The Book Thief and The Death of Ivan Ilych explicitly explore the theme of death, yet they also display underlying themes of freedom and living. Holistically, these texts prove how crucial freedom is in order to live a fulfilled life. The characters of Max Vandenburg and Ivan Ilych illustrate this within their restricting circumstances, in doubts of whether these characters have truly lived their lives, and in the way Ivan Ilych and Liesel Meminger reflect on their lives. The importance of freedom is proved within these texts, and together they pose the question of, “What is living?”
Despite Max Vandenburg and Ivan Ilych’s differing circumstances, their freedom was affected in similar ways. Set in the midst of World War II, The Book Thief
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Max hid in the Hubermann’s basement to stay alive, but the life he was living was one full of fear, guilt, and isolation – “What great malice there could be in allowing something to live,” (Zusak, 2005, page 170). He was burdened by the thought of hurting the Hubermanns, and filled with regret and guilt for leaving his loved ones behind. With a life full of pain, why would Max still be fighting to live? According to the book ‘The Order of Terror’, written from the firsthand experience of a Jewish person in a Concentration Camp, “those who had weathered painful past experiences… believed that harrowing times would be followed by more favourable circumstances,” (Sofsky, 1997, page 88). Max was evidently hopeful, but he was just living each day waiting for freedom. In contrast, Ivan Ilych had freedom to live his life, yet he never believed life should be anything more than, “most simple and most ordinary,” (Tolstoy, 1886, page 11). Ivan lived a lacklustre life. He was free to make his life exciting, yet refused to truly live. Ivan felt as if he was happy with his life, yet as he came to his deathbed, unable to take control of his life and freedom, he became full of regret. According to the ‘Psychology of Freedom’, people are healthier, happier, and more in control of their lives under conditions of freedom (Presley, S. 2017). Ivan believed he was …show more content…
Ivan Ilych’s life was conventional and simple; it was not until he fell ill that he began to realise his existence was potentially meaningless. As he is on the verge of death, he looks back on his happiest times, and “in imagination he began to recall the best moments of his pleasant life. But strange to say none of those best moments of his pleasant life now seemed at all what they had then seemed,” (Tolstoy, 1886, page 50). All the days Ivan thought were his best days were seemingly meaningless. Ivan’s response to his life was that he had done something wrong; ““Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done,” it suddenly occurred to him. “But how could that be, when I did everything properly?”” (Tolstoy, 1886, page 51). Liesel’s life was the opposite of his; it was not easy or pleasant, nor was it ordinary. Throughout her life, Liesel lost those she loved most, and suffered through heartache. Yet, as she died, the author infers that Liesel did not regret her life. As she passes away, Death describes her soul as sitting up, just like her papa’s – “[his soul rose] up and [said] “I know who you are, and I am ready,” (Zusak, 2005, page 566). It has been inferred here that Liesel embraced her life, despite the hardships she faced. Ivan Ilych, in contrast, lived a life he came to
The setting is taken place during the holocaust in fictional town Molching, Germany. “The Book Thief” is taken place 1939-1942 under Nazi rule, right after World War II. When the book is taken place Hitler is currently the furor. It’s taken place in a very depressing time period, where jobs and food are very hard to find.
Tolstoy talks about a sort of scholarly emergency that he endured late in his life, and his recuperation from it. In spite of the fact that Tolstoy appreciated what might conventionally be viewed as a successful and agreeable life, he started feeling tormented by worries of unimportance. Specifically, he reports starting to question why he should think about things that he once thought about, or why he should do the things that he would choose to do. At last, he discovered it inconceivably hard to give answers to these inquiries. The outcome, he reports, is feeling as though his life were a doltish, pointless trap played someone has bestowed upon him. He felt as though every individual task he attempted, and also his life in its totality, were without importance.
Tolstoy also employs irony as he examines the plight of Ivan Ilych. This highlights the differences between Ilych's perception of his own life and reality while also allowing the reader to take part in some of the tearing anguish Ivan feels in having to submit to the wrongdoings in his life. Tolstoy compares Ivan Ilych's struggle to the plight of a man condemned to death as he "struggles in the hands of an executioner" (61). Ivan Ilych does not see death as a natural process, but as a punishment controlled by a merciless executioner, ironically much like the merciless judge he once was. Ivan Ilych's feels that death is an undeserved punishment because he never considered his own mortality. His obsession with social adroitness made mortality feel like a punishment, and his justification of this obsession made it impossible for him to let go of his life. Ivan Ilych believed he had lived his life up to social standards and because of this he would not have to endure the terrible agony of death that is beset among ordinary people. In reality he was blind to his shallow life and the transgressions he made.
The Book Thief is about a young German girl named Liesel Meminger as she goes through life while living in Germany in 1939. Liesel and her foster parents live a normal life on 33 Himmel Street. There is only one difference between their family and the others, they are hiding Max Vandenburg (a Jewish man) in their basement during the time of the Holocaust. This story, narrated by Death follows the life of Liesel from her first step into 33 Himmel Street, until the day she died in Sydney, Australia.
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 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.
One last beautiful thing about Max is that despite everything that he went through, in the parade of Jews and the concentration camp, he still came back to see Liesel. He could have run away to a place where he could forget about everything, but he didn’t. Instead he decided to return to
In the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, The author, Leo Tolstoy, shows how Ivan Ilyich’s perspective on death changes throughout the story. I want to show how people feel about this. I am going to find Two different arguments from the internet that do not agree with each other in some way and create an argument of my own saying I agree with one of the arguments. I may use quotes from the story and other evidence to show that these two arguments are wrong. Now that you understand my purpose for this essay let me begin.
Ivan Ilych didn’t receive this type of hope directly. Instead he comprehended and understood his own death. By thoughtfully seeking redemption of his actions, not only did he transcend his seen environment to the unseen environment, he fully accepted the unseen environment. This speaks as though it is a storied environment in Ivan Ilych’s last moments. “”Death is finished,” he said to himself.
(Tolstoy 773). He is dying in regret because he has been living his life for the unimportant things. Tolstoy is showing us that money and materialistic things cannot buy true happiness. He emphasizes the ultimate price of living in an artificial life that has no true value to one’s life. Ivan’s sudden death is a lesson to readers to make life meaningful while they are still
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
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
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