Question

Vladimir and Lisa have different attitudes toward Ivan Ilyich’s illness. Which of the two attitudes does Tolstoy appear to support? Why? Use evidence from the text to support your response

Answer 1

Vladimir  seems to be the only person who undestands his father´s illness.Uncorrupted by the social world in which he grew up thanks to his father, he is capable of trying to connect with Ivan.Ivan himself  can see the look in the eyes of his son, he understands Vaya´s feelings are different from the falsity of the wife and daughter.

Lisa shares her views with those of her mother.More materialistic and self- indulgent she is deeply disturbed by her father´s indisposition.When in the room where his father is lying she and her mother comment on the acting of Sarah Bernhardt,she notices her father´s disapproval and leaves the room.She has not been there to take care of his father but to fulfil a sense of duty given her position.

Tolstoy appears to support the view of the boy.Ivan has learned a lesson about the material world, and hipocrisy and the boy sympathises with the father.

Answer 2

Vladimir and Lisa react differently to their father’s deteriorating health. Vladimir shows compassion for his father’s suffering. Lisa is thinking only of her upcoming marriage, and she considers her father’s sickness a hindrance to her happiness. Tolstoy portrays their contrasting attitudes toward their father’s suffering in these lines:

Their daughter came in in full evening dress, her fresh young flesh exposed (making a show of that very flesh which in his own case caused so much suffering), strong, healthy, evidently in love, and impatient with illness, suffering, and death, because they interfered with her happiness. . . .

His son had always seemed pathetic to him, and now it was dreadful to see the boy's frightened look of pity. It seemed to Ivan Ilyich that Vasya was the only one besides Gerasim who understood and pitied him.

Tolstoy portrays Lisa as callous and self-centered like her mother, Praskovya Fedorovna. In contrast, he portrays Vladimir as potentially capable of living a meaningful life like Gerasim does. Gerasim represents Tolstoy’s view of an authentic life, with the qualities of emotional honesty, empathy, and compassion.