Comparing Death Of Ivan Ilyich And The Myth Of Sisyphus

The Inescapable Contention of Mortality

The idea of fate is often hard to grapple when faced with a destiny that may not be as preferable as one may hope. But, people will soon recognize the need to accept this fate, or instead be trapped within their struggle to escape from the inevitable. In the texts, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy, and The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus, the main characters both are only able to move past the battles against their fate in order to only then find their own happiness. In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy tells the progression of Ivan Ilyich’s death, which coincides with his descent into misery. For the duration of the story he struggles with the burden of his disease and death on both himself

and others, but only once he accepts and forgives his torments can he arrive at the death that has long awaited him. For Sisyphus in The Myth of Sisyphus, he is doomed to the punishment of rolling a stone up a mountain; every time he would reach the top, the stone would roll back down and he would have to repeat this task until eternity. It is only when Sisyphus embraces his existential conflict that he finds his true happiness. Through the lives of both characters, Tolstoy and Camus demonstrate the necessity to accept one’s fate in order to be relieved of one’s true suffering.
For Ivan, he was always hoping for something better, yet failed to ever accept the life that he had already achieved. Tolstoy presents the story chronologically, beginning with Ivan’s happy childhood then progressively descending into his increasingly painful illness. But by the time Ivan’s suffering truly comes to an end, time is no longer as important of a construct and instead comes together as one long, never-ending event. Throughout this extent of time, Ivan struggles with the issue that he is constantly waiting for more to come of his life rather than finding true acceptance, in addition to never finding his own true satisfaction. When nearing the end of his life, Tolstoy writes, “From the start of his illness, from the time he first went to a doctor, Ivan Ilyich’s life had been divided into two contradictory and fluctuating moods: one a mood of despair and expectation of an incomprehensible and terrible death; the other a mood of hope filled with intent observation of the course of his bodily functions” (Tolstoy 103). This division in his life gives him a continued sense of hopelessness and lack of meaning in everything he does. Ivan is filled with these two contradicting moods, and fails to find a center that would relieve him of these issues. But, it is his recognition of his utter fate that allows him to find his necessary happy medium. At the end of his story, Ivan finally reaches the death he has been waiting for; his acceptance and forgiveness of his fate was the true key he needed to end all of his suffering and move on to death.
Sisyphus faced a similar struggle as he faced his own lack of meaning.

Due to his previous actions, the gods doomed him to the most dreadful punishment of “futile and hopeless labor” (Camus 1). The monotone requirement of rolling a stone up a mountain, yet never reaching the end of this struggle, left Sisyphus with a meaningless future. But it is his acceptance in the role of the “absurd hero” that permits him to overcome his fate. The role of the “absurd hero” is that where Sisyphus recognizes the lack of meaning in his life, and embraces this knowledge. He then uses this recognition to abandon hope and to instead find happiness in the reality he faces. In light of this truth, Camus explains, “There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable” (3). This demonstrates how rather than attempting to change what cannot be changed, one must accept the negatives in their lives instead. While Sisyphus is destined to eternal torture in life instead of death, his myth continues to relate to the inevitability of death through his own struggle. Many people are tortured by the unknown pull of death, but this worrying anguish will not cease until they accept what will come. By doing this and seeing through the pain that they may face, people become the absurd hero similarly to Sisyphus, and instead find peace and acceptance that will therefore remove the agony brought on by

death.
For both Ivan Ilyich and Sisyphus, their lack of meaning filled their live with a seemingly unescapable torment. Yet through their respective stories one may see how a change in perspective can relieve a person of their torturous fate. For Ivan, rather than fretting over the blame placed on himself and the lack of answers he wished for, he found that understanding and accepting his overall torments was the only way to resolve his suffering and to finally succumb to the death he needed. In the case of Sisyphus, once he accepted the punishment placed on his life and no longer attempted to fight the inevitable, the torture of his fate was removed and he was able to continue through eternity with a new sense of freedom from his previous bounds. For both characters, the recognition of their plagues allowed them to escape their burdens and finally be relieved of the suffering that had previously held strong.