During his illness, Ivan beings to discovers that he has been living an artificial life. For instance, all of the people he believed were once his true friends show absolutely no signs of sympathy in regards to his illness. In fact, his coworkers are only concerned with who will be replacing him. In addition, Ivan realizes that his family truly does not love him. He senses that his family’s concern in regards to his illness is false. When his Praskovya and Liza visit him he assures them that he will “soon free them all of himself” (87). All of his accomplishments basically have absolutely no meaning. Ivan “started to go over in his imagination the best moments of his pleasant life. But—strange thing—all of those best moments of his pleasant
Unfortunately, Ivan's condition gets worse and he enters the cycle of depression. This is when an individual realizes that their death is certain. Signs of this cycle include becoming silent, refusal of visitors, and spending most of their time crying and grieving. In the book, Ivan is shown casting away his wife and his fellow magistrates. The only one he allowed to visit him was his servant, Gerasim. “And he ceased crying...during that loneliness Ivan Illych had only lived in the
In the face of Morrie's overwhelming compassion and tenderness, Ivan Ilych presents an opposite lifestyle. After a pleasantly carefree childhood he turned towards ambition and pursued an ever-larger salary and an ever-increasing social rank. Ivan lived without values and without attachments, easily moving between cities and jobs. He cared little for the great inconvenience of his family, and even less for his wife: "he hate[d] her with his whole soul" (Ivn, 139). Commitment was a prison to be avoided at all costs, a detriment to his proper and official existence. Genuine love touched Ivan only rarely and certainly not during the dying moments when he needed it the most.
And this also shows that he does not care for the living things around him as he also does when his friend Ivan dies later he just goes on and tries to figure out how to replace him and another time in the story he says "Suppose he refuses to be hunted?" "Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. " He need not play that game if he doesn't wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport.
Many times when people give up they just sit there helplessly. Ivan was so depressed and helpless from his injury that he had no desire to move. When a person does not move for a period of time during an illness their body will begin to shut down. It was said that "Ivan Ilyich now no longer left his sofa. He would not lie in bed but lay on the sofa, facing the wall nearly all the time. He suffered ever the same unceasing agonies and in his loneliness" this quote shows how a person's thoughts and actions can worsen their conditions (Tolstoy X). The fact that Ivan did not even move showed that in
Ivan remembers the moment when he and his sister got caught by humans. He remembers it quite well as he states, “Somehow I knew that in order to live, I had to let my old life die.” (Applegate 92). This statement is significant because this was the moment when Ivan had to accept the fact
He is getting worse and he is aware that his days are coming to an end. Personifying the illness, it can be seen as manipulating Ivan, by controlling his mind and forcing him to think even deeper about his illness. It brings up the same questions that Tolstoy wondered. “What has his purpose been?” “Has he truly lived life or is he just living?” By then, it’s a little too late, and Ivan realizes that he hasn’t really done anything in his life. There is an exact depiction of this situation in the 2006 movie Last Holiday, starring Queen Latifah and LL Cool J. She plays a lady who slightly bumps her head at work, then gets word from a doctor that it’s serious and she only has a few months to live. After hearing the news, she realizes that she has just been alive but not living. Her illness manipulates her mind into asking the same questions as Ivan. These are the questions that Tolstoy suggests that people ask themselves. Luckily, she still has energy and support to start fulfilling long lost dreams, and making a statement in life before she
The climax comes to an end when Ivan gets up but seems to be stuck by something “grabbing” his coat in the process. Due to his freak out, the next day he was found dead. This shows he did not resolve his internal conflict of man vs self.
Again, Tolstoy portrays pain as something that can be all-consuming. For much of the text, Ivan is obsessed with his pain and suffering, from when it begins as a nagging pain in his side until he ruminates on it day and night while on his death bed. Tolstoy flips the script a little, however, because another key facet of this depiction of pain is that it’s seen as something of a teacher. Through the pain and suffering that Ivan feels from confronting his own mortality and impending death, he learns about himself, what a good life really means, existential issues about the afterlife, and other related topics. He has epiphanies throughout the book, with the most memorable and poignant one, for me, coming when he considers if he lived a good life on page 213 in my book.
The progress of modern society and the pressure to conform has not only hastened Ivan Ilych’s death but also made him a die a very miserable death. As soon Ivan realizes he has a physical problem, a problem that began with his obsession of having the perfect house, he consults one of the best doctors he
In Ivan’s finale years he completely isolates himself from everyone. He confines himself in his room, spending his time thinking about his unavoidable mortality. He despises people for they don’t understand his circumstance. When company was over he became angry and more miserable while he lay in his room. He longs to be pitied and nurtured like how a sick child is. Ivan is completely unable to take care of himself. He must face the stone, cold, truth of his inedible mortality. Ivan hates his miserable life and those who were never there for him when he needed them to be.
Ivan IV was a complicated man, with a complicated past, in a complicated country, in a complicated time; his story is not an easy one. Ivan the terrible, the man, could never be completely understood in a few words, nor in a few pages, and only perhaps in a few volumes. A man of incredible range his dreadfulness could only be matched by his magnificence, his love by his hatred.
The author uses Ivan's death to show how much suffering has gone beyond the physical. Ivan suffers from fear, hopelessness, and a sense of
As the last and the grandest part about Ivan’s character is that goes insane. By this kind of description Dostoevsky wants to state that those ideas could not lead to anything more than
It is obvious to the reader that this retreat into his work is the soul means by which Ivan moves towards a personal goal of self-justification and righteousness. It is no
As this continue Ivan is having a horrible life. As you continue to reader I feel like Tolstoy shows that this story is about selfish people. I noticed the wrong in people around