The context of the next significant death in the novel decidedly contrasts the death of Nicholas Levin. Anna Karenina, after falling from grace and her elevated social stratum, desperately searches for meaning in her life. She fears that she no longer provides Count Vronsky with any sort of pleasure and constantly seeks to improve herself in order to keep his attention and love focused on her. In a constant state of inadequacy, Anna cannot even sleep without a heavy dose of opium. Anna grows dependent upon the drug, and one night, “She poured out her usual dose of opium and thought that she need only drink the whole phial in order to die, it seemed to her so easy and simple that she began thinking with pleasure of how he would suffer, repent, and love her memory when it was too late” (Tolstoy 680). Tolstoy foreshadows Anna’s demise in this passage. Anna feels that, were she to kill herself, she could finally solicit the attention and love she craves so adamantly. However, on further considering this avenue, “All was darkness. ‘Death!’ she thought. And such terror came upon her” (Tolstoy 680). She quickly dismisses this thought, desiring to live her life fully. However, the seeds of something horrible are planted in her mind. Those seeds sprout as Anna continues to trudge through her lackluster life. Anna stumbles upon the train tracks, and, “Suddenly remembering the man who had been run over the day she first met Vronsky, she realized what she had to do” (Tolstoy 694). Anna
The physical death he must face at the end scares him because it forces him to realize the life he has lived has been completely false. When confronted with death Ivan starts retracing his past, wondering what he has done to deserve such pain and suffering. He realizes when he is bed ridden that he was much more alive as a child then as an adult. In chapter five of The Death of Ivan Ilych, Ivan admits that “…the further back he looked the more life there had been. There had been more of what was good in life and more of life itself,” (Tolstoy 238). If one were to observe small children play, they would notice it does not take much to hold a child’s interest, and often they are much more fascinated by things that don’t work correctly then things that do. With the pressure to conform to society’s views of perfection as an adult, Ivan loses the liveliness he possessed as a child. Having to face death terrifies him because it forces him to admit he actually did not do the correct thing like he thought he did.
Before this passage Alexy Karenia went to go file for divorce and seek vengeance on Anna due to disrespecting his wishes of not seeing Vronsky ever again. Karenia leave St. Petersburg, after finding out that Anna disrespected his wishes, and went to Moscow. He gets a telegram from Anna saying that she is dying and asks him to come back to Petersburg and seek his forgiveness. Vronsky goes to St. Petersburg not caring if his wife does die but he talks with Vronksy and Anna decides to forgive his wife due to his faith. After this passage Karenia asks Vronsky to leave and Vronksy decides to kill himself but he isn’t successful. This moment connects to whats before and after because Karenia is deicing to forgive Anna but by forgiving Anna, it leaves Vronsky on his own and alone; which causes him to become so upset that he attempts
“The bad in the past can lead to the good in the future” (in class discussion). As inspiring as this theme may be, when still drowning in the “bad” the future feels like forever away. In Katherine Applegate’s novel, The One and Only Ivan, an inspiring tale of perseverance is revealed. Ivan, A gorilla, taken from his home in his early youth, lives in a mall exhibit. He watches human interactions and befriends animals near his domain. Stella, an elephant and a friend,is a special part of Ivan’s life. She asks him to ensure that their newest addition, a young elephant named Ruby, is cared for. An ongoing infection in Stella’s leg eventually takes her life, and Ivan is more determined than ever to get Ruby out of the mall and into a zoo. Eventually through determination, persistence, patience, and love Ivan and his friends have a happy ending.
It might seem like ´´The Marble Champ´´ and ´´Big-Enough Anna´´ are very different kinds of stories. One is a picture book about a dog, named Anna that wants to be a sleddog. The other is a short story about a girl named Lupe who wants to be good at sports. But if you look closer you will see that these two stories actually share the same theme, hard work pays of and you should never give up.
Petersburg. She has a reputation for cheating the poor and for beating her own sister, Lizaveta. Raskolnikov developed a relationship with her during Act I when he pawned a watch to her. During a walk to a local Tavern, Raskolnikov hears Lizaveta mention that she will not be home around seven o’clock with Alyona. “The old woman [Alyona Ivanovna] would be left alone (Dostoyevsky 51).” With this new information, Raskolnikov has had his mind made for him. “He went in [to his apartment] like a man condemned to death (Dostoyevsky 51).” That very night, he visited Alyona with vicious intentions. Raskolnikov invited himself into her apartment, fabricating a story about an item that he wanted to pawn to her. Alyona was focused on the item when Raskolnikov brutally hit her with an axe. “He stepped back, let it [Alyona’s body] fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead (Dostoyevsky 63).” Raskolnikov killed a defenseless old woman, finally revealing his cruel
When one is encountered with death, life’s meaning is revealed. We infrequently agonize over whether we live a healthy lifestyle until it is too late, as demonstrated in "The Death of Ivan Ilych” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Both stories allow the readers to learn the consequences of living a completely selfish, non-Christian life. Through death, characters Ivan and the grandmother are encountered with conversion experiences, in which they reevaluate their own lives. O’Conner and Tolstoy exhibited the character’s reevaluation experience through similar themes in each story.
