Week 11 Analysis: Close Reading of the Death of Ivan Ilyich


In the story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", a man who fears death finds that he will soon be dead. This causes him to snap at his loved ones in a panic, and have his communion right before he dies in hope it will save him. In the moment before he dies, we see the process he goes through that has been built up over the course of the story. First, he behaves selflessly by sending his family away. He knows that watching him die will hurt them. This shows character development because before he was selfish, and would have clung to them in order to make himself feel better, even if it would have cause them emotional pain. "And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings." (Tolstoy, 778)

When he finally does so, he expects to feel like he used to: afraid of death and afraid of pain. He says, "'How good and simple!' he thought. "And the pain?" he asked himself. "What has become of it? Where are you, pain' He turned his attention to it. 'Yes here it is. Well, what of it? Let the pain be.' 'And death...where is it?' He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. 'Where is it? What death?' There was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light." (Tolstoy, 778) When he seeks out the past, familiar emotions, he no longer experiences them. This epiphany causes him to realize that death isn't real, only the fear of it is. There is no pain to be experienced, the only suffering cause by death is the fear it causes. Once he lets go of it, he sees the light, which is symbolic of heaven. Because there is an afterlife where people live on forever, death isn't real, and shouldn't be feared.

"So that's what it is!' he suddenly exclaimed aloud. 'What joy!' To him all this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that instant did not change. For those present his agony continued for another two hours. Something rattled in his throat, his emaciated body twitched, then the gasping and the rattle became less and less frequent. 'It is finished!' said someone near him. He heard those words and repeated them in his soul. 'Death is finished'. he said to himself. "It is no more!' He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died." (Tolstoy, 778) At the end of his life, Ivan experiences euphoria. Though his outer body seemed to suffer, Ivan did not feel it in the instant his died, as his soul passed over to heaven it did not feel death.


Tolstoy, Leo "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" p. 740 - 778

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 7, 2018 at 7:02 PM

    Veronica, great close reading. Yes, Ivan, towards the end, realized it was the fear of death not death itself. His body was suffering, but his soul was free. We saw a different man emerge which I will argue was always the man Ivan was before trying to live up to the standards of the elite. He found himself at the end.

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  2. AnonymousApril 29, 2018 at 2:57 PM

    Hello Veronica, Nice work on the analysis. I just got done reading your week 13 analysis and I noticed that you do an excellent job at describing the quotes you include to your analysis. I slao liked that you included talking about the different symbolic things he had included such as with your description of the second quote. Nice work on the literary analysis and keep up the good work Veronica.

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