Family Theme Analysis

Over the course of “God Sees the Truth, But Waits,” Aksyonov’s progress towards detaching himself from society and becoming a true, spiritually oriented “Man of God” is frequently tested by his connection to his family, which Tolstoy depicts as one of the most powerful sources of societal and earthly attachment. Aksyonov’s journey towards a life of pure devotion necessarily begins with a separation from his family in the town of Vladimir, and as his ordeal takes him further and further away from them, his wife and children exert an increasingly potent pull that returns him, on multiple occasions, to worldly concerns. In fact, Aksyonov’s encounters with (and reflections upon) his family act as vital checkpoints in the narrative structure of the story, providing measurements of Aksyonov’s progress towards sanctity and the afterlife. By the end of the story, Aksyonov finally makes peace with having lost his family, whom he now sees as a cause of earthly attachment, and accepts his ultimate solitude before God. With this, Tolstoy indicates that family, although a positive force in some ways, keeps people rooted in this world and preoccupied with worldly concerns, rather than focused on God.

Before his ordeal of losing his family begins, Aksyonov ironically appears to take his family for granted. The youthful Aksyonov fails to fully appreciate his earthly possessions, relationships, and privileges. At the outset of the story, Aksyonov’s wife shares with him that she has had a nightmare in which his hair turned completely gray (a frightening portent), and she begs him to stay home: “Please don’t go now [to the Fair at Nizhny], Ivan Dmitriyevich, I’ve had a bad dream about you.” Nevertheless, Aksyonov twice laughs her off, telling her not to worry. The ease with which he dismisses her concerns and then leaves his family for the fair highlights the degree to which Aksyonov (in his youth) takes his social bonds, especially that with his family, for granted, as reliable facts of life. That Aksyonov cares for his family but may not fully appreciate them is also suggested by the line at the start of the text, “After [Aksyonov] married he gave up drinking and there were only occasional lapses.” Though his commitment to his wife was enough to stop him from drinking “a great deal,” his “occasional lapses” and mockery of his wife for her sincere concern about his drinking (“You’re really scared I might start drinking at the Fair, aren’t you?”) hint that Aksyonov is not receptive to his wife’s wishes and perhaps upset her in the past with his drunken behavior.

After Aksyonov is imprisoned and increasingly alienated from his family, his thoughts about (and desires for) his wife and children rapidly intensify, and thus his family becomes an increasingly powerful force testing his commitment to detaching himself from worldly matters in favor of a spiritual life. Shortly after being accused and imprisoned, Aksyonov has a second, this time deeply affecting, meeting with his wife. This jailhouse encounter between Aksyonov and his wife depicts the bond of family as a potent emotional connection: Aksyonov’s wife is overwhelmed by the sight of her husband in fetters (“she collapsed and it was some time before she came to her senses”), and Aksyonov is devastated when his wife expresses suspicion that he actually committed the crime for which he was incarcerated. This scene concludes with Aksyonov’s being permanently cut off from his family: “Aksyonov bade his family farewell for the last time.” It is only once this final detachment has occurred that Aksyonov is able and motivated at last to acknowledge the moral of the story, that “no one except God can know the truth,” and pivot towards a rigidly devout lifestyle. This indicates that among all earthly bonds restricting Aksyonov’s commitment to God, that of family is the most resilient.

Aksyonov’s jailhouse visit with his wife reinforces the association of family bonds with social obligation, from which Aksyonov must liberate himself en route to becoming a genuine “Man of God.” For example, Aksyonov’s wife felt obliged to file appeals with the tsar on his behalf even though she suspected that he was guilty, and Aksyonov’s comment to his wife, “How could you possibly think that I did it?” hints at an expectation of obligatory support and confidence on the part of one spouse towards the other.

The intense pull of family returns to challenge Aksyonov’s psychological state in prison and jeopardize his commitment to an otherworldly, spiritual life. When Aksyonov learns that Makar Semyonov, his fellow prisoner, comes from Vladimir, he immediately “pricked up his ears and asked: […] ‘did you ever hear of some merchants in Vladimir by the name of Aksyonov?’” Clearly, Aksyonov still wonders about his wife and children, and this keeps his mind on earthly concerns. After Aksyonov begins to suspect that Makar committed the murder for which he was convicted, Aksyonov’s first, agonizing thoughts run to his family: “He visualized his wife as she had looked when she saw him off for the last time […] Then he pictured his children as they had been then […]” Tolstoy draws out these reflections by Aksyonov on his family, emphasizing how deeply moving and valuable these bonds of kin can be, and yet at the very same time he highlights the drawbacks (even dangers) of these thoughts in a Christian sense, as they lead Aksyonov to contemplate the horrific sin of suicide: “All this he [Aksyonov] recalled and he became so dejected he felt like putting an end to his life there and then.”

At the culmination of Aksyonov’s journey—captured in the lines, “Suddenly his heart became lighter. No longer did he pine for home […] All he thought of was his last hour…”—Tolstoy connects the fulfillment of Aksyonov’s spiritual development, or complete reorientation towards God and the afterlife, with a definitive detachment from his desire for home and family.