The death of Ivan Illyich
By Matthew Jewell
Topic number dos
Tolstoy provided us with two perspectives to view Ivan’s life in “The death of Ivan Illyich”: an omniscient narrator and Ivan himself. What I plan to do is give another perspective, not necessarily to view his life, but rather to his experiences after he realized he was dying. This perspective will be an analytical and psychological; the perspective from Kubler-Ross’s Stages of death (or stages of grief, as they are better known for). These stages occur when we are faced with an event that is usually connected with death. The “normal” order in which these five stages occur, though may not go doctrinally in this order, are as such: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
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I claim that we can see and identify clearly the description of these stages in looking at Ivan’s own experiences, emotions, and actions. I also claim that the stages that are seen in Ivan take place in their own unique way and that a psychological explanation is not enough to explain his death.
The Kubler-Ross stages were introduced in her book “On death and dying (1969).” As stated above, the five stages are as such: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Though the stages might seem self-explanatory, I am going to go through and quickly define what each stage consists of. Denial looks like someone saying, “No, not me, it cannot be true”. (34 Kubler-Ross) This usually occurs in the beginning of the stages. When someone is faced with a difficult situation, like a terminal illness, they tend to deny or not believe in what is actually being said to them. The person looks everywhere to try to prove their denial. Denial is fairly temporary and the person will eventually move on. The next stage is anger. A person in this stage could say something like: “Why me?” or “why couldn't it have been him?” Now anger has many manifestations, so it will vary depending on the person. Generally speaking, if a person is projecting an irrational irritability towards people, it is safe to assume that they are in the anger stage. …show more content…
This stage is difficult for the persons that have to interact with the patient such as family, friends, and doctors. It is important to be patient and understanding with the person who is angry. Thirdly, we have bargaining. Once the patient realizes that anger is not working they might move into this third stage. The third stage is helpful for the patient because they think that if they enter into “some sort of agreement which may postpone the inevitable happening”, then it will bring them peace. (72 Kubler-Ross) There are many cases of people trying this method with God. The patient might try to make reparation or to do some work for God so that maybe they will be cured of whatever is plaguing them. Fourthly, we have depression. Depression happens when a person goes through all of these stages and then finally feels a “sense of great loss.” There are two types of depression according to Kubler-Ross, the first dealing with “a result of a past loss”, and then second concerning “impending losses”. (76 Kubler-Ross) Finally, we have the fifth stage: acceptance. Acceptance is like “the final rest before the long journey”. (100 Kubler-Ross) This acceptance is not a happy feeling or a feeling of giving up. “It is almost void of feelings”. (100 Kubler-Ross) The patient tends to become disinterested with everything and likes to be in solitude. It is a quiet and kind of peaceful attitude towards the thing that was haunting them in the first place. Now that these stages have been defined and explained to some extent, I will now take a look at Ivan’s life to see whether or not they are present in it. The interesting thing about Ivan Illyich’s sickness is that it is not revealed by the doctors as deadly.
He realizes that he is dying from this illness by himself. Since this is the case, he begins going through the stages not whenever the doctor says “you only have x amount of time to live”, but whenever the doctor avoids giving him a definite answer to his question if the illness is dangerous or not. This is where Ivan starts his stage of denial. Even the narrator foretells this denial by the satirical comment about Ivan’s life: “and it was all very well.” (pg. 22) After he sees the doctor it is written that Ivan says: “maybe in fact it’s all right…” (pg. 25) He begins to be interested with other people’s health, and “tried to make himself think that he was better.” (pg. 25) A sign that we see Ivan’s denial clearly is from his action of “constantly consulting doctors”. (pg. 26) Kubler-Ross said that a patient “went shopping around” for different doctors. Through his denial, he began also to have fits of anger. These would continue to happen until shortly before his actual death. The biggest torment for him was that everyone was living a lie. No one would acknowledge that he was dying and he and they both knew it. Another thing that caused his anger was when someone (usually his wife) would disturb his peace. If they took him out of his pleasantness, it reminded of him of his illness and then would get agitated. The anger continued to grow. He even got angry at
