Critical Writing on Leo Tolstoy's How Much Land Does a Man Need

The physical surrounding is a country side where the land is vast and beautiful. It is situated in Europe. The land of Bashkir community seems to have a tribal setup. This time period is the 19^th century in Eastern Europe where the Baskhirs live. It was a summer day with high intensity of heat as the protagonist felt the heat when he was ascending the hill.  

A peasant by the name of Pakhom travels in search of land to a country side where he is to meet a village elder. Here he negotiates with the village elder to buy some tract of land of the beautiful country side. A deal is finalized between them.

Pakhom starts his journey at dawn and has to make it to the starting point by sundown as per his agreement with the village elder. As Pakhom proceeds he is tempted to cover more land. He wishes to walk through more territory and he is promised to have the land which he marks on foot. Pakhom finally reaches the hill from where he started his journey. Exhausted and drained of all energy he could not even stand on his feet. He collapsed and died of exhaustion in front of the villagers. His death was marked by an ordinary grave dug out for him by his workers.

The village elder seemed a fool. In replying to Pakhom’s query the village elder said that all of the land on which Pakhom would walk would be given to him. Here this statement was a verbal irony as the village elder surely knew that Pakhom would not be able to complete his journey in time.

The narrator used foreshadowing by hinting that Pakhom was on an easy going journey and was to cover another three miles of the territory. Surely this shows that as the story would develop his greed for more land would also increase and would take him to any extent.

Pakhom is the major character involved whereas the village elder is the minor character. Pakhom is the protagonist in the story and the unnamed village elder is the antagonist. Pakhom is a dynamic character as the narrator explains aspects of this character steadily, ranging from his experiences of travelling to buy more land and the struggle on his walk as he is greedy for more land he wishes to buy on a very cheap price.

An external conflict develops between the main character Pakhom and the village elder. Pakhom who struggles to acquire more land thinks that Bashkirs would think that he is an idiot who did not keep his word by abandoning his journey. This also shows that how Pakhom in order to avoid embarrassment strives harder to get to the top of the hill. It depicts the traditional village social life which is a conflict between man and society.

Human beings are greedy in nature and are always tempted to gain more in any way possible. In our quest for wanting the best we as humans put our lives on the line and often end up with destroying ourselves. This theme is universal in nature as it reflects that every human being in this world would have an end. The theme of this story is brought to focus by the title of the story. The constant struggle on part of the protagonist to acquire more land makes him forget about the actual land needed for him. It is also a Marxist critique of literature as Marxism is against the hoarding of resources in a few hands, which in this case is the lust for ownership of more land on Pakhom’s part. In support of equality it criticizes man for his greed which is a cause of inequality in society.

The point of view is a 3^rd person omniscient.