Introduction
Readers of the novella ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ would benefit from knowing a little bit about the author, Leo Tolstoy, and the context in which he wrote this work. A well-established author and a count by the time of writing ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’, Tolstoy began his literary career by writing about nobility and focused on criticising upper-class society. As he matured, his philosophy gradually moved from existentialist criticism to existentialism itself, which became evident in ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’. The novella, written in 1886, was of the ‘existential’ period of his career, during which he had also written several other exceptional novels. Central to Tolstoy’s philosophy is the existential concern with the profound relevance of choices that individuals make in their lives as well as the community’s values and norms. This novella has managed to survive the test of time and has impacted the world with its mood-setting enunciations of ethical philosophy.
The novella ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ provides a deep, multi-dimensional analysis of the various themes present in its pages. Actually, every paragraph appears to be packed with existentialist sentiments, and not analyzing them would be rather unjust to the work of a philosopher like Tolstoy. The characters, the storyline and the narrative mode, like all the other novella elements, serve as an enhancement, a base for these introspective, ethical queries. At the time of its writing, the novella was a literary response to the contemporary phenomenon of increasing urbanization and modernization. In general, it is a critical portrayal of city life with an array of characters. Even today, it manages to engage its readers with the profound messages that it holds within its pages. For the discussion that follows, the reader is advised to bring with them an open, moral disposition parallel to what one might hold before facing a judge.
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Themes of Death and Mortality
The primary theme of 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' is Ivan Ilyich's confrontation with his death or, what amounts to the same, his own mortality. Ivan knew from the start that his condition was terminal, and the future brought with it nothing but increasing pain and debilitation. This knowledge produced in him terror and desolation. He began to be overwhelmed by an ever greater despair which induced in him such an intense horror of his severed future. Accordingly, a major portion of the novella is dedicated to the portrayal of Ivan's emotional anguish. It is his refusal to heed the signs of his impending death that intensifies his despair. Ultimately, Ivan is able to free himself from the shackles of his illness on all levels of his being. His interiority, from the spiritual down to the supraphysical levels, is transformed for the better.
Death operates in the novella as an agent of conversion. It is in the face of death that we might be able to lay claim, as individuals, to find ourselves. This is prejudice and illusion. Death operates like any catalyst, bringing about substantive and substantial change. In Ivan's case, the promise of death brings him to a new awareness of himself and his altogether unenlightened manner of living. Death is presented to us as the supreme arbiter of truth. It is death that Ivan refuses to submit to in his own name. It is in the calling of our bluff that death serves to establish what we are and to tell our tale in an unblinking fashion. When death sounds the summons, it calls for an answer. The answer of our reply has the force of an ethical response to the stand that death takes with respect to us. And if we protest and refuse the escort that death offers, then we might be able to say that we have to sustain such a refusal. In Ivan's case, the shortcoming resides in Ivan's fateful decision to become the exclusive pawn of that authentic demand. The argument is quite Nietzschean in its understanding of authenticity. Being alive ultimately amounts to facing extinction. It is only when the awareness of death casts its shadow over our lives that we begin to live in earnest. Nothing reminds a person of life better than death.
The Search for Meaning and Authenticity
Heidegger argues that any life that is authentically lived must account for the inevitability of one's death. While most people suppress the awareness of their mortality, Ivan Ilyich, the protagonist of a novella, has no choice but to encounter his impending demise. The narrative is marked by the lawyer's "search for the meaning of life and authenticity," as the realization of death forces Ivan to confront a lifelong existential crisis. No longer able to maintain the comfortable status quo of his social existence, he is compelled to question the manner and authenticity of his mode of existence.
Ivan's encounters with these epiphanies read like a self-awareness journey that describes "the unveiling of Nothing." Throughout much of his life, Ivan's consciousness was defined by an emphasis on self-importance, where his viewpoints and desires were subject to the values placed upon them by others. These others – family, friends, and colleagues – shaped Ivan's life and the norms and expectations of his existence. As Ivan endures the fatal pain of his terminal illness, he realizes that these others, who are superficially solicitous, do not truly care or even know him. The narrative reveals his longing for more substantial relationships, particularly with his peasant servant.
