Following my post discussing a few elements of Tolstoy’s short story, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” I wanted to address similar concerns in another piece of literature I read. This story is also from another country, now modern-day Czech Republic. Much like Tolstoy, the author explores the nature of humanity through the eyes of one man–what it means to be human–although he actually falls into the modern Romantic period of European literature.

Community. Language. Love. All are easily recognizable and essential elements of human civilization. However, how authors addressed these three issues morphed over time. Pre-modern authors tended to focus on the big picture: man’s relation to the supernatural, vast heroic adventures, morality, the Fall, and war.