Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What Men Live By, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mystery
Rationality vs. Generosity
Selfless Love
Summary
Analysis
Semyon and Mikhail begin to make the gentleman’s boots. They have decided that Mikhail will do the bulk of the work, since his eyes are sharper than Semyon’s. Matryona watches as Mikhail begins to cut the leather for the boots and is startled to find that he is cutting the pieces far too small for boots. However, she stays silent, telling herself that Mikhail surely knows what he is doing. Then Mikhail begins to sew the leather together; Matryona is again astonished to see that he is using a single piece of thread—as if making slippers—instead of a doubled piece of thread, which is needed for boots. When Semyon sees what Mikhail has done to the leather, he is horrified and dismayed. He reprimands Mikhail for ruining the boots and despairs about the punishment that awaits him.
Matryona’s reaction to Mikhail’s strange behavior shows how much her character has changed since the beginning of the story, as well as how much she now trusts Mikhail. Even though Matryona was shown to be the more frugal and less generous spouse—in terms of both money and faith in the world’s mysteries—in this case, Semyon has less trust in Mikhail than Matryona does.
Themes
Just then, someone knocks on the door, and they open it to find the boy servant who had been with the gentleman the day before. When asked why he has come, the boy explains that the gentleman will no longer need the boots, because he died in the carriage on the way home from Semyon’s house yesterday. Instead, the expensive leather must be made into a pair of slippers for the gentleman to wear in his coffin. Mikhail exhibits no surprise on hearing this news; he calmly takes the slippers he has already made and hands them to the boy.
In this shocking turn of events, Mikhail’s aura of mystery and knowledge reaches new heights. His distant smile during the gentleman’s visit now seems to be some kind of divine premonition, suggesting that he is perhaps supernatural or connected to God in a way that the other characters aren’t.
Themes
