Essays on Tolstoy

The value of literature in human life cannot be overestimated. This kind of art is one of the most ancient and important for humankind. Though this type of art has a connection with such term as fiction, it still has quite a real basis. Literature has arisen much earlier than it was given a definition and typology. The man, who existed before the literature, had already used its main elements even earlier than ten thousand years ago, which played a very important role in the life of the whole humankind. Using the words that were written on stones, people ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

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 ...

[Class Title]

Introduction Death, as a form of punishment, is being practiced even in the earliest days of human civilization. The people of ancient Mesopotamia, during the time of Hammurabi, have been observed to perform death sentences on certain transgressions and immoral acts, as determined by their codes . Similarly, the Hebrews has also been using death as a capital punishment for several transgressions under their law. The traditional Law of Moses, which can also be read in the Christian bible, is, in fact, a relic of the age old tradition of exacting death penalty that has been practiced for ...

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 ...

Introduction and Thesis Statement

St. Aquinas believes that way is sinful and waging war is unjust. He argues that “those who take to sword will die by the sword.” According to him, war is a detriment of peace and therefore a sinful endeavor. However, St. Augustine explains the validity and the justifiability of war. He believes that war, to some extent, is just and necessary (White 269). However, for a war to be just, it has to follow three conditions. A just was must that that has been sanctioned by the highest authority. It will be unjust to wage war at a personal ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

Infidelity and Scandal in “The Storm” and Other 19th Century Writing

Many authors and artists in the nineteenth century tackled a great number of pressing issues in their time, particularly relating closely to the nature of adultery and infidelity. In the world of art, Augustus Leopold Egg’s famous triptych Past and Present demonstrated a husband’s discovery of his wife’s infidelity, and the consequences that ensued, creating a subtle breakdown of the traditional family unit that was thought to be impenetrable in the 19th century. Prominent writers like Leo Tolstoy and Kate Chopin also tackled this issue as well – Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina explores the inherent acceptance of male infidelity and ...

The following morning after Makar Semyonich had asked for forgiveness from Ivan Akisionov, he decided to visit the prison warden and confess his previous crime. It was a crime, which he committed, but he was never arrested or charged. It was during the next day, when a convoy of soldiers had led all the other prisoners out, in order to work that Semyonich excluded himself from the group and visited the warden's office. At the gate, he met two soldiers who were guarding the entrance to the office of the prison warden. He inquired whether the warden had arrived and the ...

Assignment 1:

Grief is a common part of everyone’s life. Everyone at some point in his or her life will deal with something like the death of a loved one. Many will be spared this early on in life, but some will experience this as young children. What was surprising to me about the readings was the realization that the outcome of the grief of loss changes with age. I always considered grief just an emotion and not something that is responded to differently with age. What was most surprising about grief in young children is what occurs between the ages ...

Introduction

Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy were from extreme opposites of the economic spectrum in Russia during the dying days of the nineteenth century. Chekhov was a grandson of a serf, while Tolstoy was an aristocrat. In spite of this, however, both writers saw and deeply felt the ironies of life as reflected in their own lives. This is especially brought out in the way that their short stories, Chekhov’s “The Bet” and Tolstoy’s “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”, employ character, irony and plot to explore the same theme; that is, the corruption involved in the acquisition ...

Tolstoy’s What is Art? examines the nature and purposes of art by focusing on it as a medium to communicate ideas, values and morality. He argues that most definitions and analysis of art are wrong because they focus exclusively on beauty, and instead focuses on the context in which it is used to share ideas, emotions and experiences. He does not completely neglect the beauty of art, but believes it is too vague and indefinable an idea to be a useful framework for analyzing the complicated question of “what is art?” According to Tolstoy, the essence of art, or what “ ...

Anybody who has read or watched The Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice & Fire Series –would agree with me that it is a series that shows every facet of deception used by humans. According to Merriam-Webster, the word “deceive” means, “to make someone believe something that is not true” or “to cause to accept true or valid what is false or invalid.” Deception is a form of dishonesty that is used everyone, every day. And the characters in this book are able to show how it is done so to achieve what one wants; whether it is something ...

Photography embraces various aspects of Art, which affirms that it is a form of Art. Artworks virtually develop their ideas through photography. It is apparent that photography employs high levels of Artistic elements and expertise. Furthermore, photograph conforms to the philosophical definitions of the art proposed by popular philosophers such as Socrates, Tolstoy, Wilde and Plato among others. The paper analyzes the concept of photography in line with the argument that photography is an Art. The philosophical beliefs argued by popular philosophers such as Socrates, Tolstoy and Wilde firm that photography is an Art. Socrates argued that Art is ...

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 ...

- 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

The story deals with the life of Ivan Iiych leading onto his last days. The story initially gives an insight of his early life. He is an individual with background affiliation in Law and legal studies. He goes on to achieve social standing and recognition. In between he often gets way too absorbed in his work speaking for his dedication, which in turn enables him gaining expertise. However the unusual deprivation of success brings about resentment in his behavior towards the professional career yet he continues struggling in a different way. He decides to try his luck in new atmosphere ...

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 ...

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 ...

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” ...

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

How does the style of this novel compare to the Great Novels of the 19th century that you have read? Why might a very transparent, "classical" realist style be well-suited to the subject matter here? It is a great novel which creates the sense of Tolstoy in Anna Karenina as well as Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The realist style is suited to the subject matter as there is a lot of socialist realism in the book and the main character has a lot of traits which are quite similar to the classic Romantic novels. 2. If you know anything about Socialist ...

“AND you say that a man cannot, of himself, understand what is goodand evil; that it is all environment, that the environment swamps theman. But I believe it is all chance. Take my own case . . ." A.Leo Tolstoy— the Short Story, “After the Ball.” B.Tolstoy wrote this story to reveal to the readers that anyone with a conscience is able to distinguish between good and evil. It may be a chance occurrence that gives one the revelation. One can use the insight thus gained to avoid evil because it brings pain to other human beings. C.The quote works as the ...

Noah’s story in Genesis approaches the nature of what it means to live in a rather different perspective from the other two. Noah according to King James Version of the Bible was a man of diligence and respect and walked in the ways of God. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis. 6: 8)”. Noah lived on earth in a time when men were evil and walked in their own knowledge. They cared less about morality or any code of ethics in which they were to live with. They showed no respect to God, who had created ...

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 ...

Literature is a way that to learn about the rhythms of cycles of life. Fiction with a good plot and interesting characters is entertaining but even in fiction the author is sharing the topics that he or she thinks is important. The ideas that are presented through the characters and settings may be universal such as love is good and hate is bad. But most often literature addresses complex and even controversial issues as one or more of the themes.

The thesis of this paper is that fiction entertains us while giving us an opportunity to explore important issues in life. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...