Through experiencing or living with pain, insight, knowledge and understanding can be presented to those things that may not have been in realization in a pain free life. Because of pain, the true meaning of life, what it is like to live, and the value of oneself and others is to be within one’s control. Pain strengthens the body, mind, and the spirit. As stated in Virginia Woolf’s essay on Being Ill, the true beauty of the people and the real beauty of the earth can be seen through the eyes of those who are in pain. Also according to Woolf, pain can lead to spiritual divinity. From my understanding, the power of prayer to some people is not in belief until pain has overtaken the body of oneself or of a loved one. Pain seems to open the eyes of those who have not lived correctly. Small things in life are often overlooked due to the busy and determined career oriented lifestyles. The joys of live come through the detail of the small gestures given or received. The golden rule of “treat others the way you want to be treated,” is so important for people who want to lead a happy life. Until he was deathly ill, Ivan Ilyich, the main character in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, never appreciated the small things in life. His focus was narrowed to one topic. “Ivan made work the center gravity of his life (p. 50).” Before anything else, including his marriage, Ivan’s work and analyzing way of living was of first priority. Neither Ivan nor his friends valued one another. Ivan’s family and friends treated Ivan as if he was a large inconvenience. Ivan’s coworkers were selfish as to who were going to receive his job. His wife was also selfish as to her well-being. “Ivan’s wife, Praskovya Fyodorovna, went into Ivan’s hospital room ... ... middle of paper ... ...weeks in critical condition. Luckily, she survived and my passenger and I made it with minor injuries. Not a day goes by where I do not think about what happened, but I know it happened for a reason. Getting through this painful situation made me a stronger willed person. Taking things for granted is what I do not do. I truly value my life and my family’s lives. A life can be taken away at any second. Giving thanks for the joy and love in life is something that needs to be done daily. Material items are always replaceable, but a human being is not. Memories made will last a lifetime, but the presence of a loved one will not. The best advice is to live life to the fullest and value the sentimental belongings, especially family and friends. Pain is not an ease, but it helps ease the minds of those who are most important with respect and insight to value.
Leo Tolstoy as one of Russia’s great writers, wrote marvelous pieces looking at societal questions and playing with the minds of his readers. The Death of Ivan Ilych is one of Tolstoy’s best written short stories and a popular story for the world on the topic of death and the process of dying. This story is about a man confronting death and in a way bringing life to him during the process of his death. Ivan Ilych fell onto the inevitable trail of death and had realized the true meaning of living along the way. The concept of writing about death is not in any way a new concept nor was it obscure to read in Tolstoy’s era; what makes this short story special is the way that Tolstoy illustrates his character. Ivan Ilych goes through a journey of discovery while he is dying. This story attempts to tackle the questions that cannot be answered; what makes a man happy in life, what makes life worth living?
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
Many upper-middle class people believe that conforming to societal norms is what would determine a person’s happiness. Ivan Ilyich, follows a conventional lifestyle with a steady job. Tolstoy depicts how Ivan conforms to society by using Ivan’s perspective of his work as something “[presenting] on paper only in its externals, completely excluding his personal opinion of the matter.” (Tolstoy, 748). Ivan’s behavior demonstrates how he is not passionate about his work and that he only works because it is acceptable in society. Tolstoy uses satire to reveal Ivan’s character as a man existing to please society. “At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good positions and that they did not
The short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych” is about a man who realizes he is dying and that no one in his life cares about him. Even more disappointing for Ivan is the realization that besides his success as a high court judge, he has done nothing else to make his life worth saving. The death of Ivan Ilyich, sadly, comes as a release of stress to all. In the end, Ivan is soothed by the release of death, his family and friends are relieved of having responsibility of Ivan taken off their shoulders, and the reader is released from the stressful journey. Tolstoy teaches the audience through the structural elements of the “black sack” metaphor and pathos about the unavoidability of death and the relief of accepting it.
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.
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
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).
Pain and suffering is something that we all would like to never experience in life, but is something that is inevitable. “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?” is a question that haunts humanity. Mother Teresa once said that, “Suffering is a gift of God.” Nevertheless, we would all like to go without it. In the clinical setting, pain and suffering are two words that are used in conjunction. “The Wound Dresser,” by Walt Whitman and “The Nature of Suffering and Goals of Medicine,” by Eric J Cassel addresses the issue of pain and suffering in the individual, and how caregivers should care for those suffering.
