Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Volume E)

Tolstoy (1828–1910)

• “Blame me and not the path I tread.”

• a lifestyle at odds• excommunication• orphan• Yasnaya Polyana

Serfs

Crimean War

Didactic Tale

“‘Resistance is impossible!’ he said to himself. ‘If I could only understand what it is all for! But that too is impossible. An explanation would be possible if it could be said that I have not lived as I ought to. But it is impossible to say that,’ and he remembered all the legality, correctitude, and propriety of his life” (p. 775).

Freudian Parallels

“And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings” (p. 778).

Contemporary Readers

“From the time of his visit to the doctor, Ivan Ilyich’s chief occupation was the exact fulfillment of the doctor’s instructions regarding hygiene and the taking of medicine, and the observation of his pain and excretions. His chief interests came to be people’s ailments and people’s health” (p. 758).

Death as Theme

In his first draft of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy wrote using the first‑person perspectives of Peter Ivanovich and Ivan Ilyich, and he later switched to the third-person perspective of the finished story. What from the existing story would be lost if The Death of Ivan Ilyich was told from a first‑person perspective?

Discussion Questions

What is the significance of beginning The Death of Ivan Ilyich after the main character’s death? Why might Leo Tolstoy choose to start his story here before relating Ivan Ilyich’s life?

Discussion Questions

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