Three Deaths Flashcards
by Leo Tolstoy — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: Three Deaths
Who is Marya Dmitriyevna (Lady Shirkinskaya)?
A wealthy noblewoman dying of consumption (tuberculosis) who is desperately traveling to Italy for warmer climate, hoping to recover. She represents the first death—one characterized by fear, denial, and inability to accept mortality.
Who is Uncle Fyodor (Khveder)?
A peasant coachman who lies dying on a stove at a rural post station. He represents the second death—one characterized by calm acceptance, practical resignation, and honesty about his condition. He gives away his boots in exchange for a promise of a gravestone.
Who is Seryoga (Serega)?
A young post-driver who asks the dying Fyodor for his boots and promises to buy him a gravestone in return. He later fells a tree to make a wooden cross for Fyodor's grave, connecting the second and third deaths in the story.
Who is Vasily Dmitrievich?
The husband of the dying noblewoman Marya. He is torn between telling his wife the truth about her fatal condition and trying to make her comfortable. He conceals the doctor's prognosis and struggles with his own helplessness.
Who is Nastasia?
The cook at the post station who tends to Uncle Fyodor in his final hours. She represents the simple, direct compassion of the peasant class. After Fyodor dies, she has a prophetic dream about him and is the first to discover his death.
What role does the doctor (Edward Ivanovich) play?
He accompanies Marya's traveling party and privately tells her husband that she cannot survive the journey to Italy and likely will not reach Moscow. He represents the limits of medical science and the helplessness of the educated class before death.
How does the story open?
In autumn, a carriage and calesche travel along a high road. Inside sits the pale, coughing noblewoman Marya Dmitriyevna with her maid. They stop at a posting station where the doctor privately reveals to her husband that she is dying.
What happens at the posting station between Seryoga and Fyodor?
Seryoga enters the common room and asks the dying peasant Fyodor for his new boots, since Fyodor will no longer need them. Fyodor agrees but asks Seryoga to buy him a headstone in return. Seryoga takes the boots and drives the noblewoman's carriage away.
How does Uncle Fyodor die?
After the carriages leave, Fyodor remains on the stove in the post station. Nastasia tends to him through the night. By morning he is completely still. Nastasia discovers he has died after having a dream of him chopping wood and saying he was well.
How does Marya Dmitriyevna die?
Marya dies in spring in her town house, surrounded by family, clergy, and servants. She receives last rites and initially feels comforted, but then desperately asks for a folk healer. She dies that evening, and a church singer recites psalms over her body.
What is the third death in the story?
A month after Marya's burial, Seryoga finally goes to the forest to cut down a young aspen tree to make a cross (golubets) for Fyodor's unmarked grave. The tree's felling—peaceful, natural, and generative—is the third death.
What is the significance of the story's final paragraph?
After the tree falls, the remaining trees stand "more beauteously and joyfully" in the new open space as sunlight fills the forest. This suggests that natural death is part of a cycle that feeds new life, contrasting sharply with the noblewoman's fearful, isolated death.
What is the central theme of "Three Deaths"?
The more civilized and self-conscious one becomes, the harder it is to die with grace. Tolstoy argues that simplicity and closeness to nature allow for a more authentic, peaceful relationship with death, while wealth and social status create barriers to acceptance.
How does the story explore the theme of authenticity vs. artifice?
Marya's world is filled with artifice: perfumed carriages, evasive conversations, and hollow reassurances. Fyodor's world is blunt and practical—he gives away his boots knowing he will die. The tree exists entirely without pretense. Each level moves closer to authentic existence.
What does the story say about religion and spiritual truth?
Tolstoy draws a distinction between religious formalism and genuine spiritual peace. Marya receives last rites and feels momentary comfort but quickly reverts to desperation. Fyodor, whom Tolstoy described as having nature as his religion, dies with honest calm. The tree needs no spiritual preparation at all.
How does "Three Deaths" address the theme of social class?
The story shows that wealth and privilege do not help one face death—they may actually hinder it. Marya's status insulates her from reality, while Fyodor's hardship has taught him acceptance. Death is the ultimate equalizer that class cannot prepare one for or protect against.
What is the role of nature as a theme in the story?
Nature is presented as the ideal model for facing death. The natural world—represented by the tree and the forest—accepts death without fear or resistance. Tolstoy contrasts indoor, artificial human environments with the open, luminous forest to argue that living close to nature teaches one how to die.
How does Tolstoy use structural contrast in "Three Deaths"?
The story is divided into four sections that juxtapose three deaths from different social strata. The noblewoman's sections are long and detailed, full of dialogue and emotional turmoil. Fyodor's death is brief and matter-of-fact. The tree's death is rendered in pure nature description with no dialogue at all.
What is the role of irony in "Three Deaths"?
The primary irony is that Marya dies in spring—the season of renewal and resurrection—while surrounded by every comfort, yet her death is the most fearful and undignified. Meanwhile, the peasant dies in a dark room on a stove but achieves genuine peace.
How does Tolstoy use sensory detail in the story?
Tolstoy contrasts sensory environments: the carriage smells of eau de cologne and dust (artifice), the post station smells of people, bread, cabbage, and sheepskins (earthiness), and the forest scene is filled with dew, birdsong, and sunlight (natural beauty). Each setting reflects the spiritual quality of its associated death.
What is the significance of Nastasia's dream?
Nastasia dreams of Fyodor coming down from the stove, healthy and chopping wood. This serves as a folk/supernatural element suggesting spiritual liberation through death. It contrasts with the formal religious rites surrounding Marya's death, implying that Fyodor's spirit finds genuine freedom.
How does the boots motif function in the story?
Fyodor's boots serve as a symbol of the practical, unsentimental attitude toward death among the peasant class. The exchange—boots for a gravestone—is a pragmatic transaction that contrasts with the elaborate, emotional rituals surrounding Marya's death. It also connects Fyodor's death to the tree's felling through Seryoga.
What is a calesche?
A light, four-wheeled carriage with a folding top, commonly used in 19th-century Russia. In the story, it travels alongside Marya's main carriage, carrying her husband and the doctor.
What is an armyak?
A coarse peasant overcoat or blouse made of camel's hair. In the story, the dying Fyodor uses his armyak to wipe his lips, and Seryoga adjusts his armyak while driving the carriage in Fyodor's boots.
When was "Three Deaths" published and what was its historical context?
Published in 1859, just two years before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Russia was undergoing intense debate about social reform, class inequality, and the relationship between the aristocracy and the peasantry—all of which inform Tolstoy's contrast between the noblewoman and the coachman.
How does "Three Deaths" reflect Tolstoy's early philosophical development?
The story anticipates the spiritual crisis and moral philosophy that would define Tolstoy's later career. Its critique of aristocratic artifice, organized religion, and civilization's estrangement from nature foreshadows his later works like "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1886) and his treatise "What I Believe" (1884).
What did Tolstoy himself say about "Three Deaths"?
In a letter to A. A. Tolstaya, Tolstoy explained that the peasant Fyodor dies peacefully because "his religion is nature, with whom he lived." He also stated that the noblewoman is "pathetic and disgusting because she lied her entire life and continues to lie before death." The tree, he said, dies most beautifully because it exists without lies or fear.