Little Girls Wiser than Men by Leo Tolstoy - Short Story Summary, Analysis, Review

In this video we find out which one of us is wiser myself or crypto I'm gonna let you in already All right guys welcome to the codex cantina where I am una and I am little boy crypto If you are new to that's kind of creepy If you're new here If you are new to the codex cantina we go heavy into detail on the literature that we read today We are covering little girls wiser than men a very short piece by the late and great leo Tolstoy if you're down for literature discussions like that Please hit the subscribe button and as always we start off with publication information This piece was originally written as wisdom of children, but translated to little girls wiser than men It's a short piece by our favorite leo tolstoy published in 1885 Now this was translated by the mouths for us and we will put a link for you to read the story for free all two Pages of the glory of this story, right? That's right. It's always important to note that this is the post-religious time Post-religious crisis tolstoy and that always is something to take in consideration. We're reading one of his religious pieces or Parable pieces and we are doing this in a part of the tolstoy trigger project along with our friend Noah, we will leave a link to his channel down below where you can hear his thoughts on the story Now in terms of plot we got a quick one for you all two pages of this Actually a decent amount of plot for two pages right on an early easter the water flowed through the farms and became dirty Oh that dirty water Two little girls adorned in new clothes and leaving church Oh tolstoy met between their homes to play in a large puddle The elder stops the younger one from getting in with her fineries on Malasha becomes scared with how deep the water becomes and akulia tells her to keep walking Carefully, right and soon malasha stops too deeply in and splashes akulia This infuriates akulia and she chases after malasha Akulia's mother comes outside and calls her a naughty little girl for getting all dirty Akulia claims the younger one did it on purpose and the mother strikes malasha on the head There's no turning back from this point, right? Oh, yeah Malasha's mother comes out demands to know why her daughter was being struck soon The two ladies start arguing later a crowd forms around them and everyone starts yelling at each other through an escalation process They think the argument will come to blows when akulia's grandmother steps out to halt the commotion and have everyone pay attention to the girls There they see the two little girls have begun to dig channels to drain the muddy water get rid of that Sinful purgeful water, right? And soon they see the girls playing and laughing together and realize they must also forgive and forget End plot. It's really rich for just two pages. And I think this is one of the most straightforward Type of advice pieces that tolstoy has ever written It's really good in that sense if you go off on any other tangent besides talking about forgiveness for the story You're really pushing it because there's not much here besides a ton of plot and a lot of forgiveness, right? Yeah, that's the main theme is obviously is forgive and forget So how do we know that and why does tolstoy bring this piece up? We have one of the last quotes except ye turn and become as little children Ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Which might feel like a little strange a little out of place and maybe your pdf or translation doesn't have that But I promise you that is the last part of the story In which we find the biggest clue to interpreting this piece crypto. Do you know what that quote is from the bible? Surprisingly the only the only data source that that tolstoy ever quotes the bible. Yes, we are here And we're going to be looking at matthew 18 the greatest in the kingdom of heaven story Which is one through five could could go further depending on how far you want to go But we're just going to talk about one through five as the main point for this story today. So to quote matthew 18, okay At that time the disciples came to jesus and asked who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven He called a little child to him and placed the child among them And he said truly I tell you unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven Therefore whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and I think that's going to summarize and it's going to be the main focal point for what you want to kind of focus on with The story and that's the idea of humility and forgiveness, right? In this story we have these two children that get into an argument right mistakes happen I love this quote from the story one word led to another and they had an angry quarrel Which is like every argument ever, right? Oh, sure. Sure that's the start of everything and then it just kind of piles on and builds from there of Miscommunications and misconceptions of one another and then you next thing and you're having a big fight and maybe physical Yeah, and you just want to hurt the other person and then when you go back and look at it You're like, why did we do that? That was really dumb like like you become a different person when you become quarrelsome, right? and I think that's kind of what this parable is talking to is