GRAMIEL AUSTRIA

TRICIA MASINAG
KRISTINE JOY SALAMAT

GOD SEES THE TRUTH BUT WAITS

By: Leo Tolstoy
In this short story, Tolstoy instigates many questions in readers’ mind about truth,
injustice and fate as he resides his readers between both spiritual and materialistic
worlds throughout the course of the story. In spite of the fact that this story is a realistic
fiction, it attracted our attention due to the allegory it implies and the significance of
the values it reveals. Above all, it could happen physically.
This paper aims to analyze the story literary and provide necessary illustration. The
major characteristics of a short story are considered in which we discuss about plot,
conflict, characters, themes, tone, and personal value.

NAME - Leo Tolstoy

OCCUPATION - Author
BIRTH DATE - September 9, 1828
DEATH DATE - November 20, 1910
EDUCATION - University of Kazan
PLACE OF BIRTH - Tula Province (Yasnaya Polyana), Russia
PLACE OF DEATH - Astapovo, Russia
FULL NAME - Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Author’s Life

Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote the acclaimed novels 'War and Peace,' 'Anna
Karenina' and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich,' and ranks among the world's top writers.

Who Was Leo Tolstoy?

On September 9, 1828, Leo Tolstoy was born in Tula Province, Russia. In the 1860s,
he wrote his first great novel, War and Peace. In 1873, Tolstoy set to work on the second
of his best-known novels, Anna Karenina. He continued to write fiction throughout the
1880s and 1890s. One of his most successful later works was The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.
Works

During quiet periods while Tolstoy was a junker in the Army, he worked on an
autobiographical story called Childhood. In it, he wrote of his fondest childhood
memories. In 1852, Tolstoy submitted the sketch to The Contemporary, the most popular
journal of the time. The story was eagerly accepted and became Tolstoy's very first
published work.

After completing Childhood, Tolstoy started writing about his day-to-day life at
the Army outpost in the Caucasus. However, he did not complete the work, entitled The
Cossacks, until 1862, after he had already left the Army.

Amazingly, Tolstoy still managed to continue writing while at battle during the
Crimean War. During that time, he composed Boyhood (1854), a sequel to Childhood,
the second book in what was to become Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy. In the midst
of the Crimean War, Tolstoy also expressed his views on the striking contradictions of war
through a three-part series, Sevastopol Tales. In the second Sevastopol Tales book,
Tolstoy experimented with a relatively new writing technique: Part of the story is
presented in the form of a soldier's stream of consciousness.

Once the Crimean War ended and Tolstoy left the Army, he returned to Russia.
Back home, the burgeoning author found himself in high demand on the St. Petersburg
literary scene. Stubborn and arrogant, Tolstoy refused to ally himself with any particular
intellectual school of thought. Declaring himself an anarchist, he made off to Paris in
1857. Once there, he gambled away all of his money and was forced to return home to
Russia. He also managed to publish Youth, the third part of his autobiographical trilogy,
in 1857.

Back in Russia in 1862, Tolstoy produced the first of a 12 issue-installment of the

journal Yasnaya Polyana, marrying a doctor's daughter named Sofya Andreyevna Bers
that same year.

WORK ITSELF
FORMALISM

SETTINGS

 Town of Vladimir
 Inn
 Siberia
 Jail/prison
CHARACTERS
There are three main characters in God Sees the Truth, but Waits. The following are a
brief introduction to each one of them:

 Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov (Dynamic)

In this short story, we have Ivan as the protagonist who is accused of a murder of a
merchant; as a result, he is convicted and sent to Siberia for Twenty-Six years. While
reading the story, we discover that Ivan is a dynamic character who changes
physically and spiritually. At the very begging of the story, he is described as fair-haired,
full of fun and fond of singing, but when shifting to the second part of the story we see
he is described as “his hair turned white as snow and his beard grew long, thin, and
grey. All his mirth went; he stooped walked slowly, spoke little, and never laughed, but
he often prayed.

