2. born August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, Yasnaya
Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire died November 7
[November 20], 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province), Russian
greatest novelists.
Leo Tolstoy, Tolstoy
also spelled Tolstoi,
Russian in full Lev
Nikolayevich, Graf
(count) Tolstoy
3. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
• Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian author best known for his
novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina which are considered to
be the greatest novels of realist fiction. Tolstoy is also regarded as
also authored short stories, essays and plays. Also a moral thinker
and a social reformer, Tolstoy held severe moralistic views. In later
life, he became a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist.
His non-violent resistance approach towards life has been
expressed in his works such as The Kingdom of God is Within You,
which is known to have a profound effect on important 20th
century figures, particularly, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas
Gandhi.
8. The story introduces Pahom
he endorses the self-sufficiency and hard work embodied in the peasantry.
However, once he hears his wife's older sister dismiss peasantry as inferior
to elite, wealthier lifestyles, he decides to seek out land and a higher
economic status. Guided by the Devil, greed and pride become his
defining traits, and he willingly demolishes his relationships with his family and
commune, loses his compassion and appreciation for the peasantry, and
ultimately destroys his own health in his obsessive pursuit for land.
Pahom often complains of feeling cramped and unfulfilled in his estates, which
fuels him to continually seek out more lucrative land acquisitions. Pahom
associates independence and freedom with limitless property, but his greed
prevents his desire for an expansive estate to ever reach satiation and, in
turn, attaining a meaningful life. Once he completely devotes himself to land
acquisitions and loses sight of his morality and decency, character
arc shows us the dangers of putting too much emphasis on material
possessions and economic status.
9. As the instigating source of greed, the
Devil appears in Pahom's life in several disguises,
such as the traveling peasant, the dealer, and the
Bashkir chief. The Devil wields his power and
disguises to successfully tempt Pahom deeper
and deeper into his obsession with land
ownership and ultimately to his death. The Devil
treats moral and physical disintegration
as one extended joke: he interprets
the Devil himself!" as a personal dare, and
victoriously laughs when Pahom ends up a corpse.
The Devil thus views Pahom's tumult and loss of
morality as a source of entertainment.
10. The wife of a merchant and sister-in-law,
the elder sister lives a wealthy life in a nearby city
and expresses contempt toward her younger
class, the elder sister gloats about her access to
lavish entertainment, education, food, and clothes in
the city, which prompts Pahom to seek land
ownership and upward mobility. Beyond her
endorsement of material wealth, tense and
argumentative relationship with her younger sister,
and general condescension toward peasantry, the
attributes such as her relationship with her
husband, her interests, and her religious identity
remain unknown.
11. Married to Pahom, the younger sister embodies the dignity of the
peasantry. Her defining characteristics include her forthrightness
and intelligence, as evidenced in her passionate defense of rural,
country life, where she claims the peasant life allows for self-
sufficiency and freedom from higher authorities and perceived
decline from a well-intentioned peasant to a greedy,
exploitative landowner who indeed loses his land, sympathy, sense of
community, and his wife. Notably, the younger sister and
relationship initially seems congenial: Pahom communicates his
and labor out their son to purchase their first piece of property. As
Pahom becomes more obsessed with land procurement, her
presence in the story dissipates until she is left behind altogether
when Pahom travels to Bashkiria.
12. One of the few named characters in the
story, Simon is the peasant that Pahom
blindly accuses of stealing trees from his
property. While the case is dismissed due
represents increased hostility
toward peasantry and lower class
lifestyles.
13. The female landowner hires the
old soldier to manage her
property, and he quickly abuses
his position of power to levy
ruthless, senseless fines on the
peasants for minor
transgressions outside of their
control. The old soldier does not
extend sympathy toward the
and instead exploits their lack of
cultural capital and property to
gain more profit for himself and
the female landowner.
14. The female landowner owns a
small estate outside
village. She maintains a cordial,
affable relationship with the
peasants until she hires the
greedy, exploitative old soldier as
her property manager. When she
abruptly sells her land, she again
works amicably with the peasants
and agrees to their offer for the
estate.
female landowner
15. As the leader of the Bashkirs and the
Devil in disguise, the Bashkir chief
exacerbates and amplifies
greed and pride in the concluding
sections of the story. He offers
Pahom as much land as he can
section off in a day, orders Pahom to
carry a spade to mark his progress
as he walks, and, in his final
appearance, he clutches at his sides
and laughs at Pahom struggling to
reach the starting point, which
mirrors the imagery in
dream.
16. conversation between two sisters. One sister is
married to a merchant and gloats about the
luxuries of city life. The younger sister married
to Pahom, a peasant defends her humble,
independent life in the countryside. She
additionally declares that wealthier people are
more at risk of losing everything in their lives
without notice. Pahom eavesdrops on the
conversation and considers the advantages of
owning an expansive estate, determining, "If I had
(5). Overhearing thoughts, the Devil vows
to grant Pahom land, at the cost of coaxing him
into a life of greed and moral indecency.
