Tolstoy College Essays Samples For Students

- Explain Tolstoy’s view of art as consisting in the communication of emotions. Would Tolstoy consider Salvador Dali’s paintings to be art? Explain your answer, one way or the other.
Tolstoy’s viewed art as an expression of an artist’s feelings of emotions that tend to drive them towards undertaking the noble cause of art in the simplest of ways. This state of emotion can then be passed on to the audience in equal measure. Feelings of admiration, fear, or love can be communicated through art as perceived by Tolstoy and essentially be communicated to ...

According to Tolstoy, art should create a certain emotional connection between artist and audience that "infects" the viewer. Thus, the real art requires the ability to bring people together through communication “channel”, hence the importance of clarity and sincerity. Tolstoy`s aesthetic concept led to the expansion of the criteria of a work of art. He believes that the concept of art encompasses any human activity. Tolstoy offers the following example. The boy who was afraid when he saw the wolf, later, recounts his experience and infects the audience, making them feel as if they were in danger themselves. And this ...

Questions

1. What lessons does the reader learn as he travels with Marlow down the Congo River? In Joseph Conrad’s he reader learns the lessons that the line separating “civilization” from “savagery” is much thinner than Marlow suspects in the beginning. The further he goes down the river, the further he moves away from civilization. But while the physical moving away form civilization is obvious, it is the mental, internal moving away which is most interesting to the theme of the novel.
Marlow learns that it takes little for a person to lose touch with the civilization that they ...

Hadji Murat is a fictional novel written by a Russian named Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy also known as Leo Tolstoy and was published in 1912 in Russia. It is a story of a young man called Hadji Murat who betrayed by his fellow Caucasian, Shamil, goes to seek the help of the Russian soldiers so as to revenge against Shamil. This quest does not end well for him.
The Russian empire functioned under a strict emperor that was guarded by soldiers. They had enemies from Chechens and who were with them. There were a lot of terrorist activities at the time and soldiers were assigned ...

Leo Tolstoy, a well-known novelist, wrote a confession regarding the author’s encountered hardship during his mid-life existential crisis of melancholia. In the confession the author is seen pondering on two philosophical questions- “What is the meaning of my life?” and “What will come of my life?” The confession by Leo Tolstoy provides a strong question regarding how to live one’s life despite knowing that death is inevitable. Tolstoy of death as not only the finality of a human life, but also the disappearing of all his or her traces in the face of the earth. What comes of his or her achievements ...

Introduction

For the sake of this project, I chose to analyze the following literary and nonliterary works:
- “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy (Novel)
- Death of a Salesman, directed by Laszlo Benedek (Film)
- “Piano Man,” written and performed by Billy Joel (Music)
All three of these works relate to the ways in which we live our lives, and the necessity to be able to view our lives much more abstractly and open-mindedly – the works feature characters who are either served well or could be served well by their capacity for critical thought ...

“The relationship between any movie adaptation and its literary source is more like a passionate fling, a ships-passing-in-the-night moment when the patient prose of fiction meets the flickering, fluid poetry of film, and they see something in one another and decide, against all reason, to give it a go.” (Rafferty) I have two passions in my life: literature and cinematography. However I love them separately, as all the efforts to merge them together are rarely crowned with success, even if the most talented directors work on such movies. Therefore, I did not expect Anna Karenina” by Joe Wright to be a success, as ...

Ivan Ilyich had been a simple and ordinary man in the sense that he spent most of his life cut off from all the harsh and unpleasant realities of life in Russian society, and instead concentrated on climbing the social and economic ladder, at least up to the point where he literally fell off. At first he thought this was only a temporary setback, but it gradually dawned on him that his injury was fatal, and even worse, he also became conscious of the fact that his life had no meaning. There was something rotten inside Ivan’s body, perhaps a cancer ...

The novel by Leo Tolstoy entitled “Hadji Murat” is an interesting piece because it is both historical and fiction. It is a fictitious story written about an important Avar leader during the 1800s who was once a big influence in the history of Russia. The story’s plot revolves around a war between Muslims and Russia. Tolstoy has an interesting way of going about the story, how he separated plot lines in order to show the affects of the events on each character in the novel. This was a very good read which has received a number of good reviews. The novel was first ...

Leo Tolstoy often wrote about marriage and relationship in his novels. One of the most famous books of the writer is dedicated to the theme of love is the ironic novel Anna Karenina. There are two narrative lines of the story: the relationship of a married lady Anna Karenina and Vronsky opposes the marriage of Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shtcherbatskaya. The essay discusses the difference between the relationship of two main couples of the novel, Levin and Kitty, Anna and Vronsky. The investigation is held according to the postulates in the modern social psychology and touches the issues of ...

Leo Tolstoy has extensively written on art in his book, ‘what is art’. Though he says that art is modest there are several scholars who think that his theorizing of art is perhaps the most immodest contribution to aesthetics ever written. Tolstoy is one of the greatest philosophers of the world and known for his works done on the world, life and on various other areas. This paper discusses the concept of art according to the Leo Tolstoy, test of infectiousness and several related aspects of the subject.
Tolstoy's views on art are often referred to, explained by ...

