Greed "How Much Land Does a Man Need?"

At the beginning of How Much Land Does a Man Need? Pakhom is the humble Peasant with everything he needs to live his life in comfort. However, he becomes consumed by his greed disguised in ambition. What he did not realize was that greed and evil are passive and subtle. He’s welcomed with the choice of going the humble and righteous path that is best for all people. However, he continued to be tempted by the devil with more land. He says how he has had, “No time to get any foolishness into my head”( Tolstoy, 2). What Pakhom did not realize was that greed is not a product of having many things, but a lack of appreciation for what one has, with a desire for more.

Greed is the path that Pakhom chose to take, not the path that he was given. You have a choice in the decisions you make, but they are not given to you in a convenient way. One must make the decision of the path they choose to take. Unfortunately, for Pakhom the differentiation between greed and ambition in his path was confused. It’s clear from the story that greed was a clear drive towards the end of the story when he kills himself out of greed for more land that was no longer even a pursuit to offer more land for his family. At that point he desired nothing more than the material object of land itself. However, it seems unclear in the beginning whether or not it was the devil that provoked greed into Pakhom, or whether it was something that was inherent in his character. One of the first mentions of land he says, “ give me land, and I fear no man” (Tolstoy, 2). This I imagined to be the introduction of the characters weakness, and therefore his most vulnerable temptation.  He lived a humble life up until this point, so I interpret this temptation as something that that provokes the weaknesses out of you. For that reason, I would say that greed is inherent in all people. However, it’s people resistance to temptations in greed that define their righteousness. Greed is something that comes out of weakness.

Greed is blinding in the eyes of Pakhom, he continues to go down the path of more greed by taking out more loans in order to acquire more land. He is even welcome by a dream that presents him as the devil in it and doesn’t even blink an eye. While Pakhom cannot see this greed that has consumed him, the people around him are very aware of it.  At the beginning of the story the peasants complain saying how the, “overseer gets the land he will badger us with fines even worse than he did under the retired soldier”( Tolstoy, 3). However, he was to blinding to see that he inflicted this same pain amongst the peasants, fining those same people.

Tolstoy wanted to make clear the tempting nature of greed and its subtle nature. It’s something that can be tempting to anyone, even a simple humble peasant such as Pakhom. We all must be aware of our weaknesses and always be sure to know that we are doing what is best for the most amount of people, while also appreciating what we have.