- For the Austrian development critic, see Ivan Illich
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Russian: Смерть Ивана
Ильича, Smert' Ivana Ilyicha), first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy. It is one of Tolstoy's most celebrated pieces of
late fiction. This work stems in part from Tolstoy's anguished intellectual and spiritual
struggles which led to his conversion to Christianity. Central to the story is an
examination on the nature of both life and death, and how man can come to terms with death's very inevitability. The novella was
acclaimed by Vladimir Nabokov and Mahatma
Gandhi as the greatest in the whole of Russian literature.[specify]
Plot summary
Ivan Ilych Golovin, a high court judge in St. Petersburg with a wife and family,
lives a carefree life which is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". One day, after falling while hanging
curtains, he begins to suffer from a mysterious pain in his left abdomen. The pain becomes more and more excruciating. He is
forced to visit physicians, who cannot pinpoint the source of his malady, and soon it becomes clear that his condition is
terminal. He is brought face to face with his mortality, and realizes that although he knows of it, he does not truly grasp
it.
During the long and painful process of death, Ivan dwells on the idea that he does not deserve his suffering, because he has
lived rightly. If he had not lived a good life, there could be reason for his pain; but he had, so pain and death had to be
arbitrary and senseless. As he begins to hate his family for avoiding the subject of his death, for pretending he was only sick
and not dying, he finds his only comfort in his peasant boy servant, Gerasim, who is the only person in Ivan’s life who does not
fear death, and is also the only one who shows compassion for Ivan. Ivan begins to question whether he has, in fact, lived
rightly.
In the final days of Ivan’s life, he makes a clear split between artificial life, the life of himself and his family that
masks the true meaning of life and makes one fear death, and authentic life, the life of Gerasim. Authentic life is marked by
compassion and empathy, artificial by self-interest. Then “some force” strikes Ivan in the chest and side, and he is brought into
the presence of a bright light. His hand falls onto his son’s head, and he pities him. He no longer hates his son or wife, only
feels sorry for them, because he has found a last minute joy in authentic life and they will continue their artificial lives
fearing death. In the middle of a sigh, Ivan dies.
Controversy
Christians have often embraced the apparent conversion or redemption of Ivan Ilych at the end. Ivan Ilych sees the light,
cries out "What Joy!" etc. Indeed, the novella was written soon after Tolstoy had a conversion experience. Tolstoy's
Christianity, however, was always a quirky one, focused on the life of Jesus as a model of love in action. There is, for example,
no definite indication of life after death in “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” only the powerful depiction of the man’s experience of
dying.
Many people have different interpretations for the end of the novella. One such interpretation is that Ivan Ilych's whole
struggle and agony ends with the great gift of a cessation of suffering. Another interpretation is that Ivan Ilych's breakthrough
is the freedom that comes with truth, in his case, seeing the falsity of his life, which enables him to have a brief moment of
unselfish love or at least compassion for his wife and son.
Pop Culture
- Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru (To Live) was inspired by The Death of Ivan
Ilyich, though the film is not a retelling of the Tolstoy work.
- The film Ivans XTC was also inspired by this novella.
External links
The Text
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