Ivan continues to quest after a meaningful life, but despite the din of his new epiphanic drive, he remains "without steady footing." These shifting insights illustrate that the focus lies in depicting what happens when people abandon the values of others and adopt newly discovered or rediscovered values for themselves. The narrative leaves traditional plot lines and delves into existential and religious thought as Ivan strives to live an authentic life – to be true to the things he values most. His spiritual awakening reveals that the "meaning of life is larger than the life of Ilyich," wherein spirituality unites all humanity in an altruistic and caring embrace. Despite Ivan's attempt to escape from his physical suffering and transform himself psychologically, he is alienated, for human life does not rest in isolation but in love and community. His tragic transformation into a religious man conveys the poignant lesson that society is doomed if it cannot educate its members to lead lives of spiritual relevance.
Social Conformity and Hypocrisy
Ilyich’s relationships and experiences echo critiques of themes like social conformity, hypocrisy, and the lie of money. Social pressure to conform dictates that individuals suppress their desires for the sake of society; this involves hiding flaws through appearance and forming superficial relationships with slick, well-practiced pleasantries. The hypocrisy referred to in critiques mostly emerges in company or social transactions, rather than, say, in the privacy of one’s own thoughts or interactions with intimates. Walking through Ilyich’s life and relationships, we encounter moments of conflict, where what is expressed differs greatly from one’s own values from moment to moment. None of these people are acting against their own personal vices or interests; yet, nobody involved sees the meted hypocrisy. As members of a society bred on wage slavery, comfort, and personal interests over virtues, no member of Ilyich’s social web is vigilant enough to register this as wrong.
However, in his illness, it becomes clear that the relationships he’s been building, living on, and craving were not love at all, but only those trifles of individual affection and sexual pleasure, wealth, status, and fun attributed by his life’s ideas and activities. Here, extent and consequence come together. He, as master of the family he helps maintain primarily for reputation, fun, and comfort, faces the most harsh condemnation and is, therefore, most obviously guilty. But his family, too, is part of the primary group, the party most affected, and fails to form a bond of affection that would be influenced by something such as truth; when injured, the only ideas of necessity he serves are those of social appropriateness. Although failing to register as moral to a near-identical degree, the consequences are more neatly segregated. Supposedly unfettered by black marks or restitutions, each maintains his or her easy social contact and comfortable luxury while attending to business and superficial curiosity rather than the matter at hand.
Conclusion
Considering these arguments, where does this leave us? Almost a hundred years later, I think that Ivan’s face is still not only ugly, but as authentic as ever. In a world still much concerned by the aspects related to the denial of death, self-lies, morbidity, absence of existential quest, negative existential mode, position, ethos, and lack of choice could easily be described as the ugliest face of a society and collective psyche. What these possibilities in our contemporary culture continue to suggest in so many different forms and areas is that we still can afford to pretend that we are not free and refuse our own meaningfulness in its positive and negative forms. Instead, we often eagerly opt for the despondency related to a general indifference, a state that simply loves to get rid of all trouble, and pretend that it does not exist. Of course, this is done at an enormous cost for society and for us as individuals, and one of the main dangers is that such an attitude normalizes itself as correct and the only option against the few who preach the exact opposite. Also, one might add in a time of terrorism, a zone of terror and hysteria that in its outdated modern meaning related to the existential and absurd freedom and responsibility described by some existentialist thinkers.
We can say that the novella is a profound message concerning the human condition. In a society in some respects not so different from ours, through Ivan’s fate calls the reader to recognize his or her own – sometimes many – cries against their lies or their daily death-denial rituals and habits. He is forced to recognize that the journey towards true authenticity is difficult, but all the same it is a necessary pilgrimage. By posing ethical requirements as being synonymous or deriving directly from the awareness of our finitude and human limits, invites each of us to interrogate our own lives and the choices that we have made, would make, or should make. Embodying the authentic or unauthentic ethical stance of Ivan, all of us – but especially in the case of the old man – will be able to rediscover perhaps for the first time in many years, or certainly at a deeper level, the often disregarded true meaningfulness or usefulness of our lives against oneself and for others.
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