Leo Tolstoy tells the sad story of a powerful man, Ivan Ilyich. Worked very hard to earn the salary he earned and the position he had. A wife and kids also, seemed like a good life. With all these successes can come hatred, jealousy and fake friendships. Ilyich seems to be dying all caused by an illness but I can’t help myself from not believing this. “So on receiving the news of Ivan Ilyich’s death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in that private room was of the changes and promotions it might occasion among themselves or their acquaintances”(Tolstoy 740). The death of Ilyich is beneficial to a couple people as it clearly says here the death of Ilyich may lead to promotions and overall more money for others around him. Fëdor Vasilievich already talking about “an extra eight hundred rubles a year for me” and Peter Ivanovich saying “now I must apply for my brother-in-law’s transfer from Kaluga” (Tolstoy 741) because that would make her wife happy. Tolstoy’s choice of word here, “acquaintances” also stood out because he had options instead of acquaintances. Acquaintances is often used when it is a person you may know or know of, but are not too close to. Acquaintance is more of a word of a person that you are just around like a business partner. Someone that can benefit from you.

The death of Ilyich is not the cause of an illness. Someone knows something and had something to do with it. Tolstoy also gives us an additional person that can benefit from the death of Ilyich and someone that is quite interested. He tells us Ilyich’s wife “knew how much could be got out of the government in consequence of her husband’s death, but wanted to find out whether she could possibly extract something more (Tolstoy 745). The day of the funeral which should be a very sad day for a widow, she is trying to find out what kind of money she will be getting because of her husband’s death. This death is not from an illness because too many people seem kind of glad or are excited about an opportunity.