How Much Land Does a Man Need

“How Much Land Does a Man Need”

• Genre: Fiction; short story
• Originally Published: 1886
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: Approx. 9 pages; approx. 36 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: When his wife and sister-in-law argue over the pros and cons of town and farm life, the peasant Pahóm thinks that “if [he] had plenty of land, [he] shouldn’t fear the Devil himself,” but little does he know that Satan is hiding behind the stove and hears him. When the opportunity arises to purchase a large area of land for a small price, Pahóm takes on more than he can handle, with catastrophic consequences.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Death, images of the devil  

Leo Tolstoy, Author

• Bio: 1828-1910; Russian writer regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time; born to a family of Russian nobility; fourth of five children; studied law and languages at Kazan University but didn’t graduate; served as an artillery officer during the Crimean War; married Sophia Andreevna Behrs in 1862; had 13 children, eight surviving to adulthood; profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist thought and that being a Christian requires pacifism; nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902-1906 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1909; died at age 82 of pneumonia; thousands of peasants lined the streets of the funeral procession
• Other Works: Childhood (1852); Family Happiness (1859); War and Peace (1869); Anna Karenina (1878); Resurrection (1899)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Envy, Greed, and Loss
• Temptation and the Deadly Sins
• Contentment and Community

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the historical and social contexts regarding the effect of the 1861 Emancipation of the serfs on the economy and social hierarchy of the Russian Empire, which incites Pahóm’s trajectory of Envy, Greed, and Loss.
• Analyze paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Envy, Greed, and Loss and Contentment and Community.
• Create and present a social commentary that demonstrates an understanding of the role of this form of writing in conveying a particular message based on text details.