Freud had a preoccupation with death and suffering. He lived with great personal pain and during a time in history of war and death. From the burning of his books to the murder of his sister and dispersal of his family from their homes, Freud experienced the effects of human depravity by the efforts of Nazi ideology. His preoccupation with death and suffering was justifiable be, but he needed a rationale for why this problem of pain existed, and how men should to respond to it. Through personal struggle with pain, Freud examined his own psyche. He had a dichotomous desire for his own death. One the one hand he wished for immortality, but on the other hand he wished for an end to suffering through death. He chose to reject beliefs of heaven, hell, paradise and immortality on the basis that these ideas were only childhood fantasies. Freud found it preferable to esteem the work of thought as an end. Seeking comfort through “child-hood fantasy” was not an option, according to him. He said that he could not “face the idea of life without work. What would one do when ideas fail...,” and that it would be “impossible not to shudder at the thought.” His rejection of a real God caused his understanding of how and why the problem of pain existed to be limited to the realm of human invention. Freud theorized that guilt was at the heart of antisemitism. He wrote, “Moses and Monotheism” for this very purpose. According to his theory, Christianity was invented in order to relieve the unbearable guilt that the world experienced. Judaism, however, rejected this solution for the relief of guilt and consequently the world “repays Judaism with eternal hatred.” Despite his determined conclusions derived from thought, Freud did state t...
In the short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy, the narrator desribes how Ivan, a government official who has a horrible illness and is painfully dying while at home, while being very lonely. Ivan has a very small-minded personality, and on top of that he does not have a very good family life at home or with his close friends Peter and Schwarts. Somehow Gerasim catches Ivan’s interest and eventually becomes one of the only people that Ivan is nice too because he actually understands what Ivan is going through. Ivan’s friends and family know that he is dying, but they try very hard to not think about his death. In this short story, Tolstoy gives insight to how people change after Ivan dies and examines the relationships he had with his wife, two kids, friend peter and Gerasim.
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,
One Work Cited In "The Death of Ivan Ilych", Leo Tolstoy examines the life of a man, Ivan, 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 what will become the major theme of the story: that the personal relationships we forge are more important in life than who we are or what we own.
Pain, a word that is always associated with getting hurt. The real question now is how it hurt. In life people experience many types of pain. There are two different kinds of pain; physical and mental. The physical part of pain is like falling from something, cutting your arm, or stubbing your toe. The mental part of pain is like hurting someone’s feeling from saying something harsh or doing something to them emotionally, which hurts inside. The causes and effects of physical and mental pain are very different but can be both equally devastating and even more dramatic with emotionally disturbed people.
... a person should look at their life and how they should face their death. In The Snows of Kilimanjaro Harry was not content with the life he had lived. He made sacrifices and in result he was just not happy, and because of his sacrifices he had many regrets as he was dying. On the other hand Ivan Ilyich was too engaged in his work life and ignored his family matters. He didn’t step up to the plate; instead he ran away from the issues and hid behind his work, therefore resulting in a very non-loving family life. Luckily Ivan found peace in himself as he was about to die, even becoming joyful. Both of these writings teach that going after materialistic things, the way a person treats the people around them, and being self-absorbed can cause a distasteful death. Living life to the fullest and making the most of it can enrich your life and cause a more pleasant passing.
People can wear pain on the outside like a mask, hiding them from the world, but it also can hide deep within them waiting to be freed by some emotional circumstance. Oddly enough, pain is one on the most feared apprehensions in the mind of humans, yet in some situations, is the most rejoiced. In this paper I will take a close look at pain, from it's true meaning to real life occurrences in which pain is a reality.We all know what pain feels like, for everyone has experienced it at one time in their lives. There are two dimensions of pain; the physical and the emotional pain. Physical pain is a sensation of pure discomfort. For example, when you are walking through your house and stump your toe on a table leg, you don't just stand there and say, "That hurt." You yell loudly to the world (either nice or naughty) that you stumped your toe.