Envy is the desire to have something that one does not have, whereas jealousy is fearing losing something one already has. It is one of the seven deadly sins, but jealousy is not. What makes envy more dangerous than jealousy? In Yuri Olesha’s novel Envy the author examines the danger and power of the green rage. Some of the power of envy—as well as the novel’s significance—comes from its constant relevance and ability to adapt to all time periods and contexts. Envy is set in 1927 Soviet Russia, yet Nikolai Kavalerov, a man consumed by his envy, holds striking parallels to modern-day users on social media. The consistent prevalence of this consuming emotion in our society must then be related to the envious since what is envied is constantly changing. Olesha exposes through Kavalerov’s journey that envy says more about the enviers’ insecurities than the objects of envy’s success. The enviers’ insecurities then fuel a feeling of being an individual isolated from a collective who have all achieved success.

Olesha only focuses on Kavalerov, allowing us a full picture of the hero's profound lack of self-confidence. Kavalerov is the narrator for part one and the subject of part two in the novel. With Kavalerov as the narrator, we are able to see how Kavalerov thinks. Olesha provides a window into the mind of the envious but never into the envied. Kavalerov describes himself as a man “things don’t like” and he believes an inanimate object will go out of its way to “stick out its leg” or “bite [him]” (Olesha 2004, 6). In the first couple pages, Kavalerov is introduced as a self-pitying sap who is envious of Andrei Babichev, a man he perceives as great. Kavalerov's destructive self-image prohibits him from acting alone. At a soccer match Kavalerov only further shows his insecurities when the ball lands at his feet after being kicked out of bounds. Everyone is looking to him to do something, but instead he “[is] passive” (140). Kavalerov doesn’t see himself as a person capable of throwing the ball back to the players the way Babichev ultimately does. Kavalerov’s self-confidence is so poor in moments of great pressure and attention that he is incapable of doing something as inconsequential as picking up a ball.

In contrast to Kavalerov, we are not granted the same insight into Babichev’s world. The target of Kavalerov’s envy, Babichev is solely depicted through a third-person view. It greatly hinders our ability to understand the whole situation. We are introduced to Babichev through Kavalerov’s eyes, who we know is an unreliable narrator. Olesha chooses to disclose very little about Babichev that is from an objective perspective. From Kavalerov’s view, Babichev is what Kavalerov is not: “an exemplary male specimen” and “one of the state’s most remarkable men” (5, 10). However, there is no unbiased proof of these things. In addition, Babichev is clearly not the focus of the novel. At one point, Babichev is gaining great praise for making a sausage that doesn’t go bad after a day; Kavalerov takes the focus off Babichev and onto himself. It is more about Kavalerov’s feelings—“why wasn’t I infatuated? Why wasn’t I smiling....I was filled with spite”—than the praise Babichev earns (40). He describes his feelings as if he’s upset with himself. Kavalerov claims to want to “beam the way Babichev was beaming," but he doesn’t think this until after he has complained about his own feelings (40). In a moment that should be dominated by Babichev’s success, Olesha instead focuses on Kavalerov and his emotions. Babichev sparks Kavalerov’s envy, but ultimately it returns to Kavalerov and his unhappiness with himself. With little proof and little focus on in general, it is clear that Babichev is not as relevant to Kavalerov’s envy as he may think. 

Kavalerov’s story can be linked to many cultures in many different times, including the domination of social media in today’s world. Social media has allowed people to connect and meet without actually being in the same physical space. Many people use it to share photos and exciting milestones in their lives, but it has also caused a new context for envy. People post photos of all the amazing things happening in their life, and other users become envious. One recent study even suggests that people who are envious of others’ travel plans have given tourism a boost. The study focuses on the “consumers with low trait self-esteem” and how they are the driving force behind the tourism boost (Li and Liu and Wu 2018, abstract). Users see all these posts of people doing incredible things and have a desire to fit in. It is essentially the individual versus the collective. The insecure individual desires to join the collective of people who post exclusively positive things on their accounts. The object of envy belongs to a larger group or trend which is defined by context. When looking at social media, the larger trend is bragging about how good one’s life is.

Returning to Envy, the Soviet New Man was a concept that posited that the ideal man was like a machine—hard working, with little emotion, diligent, and selfless. In other words, men like Babichev and his mentee Volodya Makarov. People, some suggest, believe they either "belong" or they do not, and that is what separates the individuals from the collective. Kavalerov doesn’t believe he is a Soviet New Man, but he believes Babichev is. Some social media users believe their lives are brag-worthy and others do not. The collective much like Babichev is not revealed in its entirety. There seems to be a certain lack of complete information when the individual is viewing the collective. Similar to how Babichev’s experiences are narrated only from Kavalerov’s subjective point of view, social media allows users to simply post whatever they want, regardless of truth. Users can choose which photos they post, they are not forced to post about everything giving them the freedom to formulate a skewed narrative that ignores the harder and banal parts of life.

In addition to full control of the narrative that is portrayed, there are many apps that allow users to edit and filter photos. There is another man who Kavalerov envies named Volodya Makarov. Makarov is a goalie on the Soviet soccer team, a true team player, a patriot, and a hard worker, he “is a new man” (Olesha 2004, 89). However, we get brief insight when Makarov admits, “what [he] envie[s] is the machine” (64). So, even though Makarov seems to fit into this idea of a Soviet New Man, he actually feels that he doesn’t belong to the collective. While Makarov cannot manipulate his narrative as easily as people on social media can, he goes to show that we don’t always know everything. We don’t hear about the doubts or troubles of Makarov or that post of a beautiful beach trip on social media. The lack of a complete, truthful narrative hurts the envious’ self-confidence even more because they see only the good parts that are shared. They see a thing that has only positives so when compared to their own complete story filled with life's ups and downs they feel like they have failed.

Ultimately, there is only one way to break free of the envious feelings, and as Kavalerov says “indifference is the best of all conditions” (152). To forget the collective and exist as an individual just like everyone else. Indifference is not necessarily giving up, but acknowledging reality and not getting consumed by a partial reality. There is no satisfying the beast, because it only gets worse. Kavalerov begins the novel by simply obsessing over Babichev, but by the end he has plans to kill Babichev. His indifference prevents him from spiraling more and more. Thus, indifference is the key to sanity and to the most happiness given the circumstances.

Bibliography 

Li, Xiang (Robert), Hongbo Liu, and Laurie Wu. “Social Media Envy: How Experience Sharing on Social Networking Sites Drives Millennials’ Aspirational Tourism Consumption.” Sage Journals 58, no. 3 (March 26, 2018): 355–69. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/004728751876161. 

Olesha, Yuri. Envy. Translated by Marian Schwartz. New York, NY: The New York Review of Books, 2004.