In The Death of Ivan Ilych, the title character is a middle-aged judge who lives in Russia in the 19th century. A person of high social standing, he has a very good life, though he and his wife do not get along by any means. One day, after hurting himself putting up curtains in his decadent new apartment, he starts feeling ill, and soon it becomes evident that he is dying of whatever vague illness has befallen him. With this senseless new information, Ivan Ilych starts to examine his own purpose in life, and whether he has lived life to the ...

Tolstoy’s theme of life and death is universal and holds true even today. In the Death of Ivan Ilyich, the author narrates Ivan Ilyich’s journey towards death: the denial, the fear, and the alienation. When Ilyich is on his death bed, he realizes that he has failed to live rightly. As he dies, the reader realizes that death of the body is false, and is the start of a new life and a new truth. It is a journey of the soul that continues even if the soul parts with the body. Tolstoy also points out that ...

and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Good and Evil have been main themes to different stories. People always trying to get more than they need in real life. People are searching to get their own benefit. Materialistic world has become superior to many people. “How Much Land Does a Man Need” by Leo Tolstoy and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Poe expose the most negative characteristics of human character.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" delineates Poe's basic principle that solidarity of impact relies on upon solidarity of tone. Everything about this ...

Human beings have an inner conscious that gauge them when they try to do what they do not have to do, because the inner being remind them that there are consequences to what they opt to do. Tolstoy and Nathaniel Hawthorne have developed stories that are significantly similar because they explain the inner being and their forces, as well as the outer forces that force people to do what they might not have thought of doing and elaborate on how the devil can mock the virtues of people. Tolstoy story is “How Much Land Does a Man Need” (2015), ...

In this work we are going to analyze novels by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky on the basis of the following criteria: the role of epigraph in a story, the description of minor characters, the reasons for committing suicide and symbols that appear in both novels.
- The role of epigraph in a story
Unfortunately, but many people underestimate the role of epigraphs in literary works. However, in many cases authors place them on purpose and in such a way make a foreshadowing, which helps the reader to develop his own expectations upon the plot, to better understate the characters and the essence ...

Sevastopol Sketches played a major role in the development of Tolstoy's realism. Not only the formation of the human soul, but also a person in his relations to nation, to homeland, to history, and the psychic factors of people involved in these severe historical events seem to occupy the author's mind in that period. Written in the genre of sketches and based on the evidence of these events, Sevastopol Sketches provide generalized pictures of life, introduce the crucial problems of war and peace, the true heroism, patriotism, and reveal the depths of human psyche meeting the face of death.
...

In his letter to Mohandas Gandhi of September 7, 1910, Leo Tolstoy argues that the purest form of love would not allow for violence. His position emphasizes that one cannot have love for another and respond in an aggressive or harmful manner. Christ did not support nor preach that violence or forceful actions against another would be acceptable under any means. There is not a situation in the world that could justify a violent response. Even when one is robbed of all his or her possessions and left alone to suffer, the individual who has love for his fellow ...

Leo Tolstoy’s short story, Death of Ivan Ilych, tells the story of a man in his middle-forties about to die of unknown causes. Because of this, the protagonist, Ivan Ilych, begins to reflect on his life, whether he was able to lead a good and fulfilling life or not. As he became successful at work, he spent less time with his family as his relationship with his family became intolerable. While Ilych was well-loved by his colleagues, his wife and daughter do not share the same affections towards him. The only one that truly showed compassion towards him is his ...

Every individual is unique. This is not the most outstanding statement, but the one people know from their childhood. This is actually true; human beings have different characters, habits and reactions to the same events. A lot of personal qualities are determined in the early years of each individual. The character is formed in the childhood and a lot depends on the way the parents bring their son or daughter up. The environment, friends, relatives and even country, everything is essential to influence the future of adult man or woman. The surprising thing is that in spite of the ...

There are many symbols is the short story by Leo Tolstoy The death of Ivan Ilyich. The most significant symbols are the black sack and the border around the death notice. In this essay, I will try to outline several other symbols in the short story and analyze them.
The border is the first symbol that appears when reading the story. Ivan Ilyich’s friends notice an obituary in the newspaper, which was framed with a black border. The border symbolizes how small and insignificant a person’s life may be. Everything that a correspondent need was a black border. The point ...

Leo Tolstoy considered art to be important in communication. He said art is very crucial as it can be used to pass an important message. He argued that people who reject art are very wrong as they are rejecting a necessary means of communication. He argued that without art mankind cannot live. He said that if people reject art then they are rejecting a very crucial means of communication. Leo Tolstoy considered art as a means of passing a message silently. Art passes a lot of messages and it can be used to express ones feelings. He argued that art is a social enterprise. He ...

Art has come a long way from its original meaning. It was first known as ars in Latin meaning,”skill, method, technique, conduct, character.”1 from then on it travelled to old France to Middle English to what is now “art”. In dictionaries, it has been defined as,
The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.2 (Oxford)
Tolstoy, on the other hand describes it as one of the means of intercourse between man and man. ...