a night stand. (pg. 31) Anger seems pretty serious when someone gets angry at an inanimate object. The clearest sign of his anger can be seen in this line from our narrator: “He hated her with all the forces of his soul.” I think it is important to point out that the “anger” that Ivan has toward his wife, and maybe his daughter, is something much greater than the anger we commonly conceive of. It is a deep rooted resentment from years of wounds from the past. It fits the best under anger, but it transcends it as well. The one stage that I do not clearly see in Ivan’s life, is bargaining. I think he gets close when he realizes that he might not be living right. If he accepted this, then he might try to do start living right so that maybe he will be healed. Unfortunately, this never happens until it is too late for bargaining. Despair, like anger, is very evident in Ivan’s life. The narrator even states: “Always the same thing. A drop of hope glimmers, then a sea of despair begins to rage”. (pg. 40) Further on, we can see his despair as his wife asks him if he is suffering. He responds, “it makes no difference.” (pg. 45) This is not an acceptance, but rather a despairing of the meaningless of life. I think that he was in despair ever since he began, but continued to go through the other stages in the moments that were necessary. It says on page 31, “In despair, suffocating, he fell on his back, expecting death at once.” There is no doubt that Ivan was constantly fighting despair. It talks about medicine on page 39 saying, “he tasted the familiar sickly sweet and hopeless taste.” What I receive from this line is the fact that it is a familiar experience; meaning that it is not the first time he has experienced it, and it will probably not be the last. I also think this is tied with despair because of the word hopeless. A person who has no hope is in despair. Despair is a phenomenon completely void of hope. Finally, we have acceptance. This one is very unique for Ivan. I do not think he experienced the acceptance that Kubler-Ross is trying to depict.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy tells the story of Ivan Ilyich, a man who deals with a mysterious illness through introspection. Until his illness, he lived the life he thought he was supposed to live. Like Candide, he was living in blind optimism. He assumed that what he was doing was the right thing because he was told as much. He had a respectable job and a family. Happiness, if it did occur to him, was fulfilling his duties as a husband and father. It was his sudden illness that allowed him to reflect on his choices, concluding that those choices did not make him happy. “Maybe I have lived not as I should have… But how so when I did everything in the proper way” (Tolstoy 1474)? Ilyich had been in a bubble for his entire life, the bubble only popping when he realizes his own mortality. This puts his marriage, his career, and his life choices into perspective. Realizing that he does not get to redo these choices, he distances himself from his old life: his wife, his children, and his career. All that is left is to reflect. This reflection is his personal enlightenment. He had been living in the dark, blind to his true feelings for his entire life. Mortality creates a space in which he can question himself as to why he made the choices he made, and how those choices created the unsatisfactory life he finds himself in
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed a theory based on what she perceived to be the stages of acceptance of death. Her theory has been taken further by psychologists and therapists to explain the stages of grief in general. Kubler-Ross identified five stages: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, as happening in that order. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet exhibits all five stages of grief, we can assume in relation to the recent death of his father, but not necessarily in this order, and in fact the five seem to overlap in many parts of the play.
The story of In "The Death of Ivan Ilych", was written by Leo Tolstoy around who examines the life of a man, Ivan Ilyich, who would seem to have lived an exemplary life with moderate wealth, high station, and family. By story's end, however, Ivan's life will be shown to be devoid of passion -- a life of duties, responsibilities, respect, work, and cold objectivity to everything and everyone around Ivan. It is not until Ivan is on his death bed in his final moments that he realizes that materialism had brought to his life only envy, possessiveness, and non-generosity and that the personal relationships we forge are more important than who we are or what we own.
Tolstoy immediately absorbs you into the novel by beginning with Ivan’s death. The actual death scene is saved until the end of the novel, but he shows you the reaction of some of Ivan’s colleagues as they hear the news of Ivan’s death. You are almost disgusted at the nonchalant manner that Ivan’s “friends” take his death. They are surprised by his death, but immediately think of how his death will affect their own lives, but more importantly, their careers. “The first though that occurred to each of the gentlemen in the office, learning of Ivan Ilyich’s death, was what effect it would have on their own transfers and promotions.” (pg 32) As a reader, you have to wonder how Ivan must have had to live in order for people close to him to feel no sadness towards the loss or even pity for his wife. In fact, these gentlemen are exactly like Ivan. The purpose of their lives was to gain as much power as possible with n...
In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist, published the Pioneering book On Death and Dying. The work acquainted the world with the grieving process, called the five stages of grief. Kübler-Ross gathered her research from studying individuals with terminal cancer (Johnson, 2007). The first stage of the grieving process is denial. In this stage the person refuses to believe that their loved one is deceased, a common thought during this period is, “This can’t be happening to me” (Johnson, 2007).The second stage of the grieving process is anger. In this level the person becomes frustrated with their circumstances, a customary complaint is “Why is this happening to me?” (Johnson, 2007). The third stage of the grieving process is bargaining. At this point the individual hopes that they can prevent their grief, this typically involves bartering with a higher power, and an ordinary observance during this time is “I will do anything to have them back” (Johnson, 2007). The fourth and most identifiable stage of grief is depression. This phase is habitually the lengthiest as...
