Tolstoy: A Christian Anarchist
First of all, to understand the message of this story and Tolstoy, we need to consider the age that Tolstoy lived and his world of thought. we should pay attention to two things.
First one is that he was the chiristian anarchist. Chitistian anarchist are mostly pasifist and they took the viewpoint that all governments who wage war, and churches who in turn support those governments, are an affront to the Christian principles of nonviolence and nonresistance. They believe freedom and equality will only be guided by the grace of God if people show compassion to others and turn the other cheek when confronted with violence. ‘’Peter’s character and his ideas are a reflection of Tolstoy’s thoughts. For example, he did not admit Vasili’s advise about killing the superindent.( as we seen in paragraph bıdı bıdı) ANd At the end of the story , the superindent died by the grace of god. so, the justice can only be administered in a religious way.
The second thing we should also consider is that Tolstoy was affected by the politic atmosphere of his time, plus his thinking were also influenced by marxist view. He is aware of the class conflict and exploitation of labour. Vasili is an image of a proletarian of the time. He is at the bottom of the system, he is the one who suffers most from the explotitation. That’s why his ideas are more radical than his colleagues. We see this fact in his idea of killing the superindent and trying to convince others to do so. The story generally is a comparison between a proletarian with the concious of class conflict and a religious christian.
With the class conflict view, bourgeois are the ones who harms society for their own profit. They abuse workers and so they are the diseases of the society. In this story, a dog that is mad refers the bourgeois and their men among proletariat.
Killing the mad dog seems a quick and effective solution for the problem to Vasili; and that’s because he is a proletarian who is abused most. Peter, in the
First one is that he was the chiristian anarchist. Chitistian anarchist are mostly pasifist and they took the viewpoint that all governments who wage war, and churches who in turn support those governments, are an affront to the Christian principles of nonviolence and nonresistance. They believe freedom and equality will only be guided by the grace of God if people show compassion to others and turn the other cheek when confronted with violence. ‘’Peter’s character and his ideas are a reflection of Tolstoy’s thoughts. For example, he did not admit Vasili’s advise about killing the superindent.( as we seen in paragraph bıdı bıdı) ANd At the end of the story , the superindent died by the grace of god. so, the justice can only be administered in a religious way.
The second thing we should also consider is that Tolstoy was affected by the politic atmosphere of his time, plus his thinking were also influenced by marxist view. He is aware of the class conflict and exploitation of labour. Vasili is an image of a proletarian of the time. He is at the bottom of the system, he is the one who suffers most from the explotitation. That’s why his ideas are more radical than his colleagues. We see this fact in his idea of killing the superindent and trying to convince others to do so. The story generally is a comparison between a proletarian with the concious of class conflict and a religious christian.
With the class conflict view, bourgeois are the ones who harms society for their own profit. They abuse workers and so they are the diseases of the society. In this story, a dog that is mad refers the bourgeois and their men among proletariat.
Killing the mad dog seems a quick and effective solution for the problem to Vasili; and that’s because he is a proletarian who is abused most. Peter, in the