The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy shows reader how not to live their everyday life. Of course we have to work day in and day out to provide for our families, but there comes a time when your work life should be put on hold. No life is ever perfect, we must make the best out of what we can accomplish. The Death of Ivan Ilyich teaches us about three themes: the right life, your mental “phony” life versus reality, and the unavoidable death to come. The right life does not mean perfect, the right life infers the moral knowledge of one person and how they go about this life. The right life is different for everyone, but in the end your family and spiritual life should be the same. One way of a right life is to always be joyful, and have a positive outlook upon any situation. Another is to think what is best for a “crowd” of people and where you would fit in. Find other people with the same interest and hobbies will make you more productive in anything you do. Never put your life under one thing you should split it up, meaning do not put everything into work. Becoming better at managing your time so you can enjoy life, of course there are some bumps to slow …show more content…
Many people like Ivan are afraid of death, not knowing what will happen after they are gone and how their loved ones will cope with the loss of life so close to them. Tolstoy starts this story off with the death of Ivan Ilyich which is very different from most stories, but he tries to show his readers it is not about the death of a person, it is really about the things you do in your life by yourself and with others, and all the great accomplishments you gain up to your death. One major point in life later on when you are retired (65+) is the acceptance stage or “ego integrity versus despair stage” by Erik Erikson which shows the wisdom in humans. The person looks back upon their life and develop a sense of closure and accept death without
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
People usually believe following society is the “right” way of living. In Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy uses a recurring theme of conformity. He illustrates Ivan Ilyich, the protagonist, a middle class man as a modern day conformist. His character lives for society’s approval and in doing so, distracts himself from seeking true happiness. Throughout the novel, Leo Tolstoy uses satire to expose the upper-middle class people as conformists. Tolstoy portrays the damaging effects propriety has on an individual when the individual chooses to disregard compassion and fulfillment in favor of society’s norms.
The reader have probably wondered how different the life would be, if one day one could have followed his desires? If spontaneously, leaving his routine life behind one could have finally discovered a long awaited feeling of delight?!
Tolstoy provided us with two perspectives to view Ivan’s life in “The death of Ivan Illyich”: an omniscient narrator and Ivan himself. What I plan to do is give another perspective, not necessarily to view his life, but rather to his experiences after he realized he was dying. This perspective will be an analytical and psychological; the perspective from Kubler-Ross’s Stages of death (or stages of grief, as they are better known for). These stages occur when we are faced with an event that is usually connected with death. The “normal” order in which these five stages occur, though may not go doctrinally in this order, are as such: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
According to Kubler-Ross’s theory, the first cycle is denial. Denial in this case is the individual denying that they are dying. When the individual resists the reality that they are going to die. “Then where shall I be when I am no more? Could this be dying? No I don’t want to!” (Tolystoy, “TdofII” p127), Ivan may have felt that he would be leaving too much behind if he were to die: worrying about where he’ll after he dies and refusing to something that cannot be stopped. Concerned mostly about losing his luxuries, he was clearly afraid and couldn’t accept he was dying as shown in this quote. “In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.” (Tolystoy, “TdofII” p129).
In the story The Death of Ivan Llych, the interesting pattern of materialism rises. Ivan questions how he had lived his life in the past, doubting whether his decisions swayed him to take the right route in life or not. Reflecting on his social expectations near death Ivan finds no comfort, realizing that he focused on the wrong aspects of life. At the announcement of Ivan’s death his loved ones focus first on money and work, as Ivan was a well-liked colleague they realized that his death may change and affect them in a negative way. This is significant to the rest of the story, potentially showing that Ivan lived a very materialistic life.
What exactly is dysfunctional? Who wrote the rules to proper family or societal behavior? How does one know exactly what the proper reaction is? Every family has its crazy members and every city it’s insane citizens, but many do a great job of covering it up. Especially when it comes to high in social standing. Many are very careful not to air their dirty laundry in public. There are times when it can get out of hand and the unthinkable may happen. Is it right for one person to automatically appoint themselves as head of the household such as, Orgon in Tartuffe? What about Ivan Ilyich? Would he have been considered the head of the house, because he allowed his wife’s attitude to predict the family’s social standing? These two stories are classic of situational irony not only from families, but in human nature. To analyze Tartuffe and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and then compare them, one must have an open mind to all sorts of behavior and believe that these situations are indeed a reality.
