Bread Symbol Analysis

Bread, which characters share with one another throughout the story, symbolizes the reciprocal nature of generosity. Matryona spends the beginning of the story deliberating about whether to bake her family another loaf of bread or try to make the one they have last. So, when Semyon comes home with Mikhail and suggests that they feed him dinner, Matryona is incensed—she doesn’t believe they can afford to part with any food given that they have so little. But when Semyon asks if there is “no love of God within [her],” Matryona softens and shares their last piece of bread with Mikhail. In the Bible, communally breaking bread is an act of fellowship and represents sharing in God’s divine love, so Matryona’s decision to break bread with Mikhail despite her family’s hunger represents a symbolic shift within her from selfishness and spiritual corruption to selflessness and godliness.

Though Matryona frets about their family going hungry after this and resentfully wonders why people never help them in return, the next day, a neighbor shares some bread with them. The fact that Matryona’s selfless gesture toward Mikhail is seemingly rewarded with another selfless gesture is an example of the old adage that “God helps those who help themselves”—or, in this case, God helps those who help other people. In other words, the sharing of bread represents the idea that those who extend love and generosity to others are emulating the “love of God,” and that they will be rewarded in the long term for this, even if they go without in the short term.