Ivan Ilych Tolstoy

Lewis Carroll once said, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have and the decisions we waited too long to make”. In the “Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy, the author highlights the big idea of the artificial life which is represented through everyone in Ivan's society and job. The authentic life is represented by Ivan’s Russian peasant. The theme is to live the right authentic life, and it is expressed when Ivan falls down the ladder, and wrong things both Ivan and his wife value. Ivan Ilyich has a moment of silence and reflects about his life.

In the short novel “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Leo Tolstoy seeks to warn and hopefully save the souls of his readers from living empty lives by making an example out of the main character in the story, Ivan Ilyich. Although the main theme in the novel deals with death, Tolstoy presents a number of other themes such as: the need to live a natural balanced life not dominated by propriety and decorum, the dangers of living artificial lives governed by materialism, self-interest, shallow relationships, bourgeois societal expectations, suffering, and later on redemption and altruism. Tolstoy uses these themes as a way to convince people to live and pursue what brings them real happiness not to meet the expectations of others or society.

Leo Tolstoy presents two extremely different deaths in Anna Karenina: one of a sickly brother losing his battle with illness, and one of a woman brimming with intricate complexities committing suicide because she does not feel like she has a purpose in her life. As Fyodor Dostoevsky asserts in his work evaluating the novel, “In Anna Karenina is expressed a view of human guilt and criminality. People are portrayed in abnormal circumstances… caught in a whirl of deceit, people commit crime and fatally perish” (Dostoevsky). Dostoevsky speaks to Tolstoy’s ability to observe life and to portray that life to his audience, Tolstoy is able to put his characters in such vividly “abnormal circumstances,” that he is able to stir feelings of “human guilt” in the reader. While both deaths in the text vary extremely in terms of their contexts, Tolstoy juxtaposes the two deaths to comment on the natural humanity of death, to determine what it is about death that unites humanity and characterizes the human experience. Dostoevsky says that, based on Tolstoy’s writing, “It is clear and intelligible… that the human soul will remain identical” (Dostoevsky). He is able to use Anna Karenina to show the identicality found in each “human soul.” In this time in Russia, Tolstoy shows that this commonality is found in a return to religion and it regret. Yet, he is able to more broadly assert, that in the final moments of someone’s life on Earth, that person searches for whatever peace they may find,

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

Ivan Ilyich is a court of justice of official that thought that he was living his life the correct way. As his story progresses he becomes more reflective and emotional as he deliberates the reason for his agonizing illness and death. Ivan spends his life climbing the social ladder, focusing more on his work as his family becomes less tolerable. One his while hanging curtains he felled and hurt his side. The pain becomes so profound, he goes to the doctor that diagnose him with a terminal condition. In his final days he realized the mistakes he made and repent of living the life he did (Tolstoy, 1888). This paper will talk about how illness and disease can change our experience in life.

From the 1500s to the early 1800s, society considered death to be a public event, with the entire community filling the home of the deceased, it later transitioned into a matter shrouded with discomfort and a sense of embarrassment in the late 19th and into the 20th century. In his essay, “The Pornography of Death”, Geoffrey Gorer addresses the notion that death has become a taboo in society, similarly to pornography surrounding sexuality in previous centuries. He compares death to obscenity, and theorizes that death has become “unmentionable” in society due to the lack of exposure and the decreased frequency of death (Gorer 50-51). In his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy demonstrates this impression of increasing loneliness through the progression of the death of the

In 1886, Leo Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich to express his philosophy of life; how it should be live and what truly matters most. According to Tolstoy, there are two principle ways to live: first, by outer appearance; a propriety; a standard of conduct and the second, by inner appearance and spiritual life in which he claims is “the real thing” that makes one’s life meaningful.

Individuals are entitled to their own identity, values, morals and beliefs. Based on such information I can say yes I agree with Tolstoy’s understanding of the way human beings work as there are humans who do live as such because human being possess a degree of selflessness and selfishness. They are often caught up with self and the worldly activities and simple forget their true purpose on earth, what is truly right from what’s seemed to be right. As it relates to death and transformation I too understand that first we have to take responsibility of our own actions, accepting the way of living that we chose and what after life it leads us to. With that, we will better able to approach death more willingly and

Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy radiates throughout Leo Tolstoy’s short story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” The story begins with the death of Ivan Ilyich. Rather than morning his death, Ivan’s friends and family look for ways that they can benefit from his death. The narrative proceeds to portray the life of Ivan Ilyich leading up to his death. From a young age, Ivan displayed rather ordinary characteristics. He followed basic norms in an effort to attain a good job and uphold a family. He cozied himself next to people in high positions of power in order to advance his career. Ivan eventually married, not because he loved his wife, but because that is what other people expected of him. The feeling of indifference between him and his wife was eventually mutual. Later, Ivan is struck by a mortal illness. Ivan becomes swallowed by depression and isolation. He recognizes that the people around him are reaping rather than weeping over his death, and that the latter is masked by the former. Eventually, Ivan realizes that his life would have been more fruitful if he had had genuine relationships with other people.

The thought of death has probably crossed everyone’s mind at some point in life, how we perceive our lives before death is more relevant. We also learn that death is not something that we can control, it will happen one day or another. When reading the story, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, it brings to light the reality of life and death. In fact, I find this Novel intriguing in the aspect of how similar it is in the 21st century. Ivan Ilyich was an ordinary man that had mostly all the same desires we have today. He was a married man, had children, a home, and he had a job. We call that the American dream in today’s time. This is what makes us similar as well as, his approach to life and what he experienced in his last days of life.

One major theme that is present in the entire novella is the inevitability of death. Death is something that happens to everyone. No matter how high your social status is, there will come a time when you will wither and die. It does not matter how rich you are or how poor. The major turning point in the story is when Ivan realized that he was getting closer to death every day. Ivan Ilych realized that the customs and traditions of the aristocracy which he had thought were important was the cause of his metaphorical death. He had lost himself while he chased after wealth, social status, and power. He had forgotten about how to live a simple, happy life. He had forgotten about the that there are other people whose concerns and issues that are much more important that his. He has been immersed in the mediocrity and artificiality of life that he has forgotten how it is to care and to love other people.

‘’ Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart .The really great men must,I think,have the great sadness on earth.’’(Dostoyevsky,2001)The balance between agony and tormentation is a great and implausible imagination , but the true difference between the two is indescribable. Fyodor Dostoevsky envisioned a literature world filled with self-reflective and philosophical questions .With no intended answers or strategies to solve them.But nevertheless,fyodor’s novels questioned the minds of many and caused complete and utter bewilderment, unexplainable to many more.Fyodor’s writing is a confusing in depth tug-a-war into a conflicted emotional man. Many of his characters are strong-minded yet weak,intelligent

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.