Introduction

The attempt of looking for the good in life is an ongoing process and it is not something that can be pursued at an instant. Many people will pursue several things to attain the ‘good life’; I look at attaining wealth, the kind that gives freedom as my major goal. My desire to attain wealth goes beyond more real purchasing power to bring internal happiness.

Money

As a facilitation of trade, money is a mode of exchange. Due to the flexibility that money possesses it makes it a remarkable improvement from the era of barter trade. We will start by having a look at ...

Introduction

The established view of the Portrayal of Marriage in the 19th century in "Hedda Gabler" and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is a study of aggravation and misery created in the exceptional individuals by a conventionalized society. The establishment of Ibsen’s play predominantly focuses on the most central character, Hedda Gabler who is presented in some eligible sense at least as an existential or a person who can cause tragedies in the society. Hedda Gabler has presented the reader with a certain version of a “modest tragedy”, that form in which the assertions of an isolated person are ingenuously asserted against those ...

The Phenomenology of sickness and disease

Sickness and disease arise from our consciousness. The manner in which people think is reflected on their health and their physiological being. Sickness is sometimes not a biological phenomenon as many people may think. In the case of Ivan Ilyich, the latter is more disturbed by the thoughts in his mind than his sickness. He is bitter about his wife and daughter’s lack of concern, and scared about his impending death (Tolstoy, 1981). Ilyich believes that the cause for any sickness is the badness of an individual, and he believes he has lived a good life to have ...

Philosophy Questions

Philosophy Questions

Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism.

For Rene Descartes’ dualism is Spiritual; for John Searle, it’s Physical. Descartes believes the mind has consciousness and with that power we can say that the ‘seat-of-intelligence’ belongs to the brain. He also believes that through this we acquire self awareness, but for Searle, consciousness is not only because of the brain. Though brains cause consciousness, he points out that the brain is not the only thing that can produce consciousness. He even states that if ever we built an artificial machine that has consciousness. it further proves the point. He also says that the relationship ...

Social Issues in the Films “Anna Karenina” and “The First Grader”

“Anna Karenina” is considered to be a great historical novel written by Russian world renowned novelist Lev Tolstoy. It is also a film directed by Joe Wright. It serves up all the important issues intertwined with tasty, thrilling, salacious and tantalizing gossip. It is a story with varied affairs, complete with sex, heartbreak and eventually, suicide-by-train (Anna Karenina). Having written the novel during the 1870s, there were lots of political and societal changes in Russia. The novel occurs against the backdrop of liberal reforms represented by Emperor Alexander II in the 1860s. These reforms involved prompt growth and development ...

The American thinker, philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau devoted all his short life (1817-1862) to еру search for the truth, moral purity and simplicity of the human relationships, harmony of the world of people and the nature. Henry Thoreau became one of the most eloquent propagandists of the idea of the civil disobedience (Cain, 2000).
Once, when he came to the city for one day in a shoe shop, Thoreau was caught by the police because he did not pay the poll tax. Faced with a choice to go to jail or pay, a hermit chose the first variant, thus, protesting ...

Question one

Art is a skillful representation of human thoughts in a visual form, such as a sculpture, painting, etc. that are primarily deemed to be beautiful (Joseph A. Goguen, 2000). Tolstoy (1899) defines art as the representation of human experiences such as happiness, suffering, among others, whether real or imagined on a canvas or marble. The human experience in most cases compels them make visual representations that they can appreciate better. It is also a way of communication i.e. one can pass ideas from generation to another for hundreds of year to come. For example, the Michelangelo paintings on the last judgment on the ceiling ...

Question1

“Kubler-Ross approach” which is generally referred to as “five stages of grief” is an assumption which was introduced by a person known as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In the model, Kubler-Ross argues that a person may experience a series of emotional stages especially if he knows that he or she about to die soon. The series of emotional switch include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and even acceptance. However, Kubler-Ross suggests that not everybody who experiences an altering event or life threatening events undergoes all the five stages and thus it depends with the individual.
In the case involving “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” ...

Introduction

In the opening of the story, Hemmingway begins with a short pitch epigraph, an observation of a lone dried leopard carcass that sought the tip of Mount Kilimanjaro, which the Maasai call "Ngaje Ngai," meaning the House of God (Hemingway, 2004). Harry, a writer, attempted to return the virtues of honesty, hard work, and struggles as a step in the right direction through his African safari. His previous life was characterized by luxury, idleness, and procrastination. The writer has lived under his wife’s (Helen) wealth, which has made him decline in his artistic work. The theme of self-pity and frustration are the ...

Art is human beings way of expressing the world around them. It could be the real visible world or the imaginary world (Tolstoy 14). Human beings use various art forms to express themselves. This could be music, dance and literature or the finer skills of painting, carving or drawing. In essence, art combines both the human skill and imagination to produce a work that is emotionally appealing.
The works that are compared and contrasted in this paper have been selected from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The two works of art are Laocoon by El Greco ...