Human mind is a double edge sword: it gives us wonderful and destructive ideas in the same time. In loneliness, the mind can create profound suffering. In 1886, Leo Tolstoy wrote the Death of Ivan Ilyich and shed a light on loneliness and suffering. Through narrating Ivan’s inner struggle with his illness, Tolstoy showed how social isolation can exacerbate mental suffering. The book started with Ivan’s funeral and moved rapidly through his early life. Ivan lives a life with comfort and social conformity. However, this seemingly ordinary and happy life ended when he fell putting up the curtains. As minor signs of illness show up, he starts to struggle with isolation and fear. His doctors’ irresponsiveness to his questions started his mental suffering and this suffering exacerbated as he is isolated from his friends and family. As Ivan is tortured by both physical and mental pain in loneliness, he finally listens to “the voice of his soul, to the course of thoughts arising in him” (45). In a series of reflection, he asks himself deep philosophical questions about the meaning of life and death. However, the loneliness created by the isolation from his doctors, …show more content…
Ivan’s mental suffering began the moment when his doctors refused to address his concern over his health. “It was all as he expected; it was all as it is always done.” (pg 23) To Ivan, going to doctors is just like his job in the court. It is like a system of order with no deviation and the problem lies within this system. Law and court is obviously in a system that requires great order and conformity, but medicine is in the exact opposite. The resemblance between the relationship of Ivan and his doctors and the relationship of himself and criminals in the court suggests to us that his doctors failed their jobs in treating the patient
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy tells the story of Ivan Ilyich, a man who deals with a mysterious illness through introspection. Until his illness, he lived the life he thought he was supposed to live. Like Candide, he was living in blind optimism. He assumed that what he was doing was the right thing because he was told as much. He had a respectable job and a family. Happiness, if it did occur to him, was fulfilling his duties as a husband and father. It was his sudden illness that allowed him to reflect on his choices, concluding that those choices did not make him happy. “Maybe I have lived not as I should have… But how so when I did everything in the proper way” (Tolstoy 1474)? Ilyich had been in a bubble for his entire life, the bubble only popping when he realizes his own mortality. This puts his marriage, his career, and his life choices into perspective. Realizing that he does not get to redo these choices, he distances himself from his old life: his wife, his children, and his career. All that is left is to reflect. This reflection is his personal enlightenment. He had been living in the dark, blind to his true feelings for his entire life. Mortality creates a space in which he can question himself as to why he made the choices he made, and how those choices created the unsatisfactory life he finds himself in
PI never quite makes the transition to the true understanding of the nature of life that Ivan had made and Gerasim as well. Even though upon leaving Ivan’s funeral PI evokes the observation that it is God’s will that everybody dies someday. His receptivity and consciousness make him stand out amongst society. If one looks at PI’s last name of Ivan...
Factors that can fuel loneliness are abundant: depression, trauma, social rejection, loss, low self-esteem, etc. The aspect of human connection and interaction is a psychological requirement for all people, even to those who push others away. These elements of isolation are presented through three methods in a 1938 novel of friendship. John Steinbeck uses indirect characterization, discrimination, and conflict to demonstrate the effects of loneliness and need for companionship in his novel Of Mice and Men.
He realizes that he is dying from this illness by himself. Since this is the case, he begins going through the stages not whenever the doctor says “you only have x amount of time to live”, but whenever the doctor avoids giving him a definite answer to his question if the illness is dangerous or not. This is where Ivan starts his stage of denial. Even the narrator foretells this denial by the satirical comment about Ivan’s life: “and it was all very well.” (pg. 22) After he sees the doctor it is written that Ivan says: “maybe in fact it’s all right…” (pg. 25) He begins to be interested with other people’s health, and “tried to make himself think that he was better.” (pg. 25) A sign that we see Ivan’s denial clearly is from his action of “constantly consulting doctors”. (pg. 26) Kubler-Ross said that a patient “went shopping around” for different doctors. Through his denial, he began also to have fits of anger. These would continue to happen until shortly before his actual death. The biggest torment for him was that everyone was living a lie. No one would acknowledge that he was dying and he and they both knew it. Another thing that caused his anger was when someone (usually his wife) would disturb his peace. If they took him out of his pleasantness, it reminded of him of his illness and then would get agitated. The anger continued to grow. He even got angry at
They are surprised by his death, but immediately think of how his death will affect their own lives, but more importantly, their careers. “The first thought that occurred to each of the gentlemen in the office, learning of Ivan Ilyich’s death, was what effect it would have on their own transfers and promotions.” (pg 32) As a reader, you have to wonder how Ivan must have had to live in order for people close to him to feel no sadness towards the loss or even pity for his wife. In fact, these gentlemen are exactly like Ivan. The purpose of their lives was to gain as much power as possible, with no regard for the harm that was caused by their selfish endeavor.... ...
