Materialism In The Death Of Ivan Ilych By Tolstoy

In the novel The Death of Ivan Ilych by Tolstoy, we see at the beginning of the book that his colleagues, when told of Ivan’s death don’t so any remorse or sadness by his death but think how blessed they are that it was not them. Then the story jumps back thirteen years to when young Ivan is attending law school. The book shows the way Ivan lives and the things he puts in priority in his life and what holds true meaning in his life, which by the end he sees he has lived for the wrong reason. After reading the novel, we analyze the seen and unseen environment, the way he saw the world, and my own experience with illness. Initially, there are two environments that are prevalent in the novel the seen and unseen environments. It is evident in the beginning that his colleagues do not care that he is dead but see what they can gain from his death. They feel burdened with the fact that they have to

Ivan’s materialistic view of the world is evident throughout the book. His life is about achieving a high up status in the worlds view. Ivan’s sole purpose for marrying his wife is for a certain status and throughout most of the book he acts like she is nuisance in his life and ignores her and his son and daughter. His late night games of bridge had a higher importance to him then coming home to enjoy his family. Close to the end he realizes that he has been living the wrong life that when he dies no one will miss him or cares just like the way people reacted in the first chapter they were unsympathetic towards his death. He sees that he has been living an artificial life and should have spent more time with his family and he should have been loving and he should have had created greater meaning for his life, which Gerasim shows him as he takes care of him in his last