The primary character of “How Much Land Does A person Need?” is a clear instance of an insatiable want for possessions and wealth which on the finish destroys the particular person.
Pahom was dwelling a life “free from nervousness” as his spouse stated and “with out time to let any nonsense settle in his head” in line with Pahom’s phrases. Because the story develops it reveals Pahom’s actual downside was inside him as a result of he was by no means content material or please with the land and the possessions he had.
Initially of the story, Pahom was a peasant with out land of his personal, working each day to help his household and pondering “Our solely hassle is that we haven’t land sufficient. If I had loads of land, I shouldn’t worry the satan himself”; when in actuality the avarice inside Pahom lied dormant and he was not conscious that his want to acquire “loads of land” will inevitably awaken the monster inside him that might by no means be happy.
The primary time Pahom had a land of his personal was a farm of forty acres. “So he grew to become a landowner, plowing and sowing his personal land, making hay on his personal land, reducing his personal timber, and feeding the cattle of his personal pasture. When he went out to plough the fields, or to have a look at his rising corn, or at his grass meadows, his coronary heart would fill with pleasure”. This farm appeared to him in contrast to every other land, fulfilling his goals till he heard the story of a higher place the place he’ll be capable of have extra land of his personal. At this second the greed in him started to blind Pahom to the simplicity of his life and to be grateful and fulfilled for what he had.
The second farm he acquired had 125 acres and Pahom, “had thrice as a lot as at his former residence, and the land was good corn land. He was ten instances higher off than he had been. He had loads of arable land and pasturage, and will hold as many head of cattle as he appreciated.”
Clearly greed doesn’t have limits and it’s a a part of our human nature some posses a better degree of greed than others however however greed holds no boundaries and the phrase a lot has no which means in any respect.
I ponder what Pahom’s spouse was pondering now as a result of within the dialog she has along with her sisters, she was extra involved with the temptations of the encircling cities however didn’t take into account the avarice mendacity inside her husband that when, fed results in smash. Pahom had all of it however Pahom was not joyful, he was not content material, he was not happy with the land he had.
His greed lead him in to a path of destruction that’s finest described by the dream he had the evening earlier than his loss of life. “He thought he was mendacity in that very same tent, and heard any individual chuckling outdoors. He questioned who it could possibly be, and rose and went out, and he noticed the the Bashkir Chief sitting in entrance of the tent holding his facet and rolling about with laughter. Going nearer to the Chief, Pahom requested: “What are you laughing at?” However he noticed that it was now not the Chief, however the supplier who had lately stopped at his home and had informed him concerning the land.
Simply as Pahom was going to ask, “Have you ever been right here lengthy?” he noticed that it was not the supplier, however the peasant who had come up from the Volga, way back, to Pahom’s outdated residence. Then he noticed that it was not the peasant both, however the Satan himself with hoofs and horns, sitting there and chuckling, and earlier than him lay a man barefoot, prostrate on the bottom, with solely trousers and a shirt on. And Pahom dreamed that he regarded extra attentively to see what kind of a man it was mendacity there, and he noticed that the person was lifeless, and that it was himself! He awoke horror struck.”
Pahom by no means had sufficient land, he all the time wanted extra to feed the insatiable greed that managed his life. The next excerpt from the poem Who Am I? written by Dietrich Bonheoffer describes higher the situation of Pahom’s battle: “Who Am I? This or the opposite?
Am I one particular person as we speak and tomorrow one other?
Am I each directly? A hypocrite earlier than others,
And earlier than myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is one thing inside me nonetheless like a crushed military?
Fleeing in dysfunction from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine
Whoever I’m, Thou knowest, O God, I’m Thine.”
Time after time Pahom was not in a position to benefit from the fruit of his laborious work as a results of the avarice consuming him. Because the proverb says: ” A grasping man hasten after wealth and doesn’t know that poverty will come across him” Proverbs 28:22
Pahom died in search of increasingly more land of his personal and on the finish “his servant picked up the spade and dug a grave lengthy sufficient for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six ft from his head to his heels was all he wanted”.