Ivan Ilyich displays many examples of insincerity. He belonged to the bourgeoisie, the rich middle class of Russian society in the mid-nineteenth century. The bourgeoisie were influential people who held wealth and status. They often resorted to compromises and lies to get what they wanted. Tolstoy portrays Ivan Ilyich as being more attached to his social status and material possessions than he is to his family.
Tolstoy reveals the superficiality of Ivan Ilyich’s life through the thoughts and actions of several characters. For example, the following scene reveals the hypocrisy of Ivan Ilyich’s wife, Praskovya Fedorovna, as well as Ivan’s alienation from her:
Praskovya Fedorovna’s silk dress rustles at the door and she is heard scolding Peter for not having let her know of the doctor’s arrival. She comes in, kisses her husband, and at once proceeds to prove that she has been up a long time already, and only owing to a misunderstanding failed to be there when the doctor arrived.
Ivan Ilyich looks at her, scans her all over…. He hates her with his whole soul.
Even Ivan Ilyich’s daughter, Lisa, reflects his superficial and selfish attitude toward life. Tolstoy describes how Lisa, who is engaged to be married, is “impatient with [her father’s] illness, suffering, and death, because they interfered with her happiness.”
Ivan Ilyich’s petty life has not prepared him to face death with dignity. When he learns that he is dying, he is overwhelmed by fear and self-pity. Here’s how Tolstoy describes his protagonist’s emotions:
Anger choked him and he was agonizingly, unbearably miserable. "It is impossible that all men have been doomed to suffer this awful horror!"
Ivan Ilyich becomes painfully aware of the insincerity in his life as his death approaches, and it begins to torment him:
This falsity around him and within him did more than anything else to poison his last days.
