"FOR A SINGLE WORD": A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF TOLSTOY'S MICROCOSM'S SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION AND THE NEED OF UNIFICATION”

Abstract

A Marxist analysis of Leo Tolstoy's short story "For a Single Word" (1908) is done in this study. It contends that Tolstoy conducts a methodical analysis of the socioeconomic underpinnings of institutional oppression through the microcosm of a single peasant's unfair punishment. Using a theoretical framework that synthesizes Paulo Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed, Antonio Gramsci's idea of hegemony, and Marx's political economy, the analysis shows how bourgeoisie deliberately weaponize basic human necessities. The study shows how the collaboration of bourgeoisie and the legal authorities destroy autonomy, family structures and promotes a psychology of distrust and alienation within the proletariat. In the end, this study hints the antidote of oppression.  Tolstoy's story offers a timeless literary anatomy of oppression, demonstrating with great specificity not only how impersonal systems crush people but also how the need for collective care and recognition endures in the spaces between those very systems.