English language and literature studies

Tolstoy and Shakespeare

"How Much Land Does a Man Need?"

The short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" By Tolstoy serves to teach a lesson to the reader. It is a morality play explaining the sin of greed and how it leads to trouble. The story begins with a peasant complaining that he does not have enough land. "If I had plenty of land, I shouldn't fear the Devil himself!" (Tolstoy 140) Land is thereby equated with lack of fear. In the end, greed is what causes the peasant Pahom's death. He believes that he can outwit his neighbors and get their land at a fraction of its value. His cockiness leads him to have a heart attack at sunset and be buried in a six foot grave. "Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed" (140). The title of the story becomes ironic in light of the story's conclusion. In the case of Pahom, all the land a man needs in the end is enough to bury him.

Author Tolstoy uses a man who has nothing to show that this lesson applies to everyone, wealthy and poor. When Pahom gets more land, he becomes a tyrant to those less fortunate. This would indicate to the reader that anyone is capable of descending the same way as Pahom. "Why should I suffer in this narrow hole, if one can live so well elsewhere?" (140). The moral becomes that nothing will be good enough if what one already possesses is not enough.

The Merchant of Venice

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" (III.I.58-60).

The above quote from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is spoken by the Jewish moneylender Shylock. Throughout the piece, Shylock is considered the villain by the other Christian characters. He is supposed to be the villain of the story but that is mostly because he is Jewish. He tells the people that Jews learned their cruelty from the Christians in that they were themselves cruel to the Jewish people. In Venice, the Jewish population are treated as villains before doing anything bad.