Ivan has a strong disconnect with his family and begins feel like he is always suffering, while beginning to question if his life has been a lie. An example of this for prompt number three is when we are giving the quote "Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." Leo Tolstoy implies through the quote that even though he lives an ordinary
Why does the story begin with the death? Most books use mystery in the beginning and announce the death at the end. But Tolstoy used a different chronology, he started with the death of Ivan and then uses a flashback to show the reader what really happened. Also he chooses to start with the death to make the story seem real and not fictional. At Ivan’s funeral, nobody seemed devastated by the loss of Ivan, which gave the reader an understanding of how little Ivan’s life meant to the people even the ones close to him. Later in the reading, but before his death Ivan questions how he lived his mortality life and what if he lived his life properly. Before his death he had come to the realization that his death would benefit all the others around him. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" begins with the death of Ivan in order to get it out of the way. In essence the
Stephen Marche Lets us know that loneliness is “not a state of being alone”, which he describes as external conditions rather than a psychological state. He states that “Solitude can be lovely. Crowded parties can be agony.”
His own loneliness, magnified so many million times, made the night air colder. He remembered to what excess, into what traps and nightmares, his loneliness had driven him; and he wondered where such a violent emptiness might drive an entire city. (60)
Do we plan how we live our own life without following the society or do we live a life that follow what people in the higher level of society consider to be proper. Choosing how to live our life? However even if you chooses to dictate your own life without following what the society tells you to do; can you really achieve that freedom? In two book the “Death of Van Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy and “Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen we’ll see two different person who choose to walk two different path.
It is important that everyone lives their lives according to God’s purpose for them. Many people in today’s society fear death. Those who fear death have little to no knowledge about what God has planned for all of his children. On the other hand, some people fear death because they feel as though they have not fully completed their life’s purpose; or lived accordingly. This work brings about many real-life situations. There will always be people who use others to advance their own lives. Then there will be people who want the best for others. Continuing a study of this work will allow readers to make a connection to his or her current society. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is an easy read, that will automatically catch the reader’s
In his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy satirizes the isolation and materialism of Russian society and suggests that its desensitized existence overlooks the true meaning of life—compassion. Ivan had attained everything that society deemed important in life: a high social position, a powerful job, and money. Marriage developed out of necessity rather than love: “He only required of it those conveniences—dinner at home, housewife, and bed—which it could give him” (17). Later, he purchased a magnificent house, as society dictated, and attempted to fill it with ostentatious antiquities solely available to the wealthy. However, “In reality it was just what is usually seen in the houses of people of moderate means who want to appear rich, and therefore succeed only in resembling others like themselves” (22). Through intense characterizations by the detached and omniscient narrator, Tolstoy reveals the flaws of this deeply superficial society. Although Ivan has flourished under the standards of society, he fails to establish any sort of connection with another human being on this earth. Tragically, only his fatal illness can allow him to confront his own death and reevaluate his life. He finally understands, in his final breath, that “All you have lived for and still live for is falsehood and deception, hiding life and death from you” (69).
Ivan Ilych was a member of the Court of Justice who was "neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them—an intelligent, polished, lively, and agreeable man” (Tolstoy 102). He lived an unexceptionally ordinary life and strived for averageness. As the story progresses, he begins to contemplate his life choices and the reason for his agonizing illness and inevitable death. “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done, but how could that be, when I did everything properly?” (Tolstoy
The story of In "The Death of Ivan Ilych", was written by Leo Tolstoy around who examines the life of a man, Ivan Ilyich, who would seem to have lived an exemplary life with moderate wealth, high station, and family. By story's end, however, Ivan's life will be shown to be devoid of passion -- a life of duties, responsibilities, respect, work, and cold objectivity to everything and everyone around Ivan. It is not until Ivan is on his death bed in his final moments that he realizes that materialism had brought to his life only envy, possessiveness, and non-generosity and that the personal relationships we forge are more important than who we are or what we own.
To many individuals the word “progress” has a positive meaning behind it. It suggests improvement, something humans have been obsessed with since the dawn of society. However, if closely examined, progress can also have a negative connotation as well. While bringing improvement, progress can simultaneously spark conformity, dependency, and the obsession of perfection within the individuals caught in its midst. It is this aspect of progress within modern society that negatively affects Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy’s main character in The Death of Ivan Ilych. Ivan’s attempt to conform to modern society’s view of perfection takes away his life long before he dies. Furthermore, his fear of death and reactions towards it reflects modern society’s inability to cope with the ever present reminder that humans still suffer and die, despite all attempts to make life painless, perfect, and immortal.