The Life of Man

"The Life of Man" by Leonid Andreyev is a five-act symbolist drama. Surveyed by Someone in Grey, a man passes through life (in the grey world where all things are of color grey) from birth to death as a blind man, unable to see what comes to him next. First, he is destitute, then rises to affluence, and finally hits the bottom again. Cursing the anonymous witness to his tribulations, he imagines himself as a hapless warrior who loses everything in his strife against the unfathomable, evil forces. "I am armless now," he exclaims, before the candle (a symbol of life) dies and darkness falls.