Tuesdays With Morrie By Mitch Albom

Tolstoy's story opens with the observation that “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” Tolstoy is stating the Ivan’s middle-class life was conformed and dull. It lacked true meaning. Ivan was not alone, in this story, of living this as most everyone in the story is materialistic and completely selfish. The Bible states that living your life this way is a life of sin. Ivan breaks all these rules. He chooses his wife because of her looks and status. Ivan lusts for acceptance in society. He is greedy for more money, power, and status on the social ladder. Ivan experiences the wrath of God in the form of his physical and spiritual suffering. Ivan doesn’t begin to repent until he is angrily cursing God for his suffering and he hears an inner voice that asks him what he wants. Ivan responds with “Why, to live as I used to—well and pleasantly” But with that reply, Ivan begins to realize that the life he had been living may not be too well and pleasant. Ivan is coming around to the fact that his life is empty of all but the sins that he has contentedly filled his life with. Only two hours before his death does he grasp that he could have lived better. He also realizes that he still had some time to try to fix what he can. When his wife and son come to visit him for the last time, he asks for their forgiveness. In his weakened state they cannot

Indicate, as well, the ways, in which these individuals help or hinder Ivan Ilych’s spiritual growth.

This story of Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz illuminates many truths that are known throughout the world, including this law of nature. Morrie's illness and death gives Mitch a perspective that immediately changes his life. The success that caused him to neglect the most important things becomes the way to send Morrie's message to all the people who need reminders of what those things are. For example:

It offers life a sense of purpose; a sense of value knowing the deeds are honestly and truthfully. Tolstoy believed actions with noble intend are also meaningful ones, then nothing in authentic life can be dishonest and folly. As human beings, we need to interact with our surroundings, being affectionate towards one another is a need; a desire within us that makes us who we are. Only by meeting those needs will we be able to provide us a sense of satisfaction in life. Likewise, Tolstoy also states: “what tormented Ivan Ilyich most was “no one gave him the compassion he craved” (104). Knowing he is on his death bed did not pain him, rather, “not live the life he should have” (126) lash him most. In addition to that, Ivan himself admits: “[his life is] not the real thing, everything [he had] lived by and still lives by is a lie...” (128). Ilyich’s relationships with people around him were of phony pretends all around, “[no one] hears him out” (77), they all proceeded to live their “normal” life and continue to ignore Ivan, and ironically, this also includes the numerous doctors who had examined Ivan on his death bed. They did “what [they] consider necessary and suitable” (76) grounded on the norm of high status individuals. In another word, they listen to

Tolstoy also employs irony as he examines the plight of Ivan Ilych. This highlights the differences between Ilych's perception of his own life and reality while also allowing the reader to take part in some of the tearing anguish Ivan feels in having to submit to the wrongdoings in his life. Tolstoy compares Ivan Ilych's struggle to the plight of a man condemned to death as he "struggles in the hands of an executioner" (61). Ivan Ilych does not see death as a natural process, but as a punishment controlled by a merciless executioner, ironically much like the merciless judge he once was. Ivan Ilych's feels that death is an undeserved punishment because he never considered his own mortality. His obsession with social adroitness made mortality feel like a punishment, and his justification of this obsession made it impossible for him to let go of his life. Ivan Ilych believed he had lived his life up to social standards and because of this he would not have to endure the terrible agony of death that is beset among ordinary people. In reality he was blind to his shallow life and the transgressions he made.

In Leo Tolstoy's short novel, The Death of Ivan Ilyich he tells the story about the life and death of a court official name Ivan Ilyich. The author Tolstoy begins the story with the announcement of Ivan Ilyich death and funeral arrangements at his work place. Many of his colleagues’ grief were short lived and immediately shift toward the opportunity for personal advancement. One of Ivan closest friends Peter Ivanonich attended the wake that night, were none of the attention wasn’t really on Ivan.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich begins at the end, with his associates receiving the news of his passing. Here, Tolstoy emphasizes the diffident attitude the living

