Analyzing Life and Death through Ivan and Gerasim

Extract

[...] Analyzing Life and Death through Ivan and Gerasim Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych tells the story of a man's untimely illness that ultimately leads to his demise. It is a story views one man's analysis and questioning of the way he has lived up until the point where he realizes he will die. “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary, and most terrible”(102). The process of Ilych's death is defined through his recollections, regrets, and doubts about his life. [...]

[...] Death began to literally and figuratively consume Ivan Ilych. It became harder and harder for him to take his mind from death, and he began to think differently because of this. In the third month of his illness, the people around him started to become aware that his interest for others was whether he would soon die, and cease discomfort caused by his sufferings. Ivan knows that his sufferings are not only his, as they are shared with those whom he spends his last days. [...]

[...] It's a case of illness with you, sir." Tolstoy gives his character Gerasim a kindness and self-sacrificing love for others that allows him to live his life with meaning. This is where Tolstoy differentiates between the “right life” and the “artificial life.” Within the simple character of Gerasim, is the internal make up of the “right life.” Although strange imagery comes along with this, Gerasim's willingness to hold Ivan's legs for him on his shoulders when Ivan can not hold them up on his own is a prime example of Gerasim's character. [...]