A Love Story Of Ivan Illych

“Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow, but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but,

The physical death he must face at the end scares him because it forces him to realize the life he has lived has been completely false. When confronted with death Ivan starts retracing his past, wondering what he has done to deserve such pain and suffering. He realizes when he is bed ridden that he was much more alive as a child then as an adult. In chapter five of The Death of Ivan Ilych, Ivan admits that “…the further back he looked the more life there had been. There had been more of what was good in life and more of life itself,” (Tolstoy 238). If one were to observe small children play, they would notice it does not take much to hold a child’s interest, and often they are much more fascinated by things that don’t work correctly then things that do. With the pressure to conform to society’s views of perfection as an adult, Ivan loses the liveliness he possessed as a child. Having to face death terrifies him because it forces him to admit he actually did not do the correct thing like he thought he did.

Ivan IV, also known as “Ivan the Terrible,” lived from 1530 to 1584 and was the first Tsar of Russia. He officially reigned from the age of three; however, he did not have any real power until he crowned himself “Tsar” of Russia in 1547. He went on to conquer vast amounts of neighboring territories, eventually controlling the largest empire in the world at the time. In addition to increasing the Russian Tsardom’s size, he also completely restructured the political system. He took away all power from the noble boyar elite, and became an absolute monarch. This was good because the boyars at the time had been corrupt, and more interested in their personal interests than the interests of the state (Ivan the Terrible).

Unfortunately, Ivan's condition gets worse and he enters the cycle of depression. This is when an individual realizes that their death is certain. Signs of this cycle include becoming silent, refusal of visitors, and spending most of their time crying and grieving. In the book, Ivan is shown casting away his wife and his fellow magistrates. The only one he allowed to visit him was his servant, Gerasim. “And he ceased crying...during that loneliness Ivan Illych had only lived in the

Ivan IV was a complicated man, with a complicated past, in a complicated country, in a complicated time; his story is not an easy one. Ivan the terrible, the man, could never be completely understood in a few words, nor in a few pages, and only perhaps in a few volumes. A man of incredible range his dreadfulness could only be matched by his magnificence, his love by his hatred.

    In the face of Morrie's overwhelming compassion and tenderness, Ivan Ilych presents an opposite lifestyle. After a pleasantly carefree childhood he turned towards ambition and pursued an ever-larger salary and an ever-increasing social rank. Ivan lived without values and without attachments, easily moving between cities and jobs. He cared little for the great inconvenience of his family, and even less for his wife: "he hate[d] her with his whole soul" (Ivn, 139). Commitment was a prison to be avoided at all costs, a detriment to his proper and official existence. Genuine love touched Ivan only rarely and certainly not during the dying moments when he needed it the most.

On a day to day bases, men and women in prison or jail are dehumanized and terrorized by their superiors or even their inmates in the Criminal Justice System. The inmates that are in this situation are usually physically, emotionally, and mentally abused, they are often deprived of meals and are belittled. The inmates in this situation have no other choice but adapt to their best ability of the harsh situation they are founded in or be broken and taken over by the system they are forced to be a part of. Is it true that a person in difficult situations needs to be indifferent of their past because being nostalgic can only hurt them? Or does the harsh situation they become a custom to make it easier to forget their past life?. Solzhenitsyn uses Shukhov’s indifferent attitude towards his past to illustrate that a person cannot be nostalgic because it can lead to one’s self-destruction.

" We are living in a material world." This famous line in one of Madonna's songs entitled "Material Girl" will never outgrow itself. Ever since the beginnings of monetary means, the main focus of living is getting more money and to be as successful as possible. This became a huge issue during the 1920's. In this era, people made money from the stock market, illegal bootlegging and so forth. With these people hitting the jackpot, this then created a new rank called `new money'. This rank, however, never overpowered `old money' the most wealthiest, well-known and respected class. The possession of material wealth however, can't bring true happiness. Love is an important factor in this equation; when you don't have love, it is hard to say

Thesis Statement: While both Ivan Ilyich and Willy Loman are unsatisfied about their family situations, Loman’s family is willing to take actions and care about Loman when he encounters hardship and stress, whereas Ilyich's family gives him less sympathy about his illness.

By tying the fear of death embedded into multiple characters with their egotistical qualities, Tolstoy illuminates how selfishness derives from rejecting our inevitable mortality. Choosing to begin the book with Ivan’s funeral, Tolstoy first introduces Ivan’s co-worker Pyotr Ivanovich and juxtaposes his proper external reaction to Ivan’s death to his instinctual internal response. Conforming to accepted social customs, Pyotr roams the funeral offering his condolences and socializing with Ivan’s friends and family, “Praskovya Fyodorovna sighed… and said: ‘I know you were a true friend of Ivan Ilyich’s…’ and looked at him, awaiting a fitting response. Pyotr Ivanovich knew that just as he had to cross himself in there, here he had to press her hand, sigh, and say: ‘I assure you!’ (36).

After her and Ivan’s marriage, their life was normal until she got pregnant in their first kid. She became bad temper and abused him with crude terms when he did not fulfill her demands. As a result of Praskovya’s bad treatment toward her husband, Ivan was escaping is bored time

In The Death of Ivan Ilych Leo Tolstoy conveys the psychological importance of the last, pivotal scene through the use of diction, symbolism, irony. As Ivan Ilych suffers through his last moments on earth, Tolstoy narrates this man's struggle to evolve and to ultimately realize his life was not perfect. Using symbols Tolstoy creates a vivid image pertaining to a topic few people can even start to comprehend- the reexamination of one's life while on the brink of death. In using symbols and irony Tolstoy vividly conveys the manner in which Ilych views death as darkness unto his last moments of life when he finally admits imperfection.

It is obvious to the reader that this retreat into his work is the soul means by which Ivan moves towards a personal goal of self-justification and righteousness. It is no

Ivan Ilych’s marriage to Praskovya Fedorovna is not built on true love, instead it is built on Ivan Ilych once again, trying to fit in with society. To prove that Ivan Ilych did not get married based off true love the narrator says, “Ivan Ilych might have aspired to a more brilliant match, but even this was good. He had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have an equal income.” (Tolstoy) This quote proves that Ivan Ilych was conforming to society and he married his wife just because it was the right thing to do since everyone else was doing it which is shown when the narrator says “Ivan might have aspired to a more brilliant match” meaning that he was not completely satisfied with his wife. Ivan Ilych did not look at the deeper meaning of marriage, he only looked at the materialistic and physical things that came along with his wife which is why they both did not live a happy life together. When Ivan Ilych got ill the narrator says, “her husband had a dreadful temper and made her life miserable, she began to feel sorry for herself, and the more she pitied herself the more she hated her husband. She began to wish he would die” (Tolstoy). This expresses the hate that Praskovya Fedorovna felt towards her husband due to the fact that she realized Ivan Ilych never cared for her or her family and he only cared about his social status. Ivan Ilych was a bad husband because of his immorality and thus his wife is insurgent against him. Here,

The Russian attitude toward love during Chekhov’s time is very patriarchal and is considered normal to marry for practical reasons, parental pressures or other considerations rather than for love. The feelings that accompany love, such as passion and spirituality, are not a societal consideration and this institutional attitude toward human emotion is the catalyst for Chekhov’s story. When a person is deprived of love, he or she builds up a futility of life which consumes the human soul. In Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, the readers are placed in a setting where the main character Gurov, and his love interest Anna, are given the emotional freedom to feel love toward one another. This freedom is the driving force in the story