47 pages • 1-hour read
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
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Themes
Misplaced Priorities
Blindly following steps through life in pursuit of upward social mobility is not the right way to live. Ivan Ilyich maintains a surface-level image of success and satisfaction—attends the right school, progresses in his profession, marries well, and raises two children. However, since everything he does for appearances, nothing he achieves ultimately brings him satisfaction in his final days, which are rife with intense pain and suffering.
Ivan Ilyich’s professional life, no matter how meticulously planned or successful, is not enough to satisfy the normal human search for meaning. Living purely by checking off the boxes of social expectation rather than developing emotional connections to his wife and children creates a cold home life. His wife is temporarily pleased with his professional success as it means a higher income for her to enjoy as well, but the couple is entirely unprepared to deal with the traumas of losing three children. They grow apart and develop almost unbridgeable resentment toward each other, with Ivan Ilyich avoiding home completely through work and other distractions. Living only in accordance with society’s expectations does not bring happiness.
Before Ivan Ilyich worried so much about outward success, there “had been more of what was good in life, and more of life itself” (297). In his final weeks, Ivan Ilyich connects his pain and suffering to the way he’s lived his life, recognizing that his life was better in childhood than it has been in adulthood, and that it has been “going downhill” with regularity (296). He has lived with “legality, correctitude, and propriety” (298)—but this, he realizes has not been the correct way to prioritize. It isn’t until Ivan Ilyich comes to terms with having lived for “falsehood and deception” (286) that he can then approach the question of what really the right way is to live.
Gerasim serves an important role in this theme because he is a foil to the aristocratic characters around him. His simple peasant nature, faith in God’s will, and willingness to selflessly provide for others all make him different from the materialistic and selfish characters in Ivan Ilyich’s circle, including Ivan Ilyich himself. Through the character of Gerasim, and through Ivan Ilyich’s childhood memories, Tolstoy offers a glimpse of the right way to live.
Personal Gain Overshadows Personal Connection
Characters in the novel are generally selfish. This selfishness prevents them from establishing and maintaining deep, meaningful relationships with one another beyond potential for material wealth. After Ivan Ilyich dies, those around him immediately grow more concerned with personal gain than with grief at the loss. Those in his professional circle do not reflect on their friendship with Ivan Ilyich, but rather hope for “the changes and promotions” his removal “might occasion among themselves” (247). His funeral is not an opportunity for a final farewell, but rather one of the many “tiresome demands of propriety” (248). Peter Ivanovich, one of Ivan Ilyich’s “nearest acquaintances” (248), only attends the funeral to find a way to transfer his brother-in-law to a vacancy opened by Ivan Ilyich’s death. Even Praskovya Fedorovna does not mourn her husband. Instead, she uses the funeral service “to find out whether she could not possibly extract something more” for her pension (254).
This materialism and cold unconcern reflects Ivan Ilyich’s sentiments when alive. He always prioritizes social standing and potential for upward mobility over personal connections. He considers the setback of being overlooked for promotions at work “the greatest and most cruel injustice” (263), while dismissing the deaths of three of his children as his wife’s unpleasant querulousness.
Ivan Ilyich retreats into work not for meaningful engagement or productive accomplishments, but as a way of projecting a better, richer image to others. Similarly, when he buys a new house after finding a higher post with a larger salary, he does not worry about how to make the place feel like a home to his family, but instead how to decorate it to look more expensive than it actually is. It is no wonder that when Ivan Ilyich is on his deathbed, his family only registers their annoyance at his illness interfering with their plans or comfort rather than being concerned for his suffering.
Light Versus Darkness
Tolstoy establishes a significant connection between death and darkness. When Ivan Ilyich’s brother-in-law describes Ivan Ilyich’s appearance as that of “a dead man” with no light in his eyes (276), it is an early sign that he will not recover from his condition. Similarly, when Ivan Ilyich comes to understand that his diagnosis is not a matter of appendix versus kidney, but rather that it’s obvious that he’s dying, he proclaims, “There was light and now there is darkness” (278). For Ivan Ilyich, light dims in the face of impending death. As the “gnawing, unmitigated, agonizing pain” becomes constant, his “consciousness of life” is “inexorably waning but not yet extinguished” (287)—word choice that connects life to light.
Once he understands that he is dying, Ivan Ilyich’s suffering brings him to question why he must go through such pain and misery when he has lived such a proper life. Without work to distract him, and facing worsening relationships with his family, Ivan Ilyich has ample time to think through his life’s priorities and his current situation. Still, he isn’t certain what comes next: “If only it would come quicker! If only what would come quicker? Death, darkness?” (288). The eternal darkness of death frightens and demoralizes him.
At the very end, when Ivan Ilyich realizes how much more meaningful his childhood was than his adulthood has been, he describes his earliest memories as “one bright spot there at the back, at the beginning of life” while later “all becomes blacker and blacker” (297). Even in the climactic moment of the story, when his hand lands on Vasya’s head in the final chapter and he suddenly experiences empathy and connection for the first time in his life, Tolstoy paints this moment as an illumination: “instead of death there was light” (302). Death itself cannot overcome the joy that he feels in that instant, and the end of life becomes a return light and joy instead of an eternal descent into darkness.
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