"The Death Of Ivan Ilyich" by Leo Tolstoy
1.25.22 & 1.26.22
We know, upon reading the opening of “The Death Of Ivan Ilyich,” that Ivan Ilyich has already died. The narration is omniscient, and because of this, we know that Ivan’s peers, all gathered in Ivan Yegorovich Shebek’s office, first learn about Ilyich’s death in the Gazette, and that their first thoughts are: how will my position change in the courts? Who will be promoted to where? This omniscient narration appears to take no moral stance, as its perspective shifts to one gentleman to another as he internally considers the benefits he will reap through Ilyich’s death and how to best leverage the oncoming changes, yet what is the narration choosing to show us first?
That these men, descending upon Ilyich’s death like ghouls, are the first thing the reader encounters in this novella is part of the narration, too. But as we’ll come to find out, they’re no different than Ilyich himself. Can we blame them, is the question. And if we blame them for their ghoulishness then do we also blame Ilyich, the one who has died?
Or, what if there is no blame here?
“The Death Of Ivan Ilyich” is a vivid examination of one man’s death, and his horror upon realizing that all he has aspired for in his life feels, essentially, meaningless. That the people he chose to surround himself with are materialistic, petty, and rabid social climbers, and that he is also those things.
We begin with the news of his death and funeral, described in detail and with a rapt focus on the machinations of everyone involved. There is a gap here that’s visible to the reader, between how the characters appear to each other and their innermost thoughts. But there is also a tone here, set by precise wording and descriptions. take, for example, this absolutely brilliant scene in the first chapter:
“Peter Ivanovich sighed still more deeply and despondently, and Praskovya Fedorovna pressed his arm gratefully. When they reached the drawing-room, upholstered in pink cretonne and lighted by a dim lamp, they sat down at the table — she on a sofa and Peter Ivanovich on a low pouffe, the springs of which yielded spasmodically under his weight. Praskovya Fedorovna had been on the point of warning him to take another seat, but felt that such a warning was out of keeping with her present condition and so changed her mind. As he sat down on the pouffe Peter Ivanovich recalled how Ivan Ilych had arranged this room and had consulted him regarding this pink cretonne with green leaves. The whole room was full of furniture and knick-knacks, and on her way to the sofa the lace of the widow's black shawl caught on the edge of the table. Peter Ivanovich rose to detach it, and the springs of the pouffe, relieved of his weight, rose also and gave him a push. The widow began detaching her shawl herself, and Peter Ivanovich again sat down, suppressing the rebellious springs of the pouffe under him. But the widow had not quite freed herself and Peter Ivanovich got up again, and again the pouffe rebelled and even creaked. When this was all over she took out a clean cambric handkerchief and began to weep. The episode with the shawl and the struggle with the pouffe had cooled Peter Ivanovich's emotions and he sat there with a sullen look on his face. This awkward situation was interrupted by Sokolov, Ivan Ilych's butler, who came to report that the plot in the cemetery that Praskovya Fedorovna had chosen would cost tow hundred rubles. She stopped weeping and, looking at Peter Ivanovich with the air of a victim, remarked in French that it was very hard for her. Peter Ivanovich made a silent gesture signifying his full conviction that it must indeed be so.”
What writer would spend so much time detailing a rebellious pouffe? Yet its the descriptions and subtext here which makes this an important passage. There is a description of the fancy and illustrious drawing room, which signified Ilyich’s wealth and position, as well as Peter’s memory of Ivan “consulted him regarding this pink cretonne and green leaves.” Yet when Sokolov interrupts to tell Parskovya, Ilyich’s widow, how much his burial plot will cost, she weeps, and in the following paragraphs she continues to lament her lack of money. This sets up a tension carried throughout the story— Ilyich is a man of high standing, with a beautiful house and more than enough money, yet he always sees his life as lacking. There is always something more to have.
During Ilyich’s service there is close and precise attention paid to each characters interpretation of how one should act in these circumstances. The sense the reader gets is one of machinations— there are few real emotions, and in sticking to these ideas of how one should act, each character is either avoiding any actual encounter with Ilyich’s death, or does not truly care that they’ve lost him. Their thoughts are more concerned with their particular appearance and presentation, as is shown in the above passage with the pouffe. The pouffe garners more attention in its “rebelliousness” than Ilyich does in his death.