In The Death of Ivan Ilych Leo Tolstoy conveys the psychological importance of the last, pivotal scene through the use of diction, symbolism, irony. As Ivan Ilych suffers through his last moments on earth, Tolstoy narrates this man's struggle to evolve and to ultimately realize his life was not perfect. Using symbols Tolstoy creates a vivid image pertaining to a topic few people can even start to comprehend- the reexamination of one's life while on the brink of death. In using symbols and irony Tolstoy vividly conveys the manner in which Ilych views death as darkness unto his last moments of life when he finally admits imperfection.
Finally, when things are heating up between the two lonely travelers, so is the weather, which “was close indoors, while in the street the wind whirled the dust about” (Chekov 507) and their thirst is unrelenting no matter what they eat or drink to quench it. “One did not know what to do with oneself” (Chekov 507), seemingly, with the desire for one another that is beginning to blossom. On this particular evening, the couple makes way for the pier to watch the incoming ship. A crowd of people have gathered with many bouquets of flowers to greet arrivals. The churning ocean echoes the intensity of their attraction for each other, along with the mess of people surrounding them and Anna’s display of uneasiness and absentmindedness. As the crowd thins out,
Popular descriptions of Alexei Karenin label him as a cold and passionless government official who doesn’t care about his wife or family. Indeed, he is viewed as the awful husband who is holding Anna hostage in a loveless marriage. However, this is a highly exaggerated description, if not completely false, analysis of Karenin. Upon careful analysis of Karenin’s character and his actions, it is clear that he is not the person Anna makes him out to be. In fact, with thorough examination of the passage on pages 384 and 385 of Anna Karenina, it is clear that Alexei Karenin can be considered the hidden tragic hero of the novel.
Her love for life and the desire to live long, take an ironic twist when she sees that her husband is actually alive. Watching the husband alive in front of her is indeed the real shock of her life. It strikes with such a force that it takes her life. It is very likely that her weak heart simply could not bear, what indeed was for her, the most tragic news. Her husband’s death meant life to her which she hoped would be long enough. “She says a prayer that her life might be long to enjoy all the seasons in her life”. (Chopin 262).
Gurov, dissatisfied with his monotonous life, goes to Anna because he needs the scandal to relieve a numbness that has taken effect, not because he loves her. She merely reciprocates his affection, not out of love, but to escape the entrapment she feels from her marriage. In a subtle climax during his return home to Moscow, Gurov feels the agonizing absence of anyone he can talk to meaningfully about the personal secrecies of his life, specifically Anna. This intolerable sensation sends him to “S—,“ to find her. Only when Gurov is standing outside Anna’s house does he actually relate to her situation and form some genuine connection. “Just opposite the house stretched a long grey fence adorned with nails…One would run away from a fence like that," thought Gurov, looking from the fence to the windows of the house and back again…He loathed the grey fence more and more, and by now he thought irritably that Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him, and was perhaps already amusing herself with some one else, and that that was very natural in a young woman who had nothing to look at from morning till night but that confounded fence” (p.230). With Gurov’s realization, he actually escapes his fenced in world and partially enters her miserable one. In sharing a connection, their emotions and psychological needs start to blend together and they become entrapped by the same fence, where inside, the two of them are alone and vulnerable in a shared arena. This isolation
The past is constantly mentioned by the characters in this play. Even the cherry orchard as property, is a symbol of the Old Russian regime. The end of the Old Regime therefore, is portrayed by Chekhov when at the end of the play Lohpakin becomes the owner of the estate and cuts the cherry orchard. Chekhov, as a contemporary observer, uses his play to criticize some aspects of the emancipation of 1861. The message he leaves is that although the emancipation was an important step towards freedom, it was not the only one to be made. This message, besides being given throughout the novel, is also stated by Trofimov, an idealist student who realizes how far Russia is from achieving real freedom. At the end of Act 2, Trofivom tells Anya, Madame Ranevskaya’s 17-year-old daughter: “...In order to start living in the present, we first have to redeem our past, make an end of it, and we can only do that through suffering…” .
The book The Death of Ivan Ilych is a literary work by Count Leo Tolstoy published in 1886 and has been hailed as a masterpiece both by critics and readers. The author has been reputed as one of the people who changed how the subject of death is treated in society. In the novel, Leo Tolstoy presents the story of Ivan Ilych who lived a wasted life but who is not ready to imagine his own death. Through Gerasim, the peasant servant associated with Ivan, we are able to see the simple and gentle approach manner to which he serves his master. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the first major work of fiction completed by Leo Tolstoy after his existential crisis. “The death of Ivan Ilych can be seen as true reflection of and an elaboration of Tolstoy’s
We know that Raskolnikov Rodion Romanovich, the main character of the novel who cruelly killed the old pawnbroker and her sister, finally, confessed to the murder and was sentenced to nine years of obligatory work in Siberia. New environment and the love of Sonya Semyonovna helped him realize his mistakes and change his beliefs and values. He became more humane, social, and gained peace of mind. Nevertheless, the life of Raskolnikov could have ended “going to America” or, in the other words, committing suicide. He was thinking about killing himself several times: while he was walking on the bridge, after the conversation with Svidrigailov Arkady Ivanovich and Porfiry Petrovich. He knew that this action could release him from internal suffering and agony. However, if he did that, it also would have affected the lives of other people. For example, Kolya, Christian boy who took the blame for the murder he did not commit, could have spent a lot of years in prison. Sonechka could have possible become a prostitute again or followed Raskolnikov’s footsteps and kill herself as