17. However, when peasants begin trespassing
his land, Pahom fears for the condition of
his property. He complains to the local
courts, despite knowing of the peasants'
good intentions. Like the soldier, Pahom
levies ruthless fines on the peasants, who
begin to resent Pahom; some even
threaten to burn his homestead.
Meanwhile, Pahom complains that he feels
too cramped at his property, and a
traveling peasant notifies him of a village
past the Volga River, where families are
immediately granted 25 acres of fertile
land for free.
2
18. Intrigued, Pahom and his family move to the village,
where they experience upward mobility, or the
ascension to a wealthier economic class. Pahom now
owns three times as much arable land, shares communal
pasture, and can purchase as much cattle as he wants.
However, he soon feels constrained by the size of his
property again. Wanting to own freehold land separate
from a commune, Pahom soon encounters a passing
peasant who offers him freehold land at an affordable
price. A merchant then interrupts Pahom from finalizing
the deal, informing him of the distant region of the
Bashkirs, a group of Turkish people occupying the Ural
Mountains. The dealer claims that as long as Pahom
offers gifts to the Bashkirs, he can purchase fertile land
for less than two cents an acre.
19. Pahom travels to Bashkiria with one of his
laborers, abandoning his family. He discovers that
Bashkirs are uninterested in managing and
working on their own land, instead devoting their
time to socializing and drinking kumiss with each
other. The Bashkirs warmly greet Pahom, who
then gifts them with tea, wine, and clothes and
then expresses his desire to purchase some of
their land. The Bashkir chief explains that he can
claim as much land as he wants for 1,000 roubles
a day; however, he must section off land by foot,
mark his spots with a spade, and return to his
starting point by sunset. Convinced that he will
be able to claim as much land as he could ever
imagine, Pahom enthusiastically agrees to the
proposition.
4
20. That night, Pahom dreams that the
traveling peasant, dealer, and Bashkir
chief each transform into the Devil, who
then laughs at a dead body at his feet.
Pahom discovers that he is the dead
figure and wakes up, alarmed. He shrugs
off the nightmare and awakes the
Bashkirs, declaring that he is ready to
start covering his land.
21. Equipped with a spade, some bread, and a flask of
water, Pahom begins his walk at the top of a small
hillock and covers several miles of land despite the
fierce heat. Around noon, he temporarily rests to have
a small lunch, but continues walking at a rushed pace
thereafter. With ten miles left in his journey, Pahom
becomes exhausted. He starts running, fearing that he
will not return to the hillock before sunset. He
approaches the bottom of the hillock just as the sun
sets. Spotting the Bashkir Chief laughing and grasping
his sides at the top of the hillock, Pahom remembers
his dream before finally collapsing to the ground and
dying from exhaustion.
22. worker digs a small grave
for Pahom, and the narrator closes
the story with the following remark:
"Six feet from his head to his heels was
all he needed" .
24. Symbols
• You have one minute to discuss and answer.
• Submit your answers by the end of the round.
25. Pahom uses a spade, a tool commonly used for
digging, to denote his progress throughout his
walk in Bashkiria. As body decays from
exhaustion, he removes several of his garments
and materials, including his coat, shoes, flask, and
cap. Notably, he still clutches onto the spade, an
image signifying his devotion to claiming as much
property as possible even at the risk of his own
life. The spade shows the figurative extent of his
greed: it is Pahom's greed that propels him to use
his spade to map out more Bashkirian land than
he can possibly cover in a day. Later, the
workman uses the spade to dig grave,
illustrating how excessive greed can not only
but can precipitate an untimely demise.
26. The Bashkirs drink kumiss a traditional Central
Asian alcoholic drink made from fermented
milk during celebratory gatherings, including
arrival in Bashkiria and the clinching of
his land acquisition. Kumiss thus symbolizes the
joys of community and immaterial pleasures.
Before Pahom embarks on his day of covering
and claiming Bashkirian land, the Bashkirs offer
him kumiss one last time, a gesture representing
Pahom's
pleasures over land acquisition and material
status. Too preoccupied with starting his day as
early as possible, Pahom declines the kumiss
offering, thus foreshadowing his definitive fall
into a rapacious, status-obsessed lifestyle
devoid of spiritual meaning and interpersonal
connection.
Kumiss
27. In Parts 8 9, sole companion is the sun, a
symbol of his impending death. Throughout the day,
Pahom gazes at the sky to cross-reference his progress
the horizon, Pahom frantically tries to outrun the sun to
reach his goal. However, death is as inevitable
as the sunset. The image of the sinking "red as blood" sun
retiring for the day prefigures Pahom's blood flowing
from his mouth as he collapses to the ground and dies
(23).
![born August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, Yasnaya
Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire died November 7
[November 20], 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province), Russian
greatest novelists.
Leo Tolstoy, Tolstoy
also spelled Tolstoi,
Russian in full Lev
Nikolayevich, Graf
(count) Tolstoy](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)