How Much Land Does a Man Need? Essay Questions

Explain the significance of the story’s last sentence, “Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed" (24). What is the relationship between the last sentence and the title of the story—how do the two thematically complement or juxtapose with each other? How does the final sentence characterize Pathom’s death, and how does this tie to the story’s portrayal of upward mobility?

The story’s title, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?,” appears to ask a rhetorical question. Before the final sentence, the title functions as a sly indictment of Pahom’s insatiable quest for land, rather than a conventional question necessitating a legitimate answer or explanation. However, after Pahom’s workman buries Pahom in a six-foot grave, the last line of the story literally answers and enriches the question the title posits. Pahom’s death, ironically, reveals how much land a man needs in life: just enough to bury his body in the ground.

The final sentence characterizes Pahom’s death as inconsequential. Pahom loses his values, decency, community, family, and his life in his unquenchable pursuit for property, but the last line does not acknowledge, much less affirm, these extreme travails. Instead, the ironic final line understates and minimizes Pahom’s chase for prosperity and wealth, implying that these efforts are meaningless and only amount to a small, six-foot grave. The last sentence thus portrays upward mobility as a meaningless endeavor, warning against placing too much value into material gain and economic notions of success.

Explore the relationship between divine forces and autonomy in the story. As Pahom attempts to ascend to a higher socioeconomic status, does he act out of his own free will, or is he controlled by external forces?

Pahom’s narrative arc both confirms and undermines the notion of individual free will. Both as a peasant and as a landowner, Pahom is subject to external forces limiting his ability to independently achieve upward mobility. The Devil instigates Pahom’s avarice and desire for land. He appears in various disguises to encourage Pahom to find deficiencies with the extent of his land ownership and, in turn, travel hundreds of miles to seek out new property. Pahom tragically believes that a larger estate will grant him independence and freedom, unaware that the Devil is influencing and guiding him into every single one of his land acquisitions.

Pahom does, however, address the inhibition of his free will, attributing it to divine acts of God. He questions if God will permit him to secure the Bashkirian he desperately desires: "There is plenty of land...but will God let me live on it? I have lost my life, I have lost my life!" (23). Pahom recognizes his powerlessness in the face of God—who ultimately determines his fate—which supports the position that Pahom lacks the autonomy and power to achieve material success on his own terms.

However, it can also be argued that Pahom has the power and free will to reject the Devil’s temptations. Blinded by greed, he walks into each one of the Devil’s traps and chooses to travel hundreds of miles for new estates. Moreover, Pahom could have decided to settle for less Bashkirian land, but his greed drives him to willingly overextend and exhaust himself to death. God thus does not exert any control over Pahom’s access to Bashkirian land or his death; it is instead Pahom’s lack of self-awareness and care for his well-being that directly leads to his undoing. While the Devil and God exert power over Pahom, his moral decay and death are mere consequences of his own greedy, foolish decisions.

Pahom dreams of the Devil laughing at his own corpse. What purpose does this dream serve, and how does it impact the narrative structure of the story?

By featuring his own dead body, Pahom's dream explicitly foreshadows his death. Because Pahom’s dream occurs the night before he sections off as much Bashkirian land as possible in a day, we know that his efforts will prove fatal. Indeed, Part 8 and 9 recapitulate the events in Pahom’s dream. The dream’s imagery becomes materialized in these final parts of the story, including the Bashkir Chief clutching at his sides laughing and Pahom removing his clothes. The dream’s foreshadowing—and actualization of its content—increases the palpable, foreboding unease of Pahom’s final rush to the hillock.