In the next chapter, we start at the beginning.
“Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
This line, which opens the second chapter, is charged, clearly. Ilyich was the middle of three brothers. A “happy mean between the two of them.”
“At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.”
He is someone who, like most “ordinary” people, is focused outwardly, on what is approved of, rather than orienting himself to his naturally present moral compass. In this way, the story begins to take on the form of a parable, a kind of warning or road map for the reader. “Do this, and your life will result in this.”
A theme throughout TDOIL is the constant rejection of pain. Whenever any of the characters, save for the sweet Gerasim, is confronted with pain of any sort, they recoil in various ways, either by assuming a cheerful demeanor, attempting to purchase their way away from it,
When Ivan Ilyich experience ennui for the first time, it’s during a trip to the country, which he takes because he is unhappy with that his family considers a pay rate that is “quite normal and even fortunate.” But it’s not enough for him. And left to his own devices, with his family in the country, he becomes so restless that he goes to Saint Petersburg to argue for a new position with better pay. Through a series of circumstances, his wishes are granted.
“All his ill humor towards his former enemies and the whole department vanished, and Ivan Ilych was completely happy.”
This happens in Chapter Three, and this entire chapter ascends, with each tier of success increasing Ilyich’s happiness. They move, buy a new house and decorate it in ways that Ilyich sees as “free from vulgarity.” He bonds with his wife and daughter over these decorations. But his work? He doesn’t enjoy it.
And then, while helping to hang curtains, he bangs his side. It’s barely a blip. On sentence. And yet it’s what the rest of the story hinges on. In this way the narration is incredibly restrained, never really directing the reader to any conclusion, or trying to direct their attention strongly to any specific event.
“So they began living in their new home — in which, as always happens, when they got thoroughly settled in they found they were just one room short — and with the increased income, which as always was just a little (some five hundred rubles) too little, but it was all very nice.
Things went particularly well at first, before everything was finally arranged and while something had still to be done: this thing bought, that thing ordered, another thing moved, and something else adjusted. Though there were some disputes between husband and wife, they were both so well satisfied and had so much to do that it all passed off without any serious quarrels. When nothing was left to arrange it became rather dull and something seemed to be lacking, but they were then making acquaintances, forming habits, and life was growing fuller.
Ivan Ilych spent his mornings at the law court and came home to diner, and at first he was generally in a good humour, though he occasionally became irritable just on account of his house. (Every spot on the tablecloth or the upholstery, and every broken window- blind string, irritated him. He had devoted so much trouble to arranging it all that every disturbance of it distressed him.) But on the whole his life ran its course as he believed life should do: easily, pleasantly, and decorously.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever read another piece of literature that spends as much time in the presence of someone actively dying, as this one does. In his sickness, Ilyich loses respect and agency. He sees many doctors, but none can figure out the issue. His wife blamed him for his illness.
“And he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood or pitied him.”
When sickness finds Ilyich, he rejects it, and so does everyone around him. He is tossed around by his winding emotions— in one minute, when the pain is gone, he feels he’s getting better. The next, worse. While earlier in the story the death of one of Ilyich’s children is given barely three words, now an entire paragraph is spent following closely to Ilyich’s agony. Then:
“Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.
"In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.”
The knowledge of his own death surfaces, though he cannot “grasp” it. It’s there nonetheless. Like the waves of his experience of sickness, he weaves in and out of seeing and not seeing his impending death. By chapter 7 it’s clear to not only him but his family that his time is coming. His family and his coworkers are mostly absent. Gerasim, the butler’s assistant, appears. He is the most graceful person in the entire story, so kind he is almost inhuman, and a savior for Ilyich.
“What tormented Ivan Ilych most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and the only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result. He however knew that do what they would nothing would come of it, only still more agonizing suffering and death. This deception tortured him — their not wishing to admit what they all knew and what he knew, but wanting to lie to him concerning his terrible condition, and wishing and forcing him to participate in that lie.”
Gerasim is the only one who can look and see reality.
“Apart from this lying, or because of it, what most tormented Ivan Ilych was that no one pitied him as he wished to be pitied.”
So, he is ignored, and he feels like a child again in his nearness to death.
As you read these last few chapters, what was your experience? Who did you feel aligned with and how did you feel?