 Makar Semyonich (Static)

Makar Is the antagonist and joins to the events of the story in the middle of the second
part. Makar is described as a tall strong man in his sixties. Throughout the story up to the
end, Makar is presented as a vicious but at the same time demonic He twice put Ivan in
critical situations as for the first time he meets Ivan plays with words to show him that he
murdered the merchant but does not reveal directly. And the second time, when he is
discovered by Ivan while digging a secret tunnel for elopement. He threatens Ivan for
killing him if he says a word. But at the very end of the story, he is highly affected by
Ivan’s manner towards him, as he repents and goes to him asking for forgiveness.
However, he is now transformed from maliciousness to a full charity, but still goes to the
authorities to confess the truth on the murder of the merchant so that Ivan could get
his release paper.
 Ivan’s Wife (Dynamic)
Ivan's wife only appears in the first part of the play twice. Firstly, when Ivan prepares
himself to go on fair, she attempts to prevent him as she had a bad dream about him
that she considered to be a bad omen. Secondly, when Ivan is convicted, she pays him
a visit but finally leaves him despaired as she too suspects him. Here, she plays a crucial
role in Ivan’s transformation as he says God is the only one who knows the truth and
should be asked for mercy. This is considered his first step towards the great spiritual
transformation.
SUPPORING CHARACTERS: (Dynamic)
 The Merchant- victim
 The governor investigated the dug hole
 Police officers and soldiers
PLOT

 EXPOSITION: Ivan Aksionov was a young merchant who lived in Vladimir. He has
a wife named Vanya, he decided to sell their goods to earn money. So during
summer he decided to travel.
 RISING ACTION: When Ivan met a merchant and drunk tea together and later,
want to the same rooms as he decide to check in an Inn.
 CLIMAX: Ivan founds out that, the merchant he met the night before has been
found murdered, and the officials accused him of killing him since there a knife
with blood stains on it in his bag.
 FALLING ACTION: Ivan suspects Makar, one of the new prisoners of killing the
merchant. Later he found out that Makar is planning to break the prison, though
he did not tell the authorities.
 RESOLUTION: Makar realized his mistake, he confessed of killing the merchant
and putting the knife inside Ivan Aksionov’s bag, and he asked him for
forgiveness. Ivan was order to go back home, but h was already dead.

Conflicts
The issues presented in the story are mainly concerned with the protagonist Ivan, and
shows how he deals with them and tackles. The main problem showed is the murder
case of the merchant, whom Ivan has been charged with and sentenced for twenty-six
years of prison. Throughout the story, we are exposed to different sorts of conflicts such
as:
 man versus man,
 man versus himself,
 man vs. society and
 man vs. fate.

The conflicts could be presented as a series of sequences due to their correlation and
linking together.
1. The first part of the story when Ivan coincidently meets a merchant and they
decide to continue their trip together. While stopping in an inn for one night, Ivan
leaves the merchant the next day and starts his travel alone. Here, the first
conflict is presented in the story when Ivan stops for a short break, and suddenly
an officer with two soldiers appear and interrogate with him about the merchant
who was found with his throat cut. Ivan here struggles to prove himself as not
being guilty but the soldiers find a bloody knife in his bag, and he gets arrested.
2. Yet, in the second part of the story, Ivan confronts with the authority again while
they discover a secret tunnel made for eloping. The Governor interrogates with
Ivan to tell his knowledge truthfully about the tunnel. Here, this conflict leads to
 other two types of conflicts, which are man versus himself and man versus man.
Since Ivan knows the truth about the tunnel, as he found Makar digging it at the
middle of the night, he had been threatened to be killed by Makar if he says a
word about it. Ivan experiences an inner struggle whether to tell the truth or not,
from one side he wishes to reveal the truth to take his avenge upon Makar, but
at the same time, he decides not to tell it as he thinks he might be wrong for his
suspension of Makar being the true murderer of the merchant.
3. By taking this decision Ivan gets to his final conflict with himself while Makar
comes to him at night confiding of being the one who murdered the merchant
and now seeks for the forgiveness from him. Here, Ivan experiences a severe
internal struggle to grant Makar with forgiveness, but finally he wins himself in this
struggle and gains the absolute internal liberty from spite restrains and having his
heart growing light.

