Last Thoughts…For Now

Entry #30
Work: Tolstly, Master and Man

Some thoughts:

The scene shift that describes Vassili facing all of his (for want of a better term) character defects is very effective. If not for this journey, perhaps he’d never reach the point of sacrifice he makes at the end with Nikita.

And what of the blessing of life that Nikita receives? He receives a gift more precious than life. He makes decisions that require sacrifice to his family. Losing a few fingers seems a small price to pay for the peace he receives upon his death. I don’t think it’s all that much different from the peace that visits Vassili. He has another twenty years to try to make things right. He leaves the wife whom we may not look kindly upon, but to him, it’s the right thing to do. With death, he removes the burden he feels he’s placed upon his son and grandchildren. He is gifted with the wish of having a lighted candle in his hand (of that, I know not the significance). One blessing follows another. A sort of retrospective “paying it forward.”

I know that these stories are necessary to contrast the extremes of humanity, though some would say they’re not so extreme: Vassili begins as a member of the greedy upper-crust and Nikita is a drunk, plain and simple. But it’s not. It’s not plain and simple. Tolstoy managed, in the story he considered just a little tale, to draw out the nuances and show that the synthesis is not so difficult, but it requires something more than just an ethical discourse. It requires GOD. And, gee, what better topic for “Religion in Literature?”

Till later…