The Struggles of Leo Tolstoy and Henry Ibsen and What can be Learned

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The Struggles of Leo Tolstoy and Henry Ibsen and What can be Learned
The focus of the essay is Leo Tolstoy (E: 678-721) and Henry Ibsen (E: 721-781). These works discuss the lives and works of Tolstoy and Ibsen respectively. The two were great authors during their time who scaled to international fame due to their works. Tolstoy faced challenges of isolation while growing up when he lost his parents at a tender age. He also had challenges in his marriage. Tolstoy faced criticism from the Russian government and left the Orthodox Church due to his controversial position on political and religious issues. Similarly, Ibsen was disadvantaged due to his Norwegian background, which limited his ability to gain recognition in Europe. This essay explores what can be learned from the struggles of Leo Tolstoy and Henrik Ibsen and what can be learned from their struggles.
Leo Tolstoy had family and personal life challenges and encountered problems with the Orthodox Church due to his political and social activism. Tolstoy had challenges growing up because of losing his parents at a young age. “Having lost his mother at the age of two and his father at nine, he spent his youth in isolation” (Tolstoy 678). His marriage to Sofya Andreyevna Bers made him suffer through a remarkably stormy marriage (Tolstoy 678). Part of the problems were caused by jealousy since the two constantly wrote about each other in their diaries and read each other’s accounts. Moreover, Tolstoy’s criticism of the Russian government and the Orthodox Church led to conflicts with the government and his excommunication from the Church. This caused Tolstoy to enter into “an acute personal and spiritual crisis” which caused him to consider suicide (Tolstoy 680). While Tolstoy faced these challenges, he managed to overcome them. Despite being orphaned from a tender age, Tolstoy chose to remain close to his siblings and together they imaged a perfect world driven by the idea of universal love (Tolstoy 679). Regarding the rejection by the Church, Tolstoy started pursuing his search for God. At the same time, he tried living as the peasants, which gave him meaning in life.
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