God Sees the Truth But Waits

1254 Words3 Pages

The short story, “God Sees the Truth, But waits,” is a fantastic read that effectively demonstrates the many elements of a short story. Through the elements of the short story, the author, Leo N. Tolstoy, shares his wisdom and knowledge of a complex society, and in a way, highlights its faults in short story for many to learn from. Tolstoy conveys his ideas through the minds and actions of the characters, as well as through the setting, plot conflict and point of view.
The story starts out describing the setting, in a town with the name of Vladimir. The town itself does not pose to be of utmost importance, but the setting throughout the novel might. Throughout the novel, the main character is a merchant and travels town to town. This merchant has a turn of unfortunate events, and the settings change drastically. The merchant is placed in a jail located in Siberia, which is one of the more important settings in the story.
In the short story, Tolstoy has a few characters, all with their place in the story. The first of which, Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov, is the main character throughout the story. He is the protagonist in this story. He starts out as a wealthy businessman, owning a couple shops and his own house. He met some unfortunate events after leaving for a business trip. On the way during the trip, he was accused of murder. Being accused alone was enough for Aksionov to end up in a Siberian prison, for the remainder of his life.
Perhaps another very important character, Ivan Aksionov's wife, has interesting comments before Aksionov leaves for his business trip. She told Aksionov that she had a dream, a nightmare even. In this dream, she told Aksionov that he returned to town with hair that was very gray. This seemed to frigh...

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...nd knows the truth, he may wait till he thinks it is the right time for action to take place. Although there is many different interpretations for theme, the theme of God deciding whether it is time or not seems to stand out the most.
Through Tolstoy's story, the reader indirectly learns about the society in which the story takes place. The court systems are not the greatest, as it seems that it would be easy to be accused of a crime even if that person was not the perpetrator. Tolstoy has presented this great short story, that effectively demonstrates the many different key elements found in a short story. All of these elements are present in the story, and help Tolstoy convey his ideas as well as his beliefs through the story. This short story effectively catches the reader's attention, while taking into account all of the elements of an effective short story.

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