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

The final stage of Ivan Ilyich   Spiritual Awakening        He went to his study, lay down, and one time again was left alone with it. Face to face with It, un adequate to(p) to do anything with It. Simply look at It and grow numb with horror (Tolstoy, 97). Death takes on an insidious persona as it eats away at Ivan Ilyich, a man horrified at the prospect of losing his sprightliness. Even more than than horrifying is the realization that despite his prominence and prosperity as a Russian high court judge, Ilyich has done nothing to make 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 attitude the bread and butter often have toward the dead and their unintended insensitivity to what they cant comprehend. His colleagues are more preoccupied with what kind of personnel changes his death causes and getting in a game of whist than the loss of this individual. Even his wife, while playing up her bereaved widow status, considers how she can profit from his passing. Aside from the realistic portraying of his truly devastated son, those who survive the dead man seem to consider him an awkward corpse. The story then flashes back to develop Ivan Ilyich as a sustainment man. At first, the indifferent attitude of his loved ones seemed justified, since he leads a quite a empty, superficial life common to the late 1800s. It appears that if someone else died, his first thoughts would turning 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 commitment to properness over conscience or morality. As Ilyichs condition worsens, he begins to hear t he hypocrisy upon which he has based his life. At first, he sees those around him as perpetrators of a great lie, insisting that he will get kick downstairs 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 awakening in the moments before his death ultimately draw the greatest audience sympathy. We timbre 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 Books tonic York, 1981.