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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What Men Live By, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mystery
Rationality vs. Generosity
Selfless Love
Summary
Analysis
The moment Mikhail finishes telling his story, his body becomes so bright that Semyon and Matryona cannot look at it directly. Mikhail’s voice becomes so loud that it seems to be coming from heaven, and he says, “I have learned that men live not by selfishness but by love.” He adds that just as it was not given to the rich man to know whether he would live another day, it was not given to the twins’ mother to know what her children needed to stay alive.
Mikhail’s angelic identity becomes even more physical and obvious in this passage. He again drives home the two most important elements of his lessons: the overpowering importance of love (which pertains to the first and third lessons) and the inevitability of mystery in mortal people’s lives (which pertains to the second lesson). What remains to be explained is the connection between these two elements—that is, between love and mystery.
Themes
Furthermore, he elaborates, men stay alive not through their own rational planning, but rather through the selfless love that others show them. Semyon and Matryona’s selfless love saved Mikhail’s life, just as the woman’s selfless love saved the twins’ life. Mikhail now understands that this is part of God’s plan: God keeps men in the dark regarding their own needs so that they will have to rely on their neighbors’ love. Finally, Mikhail reminds Semyon and Matryona that “he who dwells in love dwells in God,” because God is love. At that, the house shakes with the sound of Mikhail’s voice, and a pillar of fire appears, breaking through the roof. Then Mikhail rises into the sky and disappears. When Semyon’s eyes open, the roof of his house is once again intact, and Mikhail is gone.
Before Mikhail returns to heaven, he spells out this final connection: God keeps people in the dark about certain mysteries so that they must rely on one another’s selfless love. And since God and love are one and the same, imposing these limitations on people makes it so that they embody God in the way they treat one another. That Mikhail disappears (presumably returning to heaven) after delivering this final explanation suggests that his work on Earth is done, meaning this divine truth—that people’s should accept life’s mysteries and love others selflessly to be like God—is the ultimate life lesson.
Themes
