the brothers ivan and levin
Tolstoy maintains a romance with the eternal question: what is the meaning of life and are people living correctly by it? Tolstoy reminds the reader that death is inevitable and the hope that tries to control it is displaced by fear, and finally regret. In The Death of Ivan Ilych Tolstoy portrays the protagonist in an empty existence to illustrate the naked truths of reality. By comparing Ivan's character with one of Tolstoy's heroes from the novel Anna Karenina, Constantine Levin, the reader recognizes Tolstoy's ideals on the process of living, and through Ivan's pitiful example, Tolstoy provides an archetype for a life wasted and misled. Both characters are met with opposition and depression; but their differences in behavior when dealing with death signify their respective levels of happiness. After living a depraved and humble life, Levin acts upon life and deals with the immovable by compromise. On the other hand Ivan struggles in a tug of war with death and life, and in return death forces him to abandon his family in a pool of regret. Tolstoy is sending a powerful message to the reader: wealth can be accrued, sickness can be held at bay, but death and consequence are inevitable and what one giv
This maxim can be applied to Tolstoy's use of the Ilych home to symbolize the emptiness of Ivan's life; the facade of bargain antiques don't even bring the reputation that Ivan craves, let alone true happiness. The fulfillment of one's life cannot be measure by material possessions. Peter Ivan's best friend, admires Schwartz because of his "playful" demeanor that would not succumb to the "depressing influences" of the event (18). The universal appeal of Tolstoy is how he projects the typical human in such a way that his characters cannot be loved, detested, or ignored as familiar reflections of society today, rather reflections of ourselves interacting hastily and ungraciously with others. Although Ivan seems important in his position, his dull connections with others mitigates his importance to the world because no one is really mourning for him. The carefully decorated yet mediocre home is a mirror image of it's lord in that Ivan has delicately groomed himself as a "phenix" yet his adherence to his "duty" according to normalcy makes him indistinguishable from the crowd (22-3). Tolstoy writes that the "peasant" and his words are like "an electric spark" kindling his soul and never ceased to be "interesting" to him (Tolstoy 844). Tolstoy is sounding a warning to every one that forgets the evanescent quality of life and to humbly appreciate the pleasures, relationships, and contentedness offered. deceitful beings" into earnest people because of the "natural law. Ivan's respect for the serf and Levin's continual romanticism of peasant stock differ in that Ivan has to come to the brink of death to see the goodness in Gerasim. The idea of life and death is crucial to Tolstoy's idea of meaningful living and the reader often cannot help but agree. Consequently, both characters come to the same Rubicon of thought in the face of death; both characters essentially "fell into despair" when each found no answer for "what he was and what he was living for" (838). As Ivan lays in his coffin, his friends lack the insight to know that they too will be in Ivan's place one day Though the process of dying is not always as explicit as in The Death of Ivan Ilych, it is a constant pondering for many of Tolstoy's great heroes, especially Constantine Levin in Anna Karenina.
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Acceptance Essays
