Question

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy explores the mind of a man struggling with the reality of his impending death. Ivan Ilyich must come to terms not only with his death but also with the emptiness of his past life. How well has Ivan’s life thus far prepared him to face death? Cite evidence from the text to support your analysis.

Answer 1

Answer:

Throughout the novella, Ivan Ilyich consistently represents the superficial middle-class Russians that Tolstoy is criticizing. Ivan Ilyich tries to distract himself from thinking about his death by immersing himself in work. Even as illness takes hold of his body, he continues to go to work until near the very end of his life. In earlier chapters, it becomes clear that Ivan Ilyich does not enjoy being with his family and works to avoid spending time with them. Further into the novella, despite the nearing reality of his death, Ivan continues to show that he values his possessions more than his family:

In these latter days he would go into the drawing-room he had arranged…. He would enter and see that something had scratched the polished table. He would look for the cause of this and find that it was the bronze ornamentation of an album that had got bent. He would take up the expensive album which he had lovingly arranged, and feel vexed with his daughter and her friends for their untidiness—for the album was torn here and there and some of the photographs turned upside down. He would put it carefully in order and bend the ornamentation back into position. Then it would occur to him to place all those things in another corner of the room, near the plants. He would call the footman, but his daughter or wife would come to help him. They would not agree, and his wife would contradict him, and he would dispute and grow angry.

Ivan Ilyich’s shallow attitude toward life does not prepare him to deal well with the prospect of dying. His impending death throws him into a state of confusion. As his thoughts swing between hope and despair, he uses his sophisticated mind to twist logic and deny the inevitability of his death:

Ivan Ilyich saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself…. "Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilyich, with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."

Answer 2

Answer:hroughout the novella, Ivan Ilyich consistently represents the superficial middle-class Russians that Tolstoy is criticizing. Ivan Ilyich tries to distract himself from thinking about his death by immersing himself in work. Even as illness takes hold of his body, he continues to go to work until near the very end of his life. In earlier chapters, it becomes clear that Ivan Ilyich does not enjoy being with his family and works to avoid spending time with them. Further into the novella, despite the nearing reality of his death, Ivan continues to show that he values his possessions more than his family:

In these latter days he would go into the drawing-room he had arranged…. He would enter and see that something had scratched the polished table. He would look for the cause of this and find that it was the bronze ornamentation of an album that had got bent. He would take up the expensive album which he had lovingly arranged, and feel vexed with his daughter and her friends for their untidiness—for the album was torn here and there and some of the photographs turned upside down. He would put it carefully in order and bend the ornamentation back into position. Then it would occur to him to place all those things in another corner of the room, near the plants. He would call the footman, but his daughter or wife would come to help him. They would not agree, and his wife would contradict him, and he would dispute and grow angry.

Ivan Ilyich’s shallow attitude toward life does not prepare him to deal well with the prospect of dying. His impending death throws him into a state of confusion. As his thoughts swing between hope and despair, he uses his sophisticated mind to twist logic and deny the inevitability of his death:

Ivan Ilyich saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself…. "Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilyich, with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."

Explanation: