Summary Of Ivan Ilych Chapter Summaries

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

After the individual has had a chance to vent their anger and realizing that death is certain, they resort to bargaining with whatever higher power they believe in. “This involves the individual believing or hoping that he or she could postpone death by coming to a negotiation with a higher power” (Wikipedia.org). Although there might not be an exact reference to Ivan Illych bargaining, it would seem logical to believe he was bargaining when he confessed to the priest in hopes that a miracle would happen. So that then, he could go back into playing cards or working. The book also stated that Ivan felt relieved to have the priest hear his confession. “Ivan Illych was softened and seemed to feel a relief from his doubts and consequently from his sufferings, and for a moment, there came a ray of hope”(Tolystoy, “TdofII” p149-150). So it seems that Ivan Illych thinks he'll be cured because he confessed to the priest, therefore meaning he confessed to God.

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.

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,

    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.

Many times when people give up they just sit there helplessly. Ivan was so depressed and helpless from his injury that he had no desire to move. When a person does not move for a period of time during an illness their body will begin to shut down. It was said that "Ivan Ilyich now no longer left his sofa. He would not lie in bed but lay on the sofa, facing the wall nearly all the time. He suffered ever the same unceasing agonies and in his loneliness" this quote shows how a person's thoughts and actions can worsen their conditions (Tolstoy X). The fact that Ivan did not even move showed that in

Thought-provoking and brutally honest, Ivan Ilych’s life and death divulged the idea that life is not meant to live like others, but to live authentically. When Leo Tolstoy published The Death of Ivan Ilych (1886), he sought to challenge society’s pride of striving to live a shallow and materialistic life. Significant insight was brought about into how Ivan Ilych’s life was considered artificial and terrible by perceiving how he spent his life in the story. Moreover, Ivan Ilych’s life reflected upon the grievance of yearning to live pleasantly and properly. It ultimately exposed how his suffering and illness freed him from his decorous, but dull life.

He is getting worse and he is aware that his days are coming to an end. Personifying the illness, it can be seen as manipulating Ivan, by controlling his mind and forcing him to think even deeper about his illness. It brings up the same questions that Tolstoy wondered. “What has his purpose been?” “Has he truly lived life or is he just living?” By then, it’s a little too late, and Ivan realizes that he hasn’t really done anything in his life. There is an exact depiction of this situation in the 2006 movie Last Holiday, starring Queen Latifah and LL Cool J. She plays a lady who slightly bumps her head at work, then gets word from a doctor that it’s serious and she only has a few months to live. After hearing the news, she realizes that she has just been alive but not living. Her illness manipulates her mind into asking the same questions as Ivan. These are the questions that Tolstoy suggests that people ask themselves. Luckily, she still has energy and support to start fulfilling long lost dreams, and making a statement in life before she

     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

The seen environment present when reading The Death of Ivan Ilych story is the way Ivan’s family lived and the way Ivan treated everyone with coldness. The unseen was depicted by the atmosphere present in Ivan’s’ room, making friends and family members uncomfortable to be there. The storied environment is when Ivan realizes that his life has been a mistake and he converts religiously, he finds God and Ivan repents from all his sins, it is not until then that he found peace in his mind.

If the characters had truly cared about Ivan, they would have been more content with attending the funeral ceremonies and not seen it as another task to be completed.

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

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

It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly place people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was