The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Spiritual Awakening Essay -- Tolstoy Death I

The Death of Ivan Ilyich   Spiritual Awakening        He went to his study, personate down, and once again was left alone with it. Face to face with It, unable to do anything with It. Simply look at It and grow numb with detestation (Tolstoy, 97). Death takes on an insidious persona as it eats forward at Ivan Ilyich, a man horrified at the prospect of losing his life. withal more horrifying is the realization that despite his prominence and prosperity as a Russian high court judge, Ilyich has done nothing to thrust his life worth saving. The Death of Ivan Ilyich begins at the end, with his associates receiving the news of his passing. Here, Tolstoy emphasizes the diffident carriage the living often have toward the dead and their unintended insensitivity to what they cant comprehend. His colleagues argon more preoccupied with what kind of personnel changes his death causes and mystifyting in a game of whist than the loss of this individua l. Even his wife, while compete up her bereaved widow status, find outs how she can profit from his passing. Aside from the pragmatic portrayal of his truly devastated son, those who survive the dead man seem to consider him an inconvenient corpse. The story then flashes back to develop Ivan Ilyich as a living man. At premier(prenominal), the indifferent attitude of his loved ones seemed justified, since he leads a rather empty, superficial life common to the late 1800s. It appears that if someone else died, his first thoughts would turn to whist as well. Propriety, not morality, dictates his actions and he relishes power and glory. He is a consummately impervious individual, impervious to conscience, empathy, and understanding. This does not make him an evil man. more i... ...back the family has. Both of them suffer from false expectation brought on by their commission to propriety over conscience or morality. As Ilyichs condition worsens, he begins to notice the hypocrisy u pon which he has based his life. At first, he sees those or so him as perpetrators of a great lie, insisting that he will get better and making light of his condition. Later, he comes to accept that in the past he has lied to himself, and forgives his family of all his petty grudges. His realization and spiritual alter in the moments before his death ultimately draw the greatest auditory modality sympathy. We feel his denial and fear, his unending physical pains and emotional misery, and are able to accept, as Ilyich does, the unalterable course of our lives.Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Translated by Lynn Solotaroff. bantam BooksNew York, 1981.