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Unit 6: How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

of proverbs, use of collocations typical of folktales or religious legends). The narrative voice has Notes
a popular colouration (On the Style of a Story for the People).

6.3 Criticism on Tolstoy

Most critics comment on Tolstoy’s work to be very effective in making his fiction appears to be
very realistic and lifelike. They also feel that his examinations on psychology and society, which
he developed later throughout his career, were very efficient. On the other hand, some critics
find flaws in the harshness of Tolstoy’s ways. Gerald Lucas believes that Tolstoy, himself an
educated landowner, found many of Russia’s elite class wasting their lives in search of the
wrong things: “We’re all looking for freedom from our obligations to our fellow man, but that
is precisely what us human beings, that sense of our obligations, and if it weren’t for that, we
would live like animals”. Tolstoy admired the communal sense that he perceived in the simple
people. The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, written in 1886, represents Tolstoy’s reactions to his social
milieu and provides a severe moral lesson for his readers. He provides an answer by illustrating
Russia’s two common social classes: the affluent and educated class of Ivan Ilyitch and the oral,
peasant class of Gerasim.

6.4 Historical Background

During the time of Tolstoy, many significant historical events were occurring. This included the
publication of the Communist Manifesto, and the changing of Russian tsars from Nicholas’
abdication to the start of a new government, which would lead to the Russian Revolution.
Likewise, the historical background affected what Leo Tolstoy would write about during that
specific time.

Example: When writing War and Peace, from the outset of ‘war and peace’, Tolstoy was
concerned with Napoleon’s struggle against Russia and its relation to historical problems. He
was also concerned with the peaceful elements of family life. However, early drafts and notes
fail to specify that at this stage he had worked out a comprehensive plan that would involve the
vast epic sweep and elaborate philosophy of history of ‘war and peace’.
Nor did the publication in a magazine in 1865 of the first thirty-eight chapters under the simple
title 1805, corresponding roughly to the first twenty-five chapters of the definitive text, suggest
that he had hit upon his larger and final design. By the next year, when a second instalment
appeared which took the story only through 1805, Tolstoy’s design did not seem to carry the
action beyond Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Notes at this point hint that the ending was to
be a happy one - Prince Andrew, who recovers from his wound, nobly gives up his love for
Natasha in order that she may marry Pierre. Pierre’s changed outlook on life is uninfluenced by
Platon Karataev’s simple philosophy. Sonya inspired by Prince Andrew’s renunciation gives
way to Princess Mary’s love for Nicholas. Pierre and Nicholas marry on the same day, and
Nicholas and Prince Andrew leave to re-join their army units. In fact, in 1866 Tolstoy was
confident he would finish the novel the next year and publish it as a whole under the title Alls
Well That Ends Well! (Introduction to Tolstoy’s Writings)

6.5 The Stories for the People

Written to exemplify certain ethical truths, the stories for the people resemble the other late
works of Tolstoy, which are also, for the most part, overtly didactic. To the extent that he
consciously, from an early date, sought to portray the “truth,” as he understood it, in his fiction,
even his early works reflect his didactic proclivities. Thus, it is not the themes or the motives of
Tolstoy, which ultimately set the stories for the people apart from the rest of his work, but their

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