The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

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

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.

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.

Aleksandar Nikitenko was among one of the serfs who served in Russia during the early 1800s. He was born from Ukraininan parents in Voronezh Province. His parents, soon along with Aleksandar, were serfs of the immensely wealthy Sheremetev family. Nikitenko’s father was chosen at a very early age to go to Moscow to sing in Count Sheremetev’s choir. While there, he received an education that allowed him to pursue intellectual interests. Nikitenko looked up to his father and believed that having to be kept in bondage despite his knowledge was entirely unfair. Throughout his life, Nikitenko is accepted by intelligent teachers for being quite knowledgeable. However, he is time and time again held inferior because of his social status. His family, had it not been for serfdom, would have probably been a part of a provincial middle class because of their associations with nobles and merchants.

In "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy, he shows how the majority of society is selfish. Tolstoy suggests how even though there is so much selfishness in society, there are some exceptional people who do not follow social conventions and are the prime example of how people in a society should be. This paper will argue that being selfless is important in society and that people should deviate from individualistic behavior and concentrate more on the collective behavior. Through this careful examination it will be revealed that although a person should think about how to advance themselves in the social hierarchy, it cannot be their only goal and people need to combine it with it a more humanistic goal as well.

Ivan Ilych the protagonist from the novel The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy becomes ill and is slowly dying. Ivan lives in depression and agony as his final days slowly diminish. Gerasim, the butler’s assistant, helps ease the pain and agony Ivan suffers from. Tolstoy utilizes Gerasim to catalyze the realization and transformation Ivan experiences. Gerasim establishes Ivan’s new understanding of death, family, and morality.

     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 life of Ivan Ilyich, we are told, "had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible" (Tolstoy, Ch. 2).  In analyzing this description of Ivan's life, we see that Ivan has always done what is expected of him in the eyes of others (wife, co-workers,

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

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.

Upon first reading of Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Nose” it may appear to be merely a nonsensical literary work of pure comic humor, meaningless, and a piece read solely for entertainment. However, the author’s use of satire, comedic and fantastical elements, and overall absurdity allows the text to reveal deep, complex social issues. The text can be read allegorically as a social satire to illustrate and illuminate the ills of Russian classist society during the early 19th century. In “The Nose” Gogol employs the use of his central character, Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov and his nose, symbolically or as indicative of a typical member of Russian society to reveal the flaws and foolishness of individuals and a society obsessed with social class, or in other words, rank or status. In Kovalyov’s own thoughts, actions, and interactions with secondary characters Gogol utilizes farce, mockery, and exaggeration to comment on what is lost, flawed, or neglected by his protagonist and his classist society. However, “The Nose” ultimately invites its reader to not only consider the problems of Russian society, but to contemplate his or her own personal flaws or vices, and to ponder the ills of his or her own society as well.

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.