How Did Tolstoy Contribute To Suicide

In the beginning of Chapter XII of Tolstoy’s story, Ivan starts to painfully scream loudly for three consecutive days, during which time Ivan realizes that his doubts are still unsolved. During this moment, Ivan realizes that moving up in social esteem has not led to joy, fulfillment, and life, but to misery, emptiness, and death instead. Blinded by the values of high society, he

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.

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

Furthermore, in Leo Tolstoy‘s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and analysis will demonstrate that the character Ivan Ilyich struggles throughout his life to achieve the ideals of liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness. It is through Ivan’s death and his friend’s narration of Ivan’s life that the reader comes to the realization the the middle-class Ivan has few strength’s besides his hard work to drive him towards his ideals for wealth and property. Ivan lived his whole life with the purpose of enjoying himself. He did this through winning power at work, spending money, buying things to impress his friends, throwing parties, and playing bridge. His pursuit of happiness in material things and pleasures is so great that his deliberately avoids anything unpleasant. This means that when he settled down with a family, which was expected of him, he never grows close to them.

In his essay “Creation from the Void”, existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov claimed that with regards to lofty concepts such as love, art, and inspiration, “Chekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and die.” While his words may seem a bit radical, they do bear a certain truth. Even in his early works, Chekhov was at work deconstructing widely held principles and ideologies. In “Misery”, Chekhov does this through his depiction of Iona Potapov, a lonely cab driver whose son has recently passed away. The story seems set-up to explore ideas relating to death, family, and society, but trying to find a clear theme hidden in Iona’s suffering proves to be a difficult task. Chekhov tends to raise more questions than he answers. However, this doesn’t mean that “Misery” is lacking in depth. Chekhov just focuses on particular details that capture the complexity and raw realities of his subject, trusting the reader to find the meaning. In “Misery”, one such detail is found in Iona’s name itself, which he shares with a famous Old Testament prophet (referred to as “Jonah” for distinction). Chekhov’s allusion to Jonah introduces a hint of Christian thought into “Misery” while avoiding its themes, providing him with a platform to deconstruct prominent Christian views in Russian society and in the works of his literary peers.

Chekhov’s use of allusion in “Misery” also stands in stark contrast to the works of other Russian literary giants such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, whose works often featured deep themes revolving around the aforementioned Christian thought. While a deep discussion on these themes is out of the scope of this paper, perhaps one of the most obvious and contrasting examples can be found in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which was published around 6 years before Chekhov wrote “Misery”. Towards the end of the novel, Father Zosima, a figure who acts as a mouthpiece for Dostoevsky’s own thoughts on religion, indirectly responds to the arguments of Ivan Karamazov, who rejects God because of the existence of suffering innocents and other

Through his literary and word choices, author Fyodor Dostoyevsky paints a portrait of an elderly man, who, imprisoned for life for his belief, still refuses to betray his God. Dostoyevsky chooses words that are easily understood to all mankind, to better illustrate this gentleman. While these chosen words are not elaborate, fanciful words, they more accurately depict this man than any other words would be able to. These words, words such as calm, kind, brave, and merry, which could appear trite and meaningless, rather begin to live and breathe on their own. Dostoyevsky knew that with the right diction, these quite simple words could begin to live on their own, and live they do. However, Dostoyevsky uses more than just his diction to draw these words to life. He also, quite sneakily, uses alliteration to add depth and meaning to his words and diction. Through phrases such as “peculiar pleasure” and “coarse cynical laugh of the other convicts”, Dostoyevsky is able to deepen the reader’s compassion and view of the

Leo Tolstoy also started schools for peasant children. The peasants were like Tolstoy’s second family. Tolstoy realized how important a good education is and wanted to make it available to the peasants who, being the lower class, wouldn’t normally get any education.

One of the themes of Tolstoy’s story of The Death of Ivan Ilych is detachment from life, considering that all material things can substitute the true meaning of life: compassion and care for others. “Everywhere in the novel, Tolstoy speaks of Iván Ilych's desire for propriety, decorous living, and pleasantness all while making this his first and most important priority. This motivation is a poor

Leo Tolstoy’s Pacifism or the use of nonviolence in fighting evil was rooted not in a moral doctrine or political theory, but in his straightforward reading of the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, particularly “The Sermon

In this paper, I plan to explain Dostoevsky’s criticism of Western Individualism. Dostoevsky’s first criticism resides in the idea to “love life more than the meaning of it, “which is presented by the character Alyosha (Dostoevsky 3). Allowing this character to discuss this topic, along with the commentary of Ivan, demonstrates their mindset to solely focus on their own lives, opposed to caring for others. This leads to them living for the now, and not focusing on how their decisions will affect their future or others. Dostoevsky disapproves of this notion because living by this mentality encourages the guidance of logic, which is dangerous because it could tell you to kill yourself. From Dostoevsky’s Eastern Orthodox background, he believes that the only way from living from this situation is to deny it. By denying this way of living, the focus toward life will not be directed toward yourself, but toward the way you can impact the environment around you. Ivan clearly does not believe in these values, due to his intentions to commit suicide at the age of thirty. As said before, living by the idea to “love life more than the meaning of it” leads to death, and Ivan indulges in this to the fullest (Dostoevsky 3).

Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich tells the story of a modern lawman whose sudden mortality forces him to evaluate the worth of his life and the life choices he has. Throughout the novella, Tolstoy reveals social norms and practices blindly followed by those in the upper-middle class. These norms bring to light modernity’s core values, which Tolstoy critiques through the actions Ivan Ilyich takes before his death, Ivan Ilyich’s revelation as he lies on his death bed, and the way Ivan Ilyich’s family, friends, and colleagues react to his illness and eventual death. In fact, The Death of Ivan Ilyich provides a critique on modernity as a whole; Tolstoy condemns the shallow, superficial lives the higher-ups in society lead, spurred on by the idea of modernity.

We will begin with an analysation of his family situation. Praskovya, his wife, had been a love constructed from the start of an economic and sociological expectation rather than that of a true courtship. The happiness therefore of the union was derived solely of a necessity to fulfill a desire on the part of others for a “success” of sorts, surely her desire as well. “Ivan Ilyich could have counted on a more illustrious match, but even this one was quite good. He had his salary, and her income, he hoped, would bring in an equal amount. (Tolstoy, 56)” Tolstoy goes on to make several remarks on the benevolent nature of the relationship between he and his wife. The arrival of his children creates no great marker in his life, and proves to be little more than a factor in his ever-lengthening retreat into his life of solitude and work.

Throughout the plot of the book the motif of City versus Country has been ever present. This motif is characterized by the contrasting idea of morals, rebirth, facades, foreshadowing, and acceptance. These literary elements have developed and shaped the storyline into one of Leo Tolstoy’s many literary works.