In 1886, Tolstoy wrote a story entitled, The Death of Ivan Ilych, which is about a man who discovers that he lived his life in vain. The story of Ivan Ilych offers commentary on the bourgeois class, and it's effect on the human soul. Ivan Illych lived his life trying to conform to a set standard and doing everything that was expected of him. On his deathbed, he realized that he had wasted his life and was never really happy. The life of a member of the elite class turned out to be truly meaningless.
             Ivan Illych strived for social perfection. Every decision he made was made with the end result in mind. As a schoolboy, he had done things which made him feel terrible, but when "he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them" (Tolstoy 6). He had a natural attraction to the ways of the social elite, and did anything to emulate them. He lived his life as close to a set path as possible, and his personality was just the same. "He was neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them" (Tolstoy 6)
             Ivan never aimed for happiness; he only aimed to be a part of the bourgeois class. He couldn't see that there was not only the physical life that others see, but also a spiritual side that only real emotions could satisfy. Ivan chose to live entirely in the physical form, mistaking this for his entire existence. Because he wasn't in touch with his spiritual existence, he lived only for pleasures of his own flesh and related with others only if they helped him in his quest for his desires. He wasn't even truly in love with his wife. She was simply a fine woman, and he felt it was his time to marry. Their marriage was to help him in his quest for the furthering of hi...