Just the thought of death is like a sin to mankind. No one wants to accept and think about the death of others and no one can truly understand what it is like to die until they are in the position themselves. The continual lack of sincerity among Ivan’s peers could simply be because they didn’t truly care about Ivan as more than a co-worker or acquaintance, but Tolstoy attempts to dive deeper than that. Another possible answer to this lack of sincerity could be that people will create any response possible to push aside the pain that comes with death and the very thought of the possibility of they themselves dying soon. The common saying, “He’s dead but I’m not” is not one that is highly cheered about. Possibly this pushing away
Ivan Ilyich from the book “Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy live what he thinks to be proper life. Now the way he define a proper life is that he should follow what other people in the higher society do and follow what society thinks is proper. He went
Though illness stripped both Morrie Schwartz and Ivan Ilych of their hope for survival, their dissimilar lifestyles led each to a much different end. Morrie found himself in an overflow of compassion while surrounded by family, friends and colleagues. Ivan, on the other hand, found only the obligatory company of his wife and the painful awareness that no one really cared. Both characters ended their lives the way they lived them, as Ivan acknowledges: "In them he saw himself" (Ivn, 149). While Morrie poured himself into every moment of life and every relationship he pursued, Ivan skirted the dangers of emotion to live "easily, pleasantly, and decorously" (Ivn, 115). In the spirit of such an opposition, the two stories become somewhat like responses to each other. Morrie Schwatrz, proclaimed...
Foremost, The Death of Ivan Ilych, is effective in retaining a great amount of literary messages and complex themes which continuously question the constructs within the story, and initiate the reader’s involvement in the piece. Ivan’s life reflects that of the middle class, able to achieve a lofty position as a judge through means which require no personal integrity or excessive labor, merely vague dedication to an unfulfilling position. Tolstoy incorporates the gradual downfall of Ivan Ilych’s initially idealistic, and greatly naive evaluation of a successful position. The reader is able to see this through specific actions made by the character, such as Ivan Ilych’s exasperation regarding a leave of absences, resulting in his pursuit of jobs based on financial reimbursement, rather
Ivan's self is conceived when he sees that his life of congruity has been profound passing. His illness makes him see that he is passing away, even thought just simply “could not and would not grasp it.”(Tolstoy 286), all made not out of genuine delights yet only the useless, brief joys of an existence lived for cash, obligation, deliberateness, whose significance is as clear as to him the divider he gazes at in his torment. Ivan battles through the anguish of ailment to discover some significance in his life, something past subordination to motorized society. The main sparkling parts he can see in his previous life are those minutes where he endeavored
Karl Marx once stated, “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains.” Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich focuses on the middle class struggles in Russia during the 1800s and how materialism has negative impacts on people in society. Tolstoy uses the novella to demonstrate how Russian society was imperfect in the 1800s and Tolstoy portrayed ideals similar to Marxism in the book. Marxism is the ideology that everyone should be equal in regards to class, education, economics and politics. Marxism was created by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during the 1840s. Their ideology was to establish a classless society where property and resources are owned by the community and not the individuals themselves. Tolstoy used the novella to contrast his ideals of a classless society and anti-materialism to show how negative the caste system and the materialistic lifestyle of the Russian middle class was.
The life of Ivan Ilyich, we are told, "had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible" (Tolstoy, Ch. 2). In analyzing this description of Ivan's life, we see that Ivan has always done what is expected of him in the eyes of others (wife, co-workers, employers, etc.). While Ivan believes his life has run easily, pleasantly, and decorously like it should, we see that in reality it is an unfulfilled life. Ivan's closest associates are more worried about who will be next in line for promotion now that he is gone, and at his funeral they are more concerned over a bridge game than grieving for the loss of a friend, "The more intimate of Ivan Ilyich's acquaintances, his so-called friends, could not help thinking also that they would now have to fulfill the very tiresome demands of propriety by attending the funeral service and paying a visit of condolence to the widow" (Tolstoy Ch. 1).
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,