Point of View:
Third person point of view
Mood:
 Sad
 Mysterious
Tone:
 Serious, sad, suspicious, hopeful

Themes
 Faith and Forgiveness
Tolstoy indirectly leads the readers to infer the true value of faith and forgiveness and
the importance of their outcomes by deducing that through Ivan’s character. The fact
which Tolstoy wants to teach the readers is that God is the only one who knows the
complete truth about everything, including our realities. But He sometimes may lead us
to discover our realities through some slight or even harsh trials. In the case of Ivan, at
the beginning he is described to be full of fun and a heavy drinker also indirectly to be
unaware of his reality. But after being convicted and suspected even by the closest
person to him, his wife, he returns to God as he says “It seems that only God can know
the truth, it is to Him alone we must appeal, and from Him alone expect mercy.”
Therefore, here, readers realize that outcomes of faith are crucial to the life as it makes
the whole person to change towards the best and to develop both spiritually and
morally.
  Materialism and Spirituality
Ivan begins as a material being unaware of his spiritual nature as being described
full of fun. All of a sudden, he loses his confidence in his materialistic life and begins to
be aware of his spiritual nature. He has not yet achieved full spiritual consciousness.
Only after the second great shock, his protecting and finally his forgiving Makar, his
spiritual nature comes to full expression as he feels that his soul is finally released only
when renouncing his longing for his old materialistic life; “He no longer had any desire to
leave the prison, but only hoped for his last hour to come.” Later it is said, "When
Aksenov's pardon arrived, he was already dead." The pardon that is to bring Ivan
freedom has become dispensable, for the full and final freedom of his spirit from its
material burden has already been achieved. Tolstoy seems to make his readers think
that what make us sinners is our attachments to materialistic world, including our
homes, businesses, and families. Even if these things do not really cause us to sin, the
attachment itself makes the risk of sin possible, and once we lay down, our material
values, desire for worldly things, often things that are improbable, are laid down as well.
Only when we give up those things, we can fully become free.

REAL WORLD

The short story of Tolstoy depicted real life situations where anyone can be
accused or imprisoned for something he didn't do. Here in the Philippines, it is very
evident that those who belonged to poverty line or below poverty line are the most
affected by this. It is a reality that justice seems to be given only for those who can pay.
It is a sad truth, yes. It is a fact that those who should be paying for their crime are still
roaming around the city, and those who are innocent are jailed and suffering for the
crime did by someone else.

Moreover, this short story showed that no matter how much gold you own, or
money you have, it doesn't matter for the Lord will focus on your faith not those
materialistic things. In the end, He will be the one who will save us from the most
devastating time of our lives. As what Exodus 14:14 says, "The Lord will fight for you. You
only need to be still."
BEYOND THE WORLD

 Aksionov's house (and two shops) - represent his family, his material possessions,
and his earthly affairs.

 The prison - a symbol of his suffering and his eventual spiritual transformation

OTHER LTERATURE

“The Repentant Sinner “ by Leo Tolstoy

AUDIENCE RESONSE

It leads us to the realizations that:

"God is able"

"When people let you down, God will pick u up"

"God his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers"

REFERENCES:

Chain. "God Sees the Truth but Waits." StudyMode.com. StudyMode.com, 09 2013. Web. 09
2013. <http://www.studymode.com/essays/God-Sees-The-Truth-But-Waits-1935052.html>.

Grace Shinae Lee. “God Sees the Truth, but Waits” Commentary. graceshinae.blogspot.com.
blogspot.com. 24 Nov. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2014 <
http://graceshinae.blogspot.com/2009/11/god-sees-truth-but-waits-commentary.html>.

Kurtmen. "God Sees the Truth but Waits." StudyMode.com. StudyMode.com, 08 2013. Web. 27
Nov. 2013. <http://www.studymode.com/essays/God-Sees-The-Truth-But-Waits-1879744.html>.

"Leo Tolstoy." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com.Web. 28 Nov.

2014<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.