52 pages 1 hour read

Leo Tolstoy

How Much Land Does a Man Need

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1886

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Essay Topics

1.

James Joyce, a famous Irish writer, once declared that “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” was “the greatest story that the literature of the world knows” (qtd. in Hurn, Rachel. “How Much Land Does a Man Need.” The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2011). Joyce might have been exaggerating, but in general, do you share his opinion of the story? What do you think Joyce saw in the story that was so worthy of praise?

2.

Read “The Imp and the Crust,” another story by Tolstoy that is based on a folktale and also features the devil as a character. How does this story compare to “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” Do the stories have the same moral lesson? How do they differ?

3.

Tolstoy’s belief at the time he wrote “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” was that literature should provide moral lessons that help people to live well. He thought that literature should be uplifting and communicate a simple, universal Christian truth; it should educate people and be intelligible to the common folk, not just the educated elites. He therefore thought much of Western art and literature was immoral and even rejected his own novel, Anna Karenina, which by common consent is one of the great 19th-century novels.

Related Titles

By Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

A Confession

Leo Tolstoy

A Confession

Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

God Sees the Truth, but Waits

Leo Tolstoy

God Sees the Truth, but Waits

Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

Hadji Murat

Leo Tolstoy

Hadji Murat

Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

The Kreutzer Sonata

Leo Tolstoy

The Kreutzer Sonata

Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

Study Guide

logo

What Men Live By

Leo Tolstoy

What Men Live By

Leo Tolstoy