To start off, Master and Man as a story had mixed emotions for me. It started off pretty tame, for the first 5-10 pages, and to be honest, I wasn’t very engaged in the story near the beginning as it just outlined Vasili’s and Nikita’s personal lives.
As it progressed, the story became more interesting and tense as Vasili and Nikita embarked into the snowstorm. To me, Vasili Andreevich was a selfish character for most of the story. He only cared about money, used Nikita as well as not paying him what he was worth, and along with this, he portrayed himself as a kind, generous being. The ‘payment’ that Vasili would provide was almost all goods from his own store, and at high prices. However, it threw me off near the end of the story when he sacrificed his life for Nikita, as he never seemed like that type of person during the other parts of the story. Along with this, Vasili never showed intentions of saving Nikita, as he even mentioned how he would take the fall if Nikita returned deceased. This begs the question; did Vasili change, or not change? Was he rather sacrifice his life because he wouldn’t have buisness upon his return because Nikita died? In my opinion, I think that Vasili would actually do this. All he cared about was money, and if there was no more money to be made, why bother? It might’ve seemed pointless to Vasili to stay alive if he was poorly looked upon and suddenly poor.
Contrary to what one may think, the story seemed realistic. This very well could’ve happened in real life, and it may have just gone undocumented. As for Nikita, I looked upon him as a very selfless character, completely opposite to Vasili! When him and Vasili are stuck in the snowdrift, Nikita doesn’t think about himself once, and he almost shows no survival instinct, which is quite odd to me. The bond between these two characters during the story works almost because of their traits that are completely opposite to each other. Both of them worked well together as they fulfilled each others greatest wants; Vasili’s want being money and wealth, and Nikita’s want to provide for everyone else but himself. Nikita demonstrates he selflessness many times in the story, but the most significant time for me was when he noticed that Vasili stopped breathing whilst laying on Nikita in the sledge when Nikita says “He must have died! May the kingdom of heaven be his!” The setting of the story really interested me, as it isn’t a world I’ve lived in, but rather a world that I’ve experienced, and the setting does seem appealing to me.
In conclusion, Master and Man was an engaging, well-written, and surprising piece of writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.