inversion of literary word order in
the sentence (e.g., “Ne mog eshche ia poniat’...” [“not able still was I to understand...”] instead
of “ia eshche ne mog poniat’...” [“I still was not able to understand...”]) and the use of popular
lexical material. This material is often proverbial and sometimes from folklore, for example,
the traditional opening phrase of the skazka, “zhil-byl” (literally, “there lived-there was”)
which appears in many of these stories. On the other hand Tolstoy often, especially in the
moralizing conclusions of the stories, introduced a tone of solemnity reminiscent of Biblical
language. The Bible is actually quoted in nine of the stories, either in text or as epigraph. The
influence of Biblical language affects nearly all of the stories. It is the clearest in the language
of divine characters (the angels in “What Men Live By” and “Two Brothers and the Gold,” the
heavenly voice in “Where Love Is, There Is God Also”) and generally whenever the narrative
touches directly upon the underlying thematic sense of the work, as in the moralizing conclusion
of “The Candle.”
The stories for the people, with their absence of complex metaphorical language, maximally
simplified syntax, syntactic inversion, peasant words and expressions, and the use of many
devices and motifs from both folklore and Scripture, exemplify an innovative and coherent
writing style. We may confidently agree with B. M. Eikhenbaum and S. P. Bychkovxv that they
represent a remarkable stylistic departure from Tolstoy’s earlier work. Tolstoy’s use of language
was studied, conscious, deliberate, and directed both at the creation of a popular tonal quality
and at the avoidance of his former “literary” style, with its tendency to syntactic and lexical
complexity, foreignisms, and lengthy periodicity.
All the stories for the people are more or less openly didactic and may even present a moral
formally, as in “The Godson.” Characters are most often developed through their actions and
words. Occasionally the narrator characterizes his heroes directly, but usually he confines
himself to brief physical descriptions. Very rarely, and nowhere at length, are the psychological
processes of the characters described directly. This is another important distinction between
the stories for the people and Tolstoy’s other works, both early and late, where one continues
to encounter the frequent use of devices such as interior monologue and stream of consciousness.
The reason for this is surely to be found in Tolstoy’s desire to remain true to the spirit of
folklore in developing his popular style. Events usually occur in simple chronological order,
but they also occur, according to folk conventions, in groups of three, as in “What Men Live

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