Reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy opened my mind in so many thoughts and feelings. Spending most of our time in our homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I think some of us have lots of free time and either we want it or not, we spend some of it thinking about what is important to us and how we value things. In the text, Ivan is trying to live his life as he was supposed to by other people in the upper class, but this is not the point of life and he realizes this at the end of his life. Reading this and in coordination with the situation that we are going through, is a good opportunity to reevaluate yourself and understand better what makes us happy and most importantly healthy, physically and mentally. One thing that this reading made me realize is how important relationships are. And I don’t mean just the romantic ones, I also mean friendships and family as well. Ivan clearly didn’t have any deep connection with the character in the text. His colleagues at the day of his death were thinking about the position that opened for them and how he is dead and not them. His wife also was interested in the money that she can get from his death. The only time we see some connection between Ivan and another character is with Gerasim and how being around him can make his suffering a little better and at his last moment with his son. I think it is very important to have healthy relationships with your family, with your friends and your significant other, especially now because with this pandemic, we all need to talk with someone that we feel close to and also listen to them.But also after all this is over and hopefully soon, having people in your life that you trust and that you can be yourself without showing off is a great accomplishment.
I think that after finishing the text the idea that immediately came to mind is that Ivan realized that he did not live his life to the fullest and did not do things that made him happy, but he did not have the opportunity to change that. It was too late. I found the lesson that I got from this text, and I believe it would be the same with or without the pandemic we are going through, is that we have the opportunity to figure out if we are living our lives as we want and if we chase our own dreams and make steps in order to follow them.
Eva, I appreciate your emphasis on what this text has to teach us about the importance of relationships. Perhaps being forced to spend time with family in isolation will end up being one of the “silver linings” of this pandemic for some of us. I’m not sure that Tolstoy agrees with you that Ivan’s epiphany about his life comes “too late.” For Tolstoy, it is significant that Ivan has an opportunity to show his love for his family and to apologize before he dies.