This is related to the theme to live without suffering because as Ivan is getting ready to die he complains about how he is in so much pain despite numerous doctor visits and medication. Tolstoy uses his complaints as indicator for the readers to know that Ivan does not want to die in pain but peace. A moment of this is when Ivan calls his family into the room and dies in front of them because he believes it will bring them joy.
Ivan Ilych was a member of the Court of Justice who was "neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them—an intelligent, polished, lively, and agreeable man” (Tolstoy 102). He lived an unexceptionally ordinary life and strived for averageness. As the story progresses, he begins to contemplate his life choices and the reason for his agonizing illness and inevitable death. “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done, but how could that be, when I did everything properly?” (Tolstoy
Individually, everyone has their own methods of dealing with situations and emotions regardless of any positive or negative connotation affixed to them. One prime example of this comes with grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” suggests that there are five stages of mourning and grief that are universal and, at one point or another, experienced by people from all walks of life. These stages, in no particular order, are as follows: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. Each individual person works through these stages in different orders for varying levels of time and intensity, but most if not all are necessary to “move on.” In order for positive change to occur following a loss, one must come to terms with not only the event but also themselves.
Although death is a major part of life, accepting it can be a difficult thing to do. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler - Ross, an American psychiatrist and psychologist, help discover the series of stages people go through before the reach their death point. These series of stages were known as the Kubler - Ross model. This model was formed by a study on many patients from hospice, the hospice workers and the hospice patients families. These five stages include the feeling of Denial, Ange...
When first receiving news about the death of a loved one, the normal reaction is shock and denial. No one wants to hear that their father, grandmother, or uncle had just died, and according to Kübler-Ross, one way people cope with grief and loss of a loved one is denial. This means that a person may try and hide from the facts and block out what others are trying to say. That person might deny the reality of the situation and have thoughts like, “He not dead, that’s impossible. He was doing fine just yesterday” or “This must be some kind of mistake.” Denial is a defense mechanism that buffers the immediate shock that comes after hearing such news. It is difficult for the person to accept the fact that someone dear to them is no longer with them, so they rebuke the truth and instead choose to avoid any type of encounter that forces them to face the truth and reality. This even extends to avoiding thinking about the situation. Gibran sta...
In 1969 Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross proposed a set of psychological stages that patients had in response to their demise (John D. Canine, 1996).
The Death of Ivan Illych brings an excellent in-depth description of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 cycles of grief theory. In the book, it shows how Ivan Illych goes through these cycles in their own individual way. The cycles that Kubler-Ross uses in her theory are: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. To get a better understanding of these cycles, this paper will describe each cycle and provide quotations that will help develop an idea of how someone going through these cycles may react.
The stages of death are known to be a process of mourning that is experienced by individuals from all phases of life. This mourning ensues from an individual’s own death or the death of a loved one. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross dedicated much of her career to studying this dying process and in turn created the five stages of death. The five stages are; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages may not occur in sequence and sometimes may intersect with one another (Axelrod, 2006). The reality of death many times causes a feeling of denial; this is known as the first stage. In this stage, people have many emotions and have a tendency to hide from reality. This reaction is momentary, but should not be rushed. The patient or loved one needs time to adjust to the awaiting death. This adjustment helps bring them through to the next stage; anger. Anger is a common feeling and many times routes from a feeling of not being ready. This emotion may be directed toward God, strangers, friends, family or even healthcare professionals (Purcell, 2006). In some cases, it can be targeted...
Between 1875 and 1877, Leo Tolstoy, nobility by birth, wrote installments of Anna Karenina. While writing Anna Karenina,” he became obsessed with the meaning and purpose of life. This led Tolstoy to compose the essay, My Confession, detailing his agonizing religious and moral self-examination, published in 1882. He devoted another three years to the discovery of the meaning and purpose of life. At the close of the seven years of only non-fiction essays, Tolstoy resumed writing and publishing fictional works. However, he did write two more essays devoted to the meaning of life, What Then Must We Do (1886) and The Kingdom of God is Within You (1892). Tolstoy, in 1886 wrote a particularly intriguing tale of a bishop and three old men, The Three Hermits,” which reflects Tolstoy’s search for purpose and the meaning of life.
During the first stage, denial, the individual develops feelings of futility and defeat. Life makes no sense. An individual goes into a state of shock and wonders