Mystery
Tolstoy’s “What Men Live By” abounds with mysteries and unanswered questions. When the shoemaker Semyon and his wife, Matryona, take in a naked stranger, Mikhail, they are unable to glean concrete information from the man about his past and identity. In addition to Mikhail’s mysterious history, his behavior bewilders Semyon and Matryona: in the six years he lives with them, he smiles only three times. (Moreover, it is not clear to the couple…
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Rationality vs. Generosity
In Tolstoy’s “What Men Live By,” characters frequently engage in rational thinking and cold calculation as a way of dealing with hardship. The shoemaker Semyon and his wife Matryona, for example, spend much of the story’s first chapters engaging in elaborate mental calculations and justifications concerning their own poverty. They attempt to use reason and rational judgment both to determine how much they can “afford” to share with others and to defend their acts…
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Selfless Love
As its several biblical epigraphs foretell, Tolstoy’s “What Men Live By” is fundamentally a parable about Christian love, as it strives to show that God is manifested in people’s selfless compassion toward one another. This idea is advanced in part by the characters’ fates: those who are greedy and selfish are punished, while those who love each other selflessly are rewarded. However, it is also supported by the protagonists’ emotional experiences: at key moments throughout…
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