the a lot of people who Break down this part. We'll talk about how the disciples were like, well, we're the disciples Shouldn't we have a higher place in heaven haven't we earned through our hard work? more prestigious Offerings when it comes to divinely gifts And I think this is one of the ways that that scholars will break this down is they're like well look You gotta be like the child who expects nothing and and holds grudges against nothing There are no scorecards upon reaching heaven the idea is once you're there. We're supposed to be all equal and all Accept our own humility humility in this case means accepting a position lower and not expecting more in return And he's saying you should be giving without expectation of receiving or expecting more in heaven be like the child Who forgives who forgets who moves on and you know, just like the two little girls in the story they emptied out the dirty You know water water is always a cleansing object in literature here They're emptying out the dirty muddy water and that's when the quarrel kind of stops and you see everybody moving on Kind of a purifying symbol what if only they did this on a special day. Hmm. What day was it in the story crypto? It's easter. Yeah Yeah, and what does easter represent in christianity rebirth revival renewal? Yeah, it's it's kind of one of those times of great purification and here they are dumping the waters. Yeah so a very quick story I felt like where the main takeaway is this bible verse with the idea of you know in the same way that If you believe in the bible and you are a christian There there is no scorecard upon entering heaven It's the idea of giving the idea of forgiving of being loving to your neighbor And that's what he's trying to call out with these two little girls everything escalates They're still arguing and worrying about being right one thing leading to another And the girls have already moved on and are playing, you know They're not worried about things they've moved on and I think that's kind of the parable of the story I think the only other thing you really could kind of bring up is one leading Another person down this path or this road of sin and making wrong choices as we see with the little girls one Leading the other along and then blaming them for their misfortunes and that sometimes we kind of do that but as adults we don't forgive because we've been taught to hold on to our anger and that's something that we we think is precious to us is being able to hold on to that anger or holding a grudge against somebody and a lot of us are raised that way to not forgive and not forget and that If someone wrongs you then you should always have animosity towards that person And in this case the little kids are like no, you know We made a mistake we're going to move on and we can still be friends and still play I think the main the main concept is obviously forgiving but The little kind of nuance of there that the way we're taught is a crucial thing of leading and following as well All right, cool story. If you're down for more Tolstoy talks We have a playlist down below if you want to keep listening in and enjoying the conversation and exploring Tolstoy Feel free to leave a easter egg or some type of emoji if you enjoyed today's conversation. Mr. Crypto, let's move into our ratings What are you going to give this story? So I think overall i'll probably give this a low rating. I was talking with it to my wife And it isn't something that's all that unique But it is something that's used time and time again to teach that idea of forgiveness and the innocence of childhood There was actually a tv series that was made in 2015 called the slap. Have you ever heard of that? No, I have not And basically it was the same thing these two kids there was like a birthday party And the whole show revolved around that there was these two kids and one slaps another one and the parents get irate And it ends up being like they're gonna get sued and the whole you know Neighborhood falls apart because everybody's picking sides of which family they're gonna support and everything and it's like literally this story Uh, it was only made one season because it wasn't that good So just read this two-page story and you're gonna get the idea of that whole series right there even starred Zachary Quinto You know pretty famous actor, uh, but I don't know. I think i'll give this one just a solid like six It's good. It has a great story. It has a great message. It's nothing too Spectacular, I would say for me not really high analytically didn't really enjoy it all that much It just wasn't for me and I think it's just the simplicity of it I didn't feel that I was uncovering anything. I would like to uncover something in my reads Uh, the bible verse is just straight there and given to you Maybe if that wasn't there, maybe it'd be a little bit more of a fun of a dig So i'm gonna go with uh, just personal subjective rating of like a three just didn't really resonate with me for those reasons so Well, all right guys, hopefully you enjoyed this story more than I did. Uh, if not, no big deal You know, we got plenty of other tolstoy projects for you to listen to in our playlist down below if you like discussions like this, we post videos every monday and thursday and uh Hit that subscribe button to join us on the the journey here. So una out Peace