Analysis Of The Death Of Ivan Ilych

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“Death is finished, it is no more.” In Leo Tolstoy’s story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, the reader is taken through the moral and spiritual progress of Ivan up until his death and spiritual renewal. Tolstoy begins by describing the falsity, and insensitivity of Ivan’s family in a way that shows how society does not “get it” in regard to Ivan’s suffering. But could Ivan’s suffering represent more than just a physical death and the physical distractions that come with it? Just the thought of death is like a sin to mankind. No one wants to accept and think about the death of others and no one can truly understand what it is like to die until they are in the position themselves. The continual lack of sincerity among Ivan’s peers could simply be because they didn’t truly care about Ivan as more than a co-worker or acquaintance, but Tolstoy attempts to dive deeper than that. Another possible answer to this lack of sincerity could be that people will create any response possible to push aside the pain that comes with death and the very thought of the possibility of they themselves dying soon. The common saying, “He’s dead but I’m not” is not one that is highly cheered about. Possibly this pushing away …show more content…

Ivan wants “to live and not to suffer,” and the inner voice asks, “To live? How?” with the reply to “live as I used to – well and pleasantly.” Ivan’s problem now arises with the idea that maybe his life wasn’t so “pleasant” after all. Quickly understanding that living a life of simplicity and mediocracy is a worthless life, Ivan is forced to battle the internal thought of, where did I possibly go wrong? Possibly this life he was raised to believe as proper was just “a terrible and huge deception which had hidden both life and death.” This conviction of sin remains with Ivan up until the point where he is being forced into a black sack struggling “to get right into

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