Death Of Ivan Ilyich Analysis

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

Tolstoy uses vivid imagery to describe Ivan Ilych's struggle to submit to his life's end. For example, Tolstoy describes Ivan as feeling as though he is struggling to get inside of a hole. The darkness in the hole obstructs Ivan's ability to get in, and he is unable to get past

In his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy offers his audience a glance into the life and death of an ambitious man, Ivan Ilych. Tolstoy uses the death of Ivan Ilyich to show his audience the negative consequences of living the way Ilych did. Ivan Ilych followed society and made decisions based on what others around him conformed to and not so much about what he genuinely wanted until he was on his deathbed. As death approaches Ilych he realizes that he wrecked everything that should be meaningful in his life in order to work and make money and in the end his friends did not really care much about him. Ilych’s desire to conform made him live a miserable life and led him to darkness. Ivan Ilych attained everything that society

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.

    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.

However, not everyone in the society is so callous. The appearance of Gerasim brings light for the gloomy story. The servant represents the side of people who are having compassion and empathy with others. Gerasim is the he is the complete opposite of Ivan, and he has all wonderful virtues. He has kindly seen his job in Ivan is a kind of help and duty to the dying people; he comforts and heals Ivan in some degree, as Tolstoy describes, “Gerasim did it all easily, willingly, simply, and with a good nature that touched Ivan Ilych. Health, strength, and vitality in other people were offensive to him, but Gerasim 's strength and vitality did not mortify but soothed him.” Even Gerasim just a poor peasant who is socially subordinate to Ivan Ilyich, his behaviors in large degree shows the right way to live, and his contact with Ivan connects the man along the road to spiritual health. What is the unique quality that makes Gerasim different from other people, shows him kindness to Ivan? That is his mercy nature leads him to suffer with others, and he is more focus on mental life rather than material life. In Gerasim’s eyes, Ivan is a suffering, frightened, dying man, and he feels pity and sad on Ivan. At the same time, different from other characters refute the approaching death, Gerasim, on the other hand, Ghas the right and clear attitude to death that he acknowledges death is the inevitable experience of life that will automatically come to him one day, and does not ignore it.

     The progress of modern society and the pressure to conform has not only hastened Ivan Ilych’s death but also made him a die a very miserable death. As soon Ivan realizes he has a physical problem, a problem that began with his obsession of having the perfect house, he consults one of the best doctors he

“Gerasim alone did not lie; everything showed that he alone understood the facts of the case and did not consider it necessary to disguise them, but simply felt sorry for his emaciated and enfeebled master” (VII, 41-43). Gerasim shows Ivan compassion and respect because he knows that Ivan is sick. Ivan asks Gerasim to forgive him for having to do unpleasant things for him. Gerasim tells him with a pleasant attitude: "Oh, why, sir," and Gerasim's eyes beamed and he showed his glistening white teeth, "what's a little trouble? It's a case of illness with you, sir” (VII, 15). Gerasim assures Ivan that taking care of him is not a problem and that it is the right thing to do especially for someone who is sick. Gerasim also conveys to Ivan concerning death: “Once when Ivan Ilych was sending him away he even said straight out: "We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?"—expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do the same for him when his time came” (VII, 43-44). Gerasim lets Ivan know that death is something everyone will have to face some day and he hopes that someone will also provide care for

Though it may seem natural to desire a better place in society, this improvement may come at a price. In Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, Marx discusses the various problems that arise in society to due capitalism and how to solve these problems through communism. Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich focuses on a man whose capitalistic desires end up causing his own downfall. Tolstoy and Marx would argue that some of the biggest problems with capitalistic societies are that they cause individuals to put on a façade and display a false persona for society while also prioritizing the more superficial aspects of life such as material goods and social status over family relations. The result of such a society is a working class that is

In Chapter 9 Ivan is in an opium-induced haze with his companion Gerasim keeping him company. While in this condition, he still sufferings from pain and fear of the unknown. When he wakes from his dream, Ivan tells Gerasim to go away. Once he hears Gerasim go into the other room, Ivan bursts into tears, crying like a child. He starts talking to God, wanting to know where God is and why God is doing this to him. What did he do to deserve it? While in silence, Ivan heard something like a voice within himself, and focuses all of his attention on listening. Ivan tells himself he wants. "To live and not to suffer”, and for everything to be as it was before the injury because it was pleasant and comfortable. As he starts contemplating on if his

The book The Death of Ivan Ilych is a literary work by Count Leo Tolstoy published in 1886 and has been hailed as a masterpiece both by critics and readers. The author has been reputed as one of the people who changed how the subject of death is treated in society. In the novel, Leo Tolstoy presents the story of Ivan Ilych who lived a wasted life but who is not ready to imagine his own death. Through Gerasim, the peasant servant associated with Ivan, we are able to see the simple and gentle approach manner to which he serves his master. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the first major work of fiction completed by Leo Tolstoy after his existential crisis. “The death of Ivan Ilych can be seen as true reflection of and an elaboration of Tolstoy’s

The elegant image of a bourgeois society with its emphasis on wealth and property, is only a mirage. Underneath it all is a different world of oppression—specifically, for women in the bourgeois class. In Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler and Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, both works depict female characters in the bourgeois class who face the societal oppression and cope with it in their own way. These oppressions are often set off by the male characters, constructed by the bourgeois society.

They have just learned about Ilyich’s death, and they outwardly react in the way expected of them. However, these reactions are only for show; internally, each man approaches Ilyich’s death with a slight air of annoyance at the inconvenience the death causes, speculations about what Ilyich’s death means for his own career and his friends’ careers, and relief in the fact that, once again, another man has died instead of himself. Along with this feeling of relief also comes a sort of denial; the men all recognize that Ivan Ilyich is mortal, but deny their own mortality, believing death to be some isolated incident that only happens to other men. They go through the motions of one who has lost an acquaintance, only doing what is socially acceptable and moving on from the death at the first possible

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