The Strange Death of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov

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,

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.

The protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student, decides to murder and rob an old pawn broker, Alyona Ivanovna, not due to his desperate need of money, but due to a theory he wants to test. Raskolnikov leaves no evidence which would lead the investigation to him; however, the police lieutenant in charge of the case, Porfiry Petrovich, a meticulous thinker, understands Raskolnikov’s theory and has a big role in influencing the student to confess. Between the murder and the confession, Raskolnikov undergoes a long and painful process of thought. His friend, Razumikhin Prokofych, along with a prostitute and his future significant other, Sonia Semyonovna Marmeladova, are part of the protagonist’s path. In the end, Sonia turns out to be Raskolnikov’s salvation as she helps him find redemption and start living

The book The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming is an eye opening biography about one of Russia's most famous families. Since 1613, the Romanov family had ruled Russia, and were the last imperial dynasty to ever take the throne. Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra had five children, consisting of only one eligible heir to Russia. The author's purpose of writing this book was to explain the downfall of one Russia’s most important families. Candace Fleming wrote the book to give insight and share her knowledge on how the Romanov family witnessed and committed horrible acts of violence and stupidity which ultimately lead to their murders.

The Ivanov’s were a young, successful couple living in Brooklyn, and commuting to their jobs in Manhattan. They had it all, wealth, good looks, charm, and generosity. The husband, Stefan, worked on Wall Street while the wife, Alexandra, worked at a marketing firm a couple blocks away. They had everything but a child, as they had been unable to conceive despite trying for 6 years. Stefan’s great grandfather emigrated from Russia in the early 20th century, so Stefan and Alexandra decided to look to Russia for a child to adopt. They worked through a local Russian Orthodox Church to facilitate the adoption, which told them that they had the perfect child in mind. An eight year old boy named Nikolai, with

Raskolnikov murders an old pawnbroker woman for seemingly no reason at all. His sister and mother move to St. Petersburg following his sister's engagement to a man whom Raskolnikov was extremely displeased. Raskolnikov undergoes severe mental trauma, and falls ill after the

After a successful five year reign, Elena died surprisingly from either a heart attack or poison. Vasily Shuisky took the regency and showed no sympathy to Ivan. He threw his mother’s lover, Ivan Obolensky, into prison and ordered his nurse, Agrafena Cheliadnina, into a nunnery. The feuding boyar families of Belsky and Shuisky battled over power while Ivan was left neglected and served only to be a figurehead to whomever was in control of the Regency.

Unsurprisingly, these different expectations caused them to fall face first during their initial years of marriage, creating abiding anger and misunderstanding on both their parts. Ivan and Praskovya’s marriage is a display of marital discord occurring so commonly today when one or both parties decide to get married for either all the wrong reasons or with the wrong views of what marriage is. Ivan got married because it gave “him

Sixty-three years before Faulkner received his Nobel Prize, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy wrote the novel titled the “Death of Ivan Ilych”. In this story, Tolstoy tells us of the life of the protagonist Ivan Ilych Golovin. An unremarkable man in most every way, Ivan is a judge, who values material possessions and social standing above all else. Ivan’s passion lies with his career and the material objects his salary provides. His family is nothing more than an

Dmitri, before he loved Anna, was a dog, one who looked down on women and only thought of the pleasures and benefits he could receive from them. Stuck in an unhappy marriage with his wife to the point that he, “did not like to be at home” (Chekhov, 62). Dmitri, though enjoys the company of women, he acknowledged that “he could not get on for two days together without ‘the lower race’” (Chekhov, 62), the “lower race” referencing women. Consequently, this disgust of his own wife and desire for women causes Dmitri to cheat, “He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago -- had been unfaithful to her often” (Chekhov, 62). Dmitri liked to keep all his affairs simple and amusing, whenever one would begin to be too much work and/or unbearable, he would drop it and proceed to the next one. Though Dmitri is quite an observant person he would focus on the

Imperial Russian society during the time of serfdom was characterized by constantly changing social order. The society experienced a complex social change at the threshold to emancipation. It was undergoing many changes with increasing westernization and serfdom culture that gave rise to formation of new classes (raznochintsy) during the nineteenth century. Many authors have reflected and emphasized this component of change in the structure of pre-emancipation Russian society. This paper will examine how two writers: Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev, in their novels, Dead Souls and Fathers and Sons depict the society’s constantly changing nature through the relationships between their characters and the development in their beliefs and ideas. Although both the novels explore societal change during the pre-emancipation of serfs, the emphasis of change is different in both the novels. In Fathers and Sons, Turgenev oversees shifting values prevalent in the society. He explores the shift in generational values by depicting the difference in beliefs of characters like Bazarov and Nikolai. On the other hand, in Dead Souls Gogol focuses on issues of morality in society. He depicts a struggle for morality and portrays a corrupt society through the landowners and the protagonist, Chichikov, in his book.

The last son of Fyodor Karamazov was a bastard, born from the town’s holy fool. Although it is not entirely known whether Fyodor was the true father of Smerdyakov, he was widely believed to be so. Smerdyakov was raised by Gregory and his wife after his mother died during childbirth and later worked as Fyodor’s personal cook. As a child, Smerdyakov “loved to hang cats and then bury them with great ceremony” (Dostoevsky, 1981). As an adult, he was unsociable, arrogant, and despised everyone. Smerdyakov had no use for religion and suffered from epilepsy from an early age. Despite all of these things, Fyodor considered Smerdyakov to be a completely honest man, whilst the townspeople considered him to be a fool like his mother.

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.

When this student died, Raskolnikov had looked after his old invalid father, who was still alive… Raskolnikov had paid for his funeral. (509 Dostoyevsky)