Before Ivan Ilych accepted his fate of death, he was known as an examining magistrate. Ivan Ilych attended the School of Law assimilating the values and behaviors of bourgeois,’ thus Ilych’s view of a “perfect” lifestyle consists of being wealthy and achieving high social class. His view is ironic because it contradicts with the natural self and propriety self that he is living in. Ilych imitates the ideals of social acceptability and the proprietary morals of how he must act like. For example, Ilych comments “What must I do to be like others, to be accepted…” (749). Ilych’s mortality comes from the people around him, thus he has no meaning to his life because he does not have his own idealistic beliefs of what his life should be. Additionally, Ivan Ilych discusses of the matter of when his wife,

Ivan Ilych is dead. The Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, informs the reader of this tragedy from just the title of his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych. Immediately, Tolstoy draws the attention of his audience with the title. It is a curious title because it tells us the fate of the eponymous character of the story,

Morrie had inherited his loving and fluid personality from his stepmother and his mother. Although not mentioned often, Morrie did share good memories with his mother, who died very early in his life. His father had ignored and not provided the love that Morrie eminently needed at the time, while Morrie scoured for lucrative work to aid his family. A year later, Morrie’s father had remarried to a woman named Eva, who was kind and for the most part influential of Morrie’s loving nature. His stepmother had mended the rift between Morrie and his family, making Morrie feel like he had a mother again.

Woolf and Tolstoy experiment with perspective and language to illuminate their understanding of truth. Tolstoy, a Realist, aims to enlighten society through his exploration of fundamental questions about life, and his narrator is crucial to this mission. In “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” Tolstoy’s use of third-person omniscient narration gives the reader full access to the necessary information that Ivan and the other characters lack. Although Ivan may not understand life’s essence until his final moments, the mere fact that there is an all-knowing narrator suggests that there is a definite underlying theme to unveil. Moreover, the narrator encapsulates Ivan’s superficial world with simple language

Shakespeare said it best when he penned “All the World’s a stage and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts. The story of Ivan Illych is filled with such characters. Many would enter the story of Ivan’s life without leaving much of an imprint, such as his coworkers, but others would leave an indelible mark. Without these characters, the story would have remained one dimensional and cold, but by adding them, Tolstoy breathed life into an already pitiful tale. All while teaching us, the reader that a life of ease rarely leads to true happiness.

But it is impossible to say that," and he remembered all the legality, correctitude, and propriety of his life. That at any rate can certainly not be admitted, he thought, and his lips smiled ironically as if someone could see that smile and be taken in by it. There is no explanation! Agony, death....What for?" (X, 19-20). Ivan is in turmoil about his life, pain, suffering and death. Ivan is also alone and lonely. “He had but to call to mind what he had been three months before and what he was now, to call to mind with what regularity he had been going downhill, for every possibility of hope to be shattered. Latterly during the loneliness in which he found himself as he lay facing the back of the sofa, a loneliness in the midst of a populous town and surrounded by numerous acquaintances and relations but that yet could not have been more complete anywhere—either at the bottom of the sea or under the earth—during that terrible loneliness Ivan Ilych had lived only in memories of the past” (X, 7-9). Ivan is a very influential man and has many acquaintances and relatives yet he is alone and fears

Marriage for money – It was really interesting to read in the account about how and why Ivan married Praskovya. In my late British Literature class that I took in high school we talked about a theme that occurred in many of the novels we read in class; this theme was the fact that many people married for money rather than love. In our modern western society there is a notion that every person marries their true love or soul mate and they live happily ever after that sometimes we forget about the people who are in arranged marriages or others whose social ro economic situations are so bad that their only choice is to marry for love. Then there are the people like Ivan who got married to someone who fit the social class that he was trying to fit into. Ivan also portrays the marriage characteristic of getting married solely because it the most socially acceptable thing to do. Being a single man in his positon would have set him at a disadvantage in the social class he was trying to fit into. This then starts to beg the question about the feelings that Praskovya had after Ivan had died. The story tells us that they fought a lot and that neither of them really loved one another, but does that mean that she wasn’t as deeply affected by his death as a loving wife would be. She shows a large interest in the fact that she needs to get as much money out of the government due to her husband’s death as possible, but is that all she is really worried about from his

This causes him to isolate himself from the world and later become dissatisfied. What makes Ivan happy is being self-centered. If it does not revolve around him or bring him pleasure, Ivan wants no part in it. It is sad to say that dying is really just about the most important thing that Ivan Ilych does in his life. Other than in his final moments, Ivan’s life appears to be extremely mediocre and unpleasant. "Ivan Ilych 's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible" (Tolstoy).