This week, rather than posting a list of questions for you to reflect on, I’d like you to do the following:
Choose a line or passage from the”The Death of Ivan Ilyich” that seems to you to be particularly interesting and important and share it in a comment on this post.
Once you’ve shared your quotation (and identified the page on which it appears), please do the following:
- Provide the context for your quotation. This means sharing where this passage fits into the larger narrative. What’s happening when this line appears?
- Share its meaning. What do you think this quotation means?
- Discuss its significance. Why do you think this is an important quotation? How is it related to the larger themes of “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”?
Please post your responses no later than Sunday, March 31st.
In the beginning of chapter 2 (Page 746 in the book): “Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
This is where the book begins to describe Ivan’s life in greater detail. The chapter before this had been a look at what happens after he dies, so this is the first we truly get to hear about him.
This quote is saying Ivan’s average life was plain, simple, and maybe even a bit boring. That these traits make a life “most terrible”. A life like this is not worth living, according to the passage.
This quote foreshadows Ivan’s outlook on his life later, and how he believes he wasted so much time. He begins to see he wasted his life on things that don’t matter at all, and surrounded himself with people he does not like. A simple life where he was not ambitious, where he just does what he has to do and no more. This life is “Most terrible” to not just the passage, but to him. I think this quote also goes for real life as well. While there is nothing wrong with being “average” in skills/your job if you’re content- just don’t be simple and ordinary. Have an interest, a hobby, learn a new skill. Life can be wonderful.
Chapter 9 Page 273 Paragraph 5
“Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done,” it suddenly occurred to him. “But how could that be, when I did everything properly?”
At this point in the story Ivan is reflecting increasingly on his lifetime. Ivan recalls a lot of his youth and begins to wonder if in adulthood he lived as he should have. He has seen his physical appearance deteriorate over months, those around him gloss over his illness, and this is frustrating to Ivan and the people around him. Ivan feels mostly pain during this time. Ivan has not fully accepted he is dying yet.
This quotation is a great representation of an existential crisis. Before Ivan became ill, he did what society dictates should be done to lead a “pleasant” life. Ivan went to school, got a career, got married, had kids, built a home, and reached great milestones in his career. For some reason none of this fulfilled Ivan enough for him to seem happy and fulfilled. He is now questioning what the purpose of having lived the way he did was “right.” How could he be in such pain and turmoil when he did everything he was supposed to do in life? Why is his life this way? Why does he have such disdain for his wife? What was it all for? Had he done something different could this pain have been avoided?
This quotation is important because it speaks to the pressures that society puts on people to live “properly.” We see themes of what it means to live a proper life during Ivans lifetime from the beginning of the story when Peter goes to Ivans memorial, and he feels awkward, so he looks to others to know how to act. In his lifetime Ivan lived beyond his means to upkeep a “proper” image to his colleagues and family. By doing what’s needed of one to be deemed “proper” by others does not always equate to happiness or fulfillment or living life to its fullest as the individual would have liked.
“Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done,” it suddenly occurred to him. “But how could that be, when I did everything properly?” he replied, and immediately dismissed from his mind this, the sole solution of all the riddles of life and death, as something quite impossible. (Chapter 9)
Here it looks to me that an internal conflict is occurring to Ivan. Considering the societies norms, he has lived life how it should be. He has been a good child, went to school, had a good career, he got married and had a family like most of us do nowadays. However, for some reason none of this fulfilled Ivan enough for him to seem happy and fulfilled. So that is why he is questioning himself if he really lived life the right way. If living the life through the society’s norms is the right way to live life, why is he suffering now? In this chapter Ivan is questioning God or an inner voice about what he has done wrong that he should die like this, in agony. Having reached the end of his life, he wants to better understand what everything has been for, including his pain and suffering. Also, he tries to go back in his memories and remember a happy life he lived but as he goes back in his memories his happiest times were when he was a child and the more he grew up the less happiness occurred in his life.
When I read this quote and the whole Chapter 9, I connected it to the movie “Soul” by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. In “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Ivan’s realization that he may not have lived as he ought to have done reflects a similar mark to Joe’s journey in “Soul.”
Joe in Soul died and was in coma and the spirits where questioning why he should be given another chance to live. Then he is taken into flashback (just life Ivan) and he saw that his life was boring and miserable and he really didn’t do anything to be happy and enjoy his life. Here come the questioning of the societies definition of success and achievement and if there is something more to life than simply fulfilling societal expectations or pursuing personal ambitions.
As we can see from Ivan Ilyich case there is always more to life than just fulfilling the societies norms on living a happy life. Instead of doing what is right to the society we should do what brings joy and happiness to us in our everyday experiences.
I believe this quote is very important to us as readers because somehow it makes us reflect on ourselves and how we live life.
I mean almost died when I say died in the fourth paragraph…
“Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible”.
This quote appears in the very beginning of chapter II. Previously his colleagues found out in the newspaper that Ivan had passed away. Upon hearing this devastating news, they dread attending the funeral and only do so because of their duty to propriety. At the funeral, we see that Ivan’s wife also failed to show empathy. She was only worried about getting as much money from the government and complaining about how much she suffered during Ivans’s final days. Chapter II then starts with the quote I mentioned above and we can see from inside Ivan’s perspective.
I thought this quote was shining light on the fact that Ivan based all of his decisions in life on what other people were doing and what he thought was expected given the time. In class, we discussed how Ivan married his wife based on two judgments. One was that she was satisfactory, but also because it was considered the right thing to do amongst his other associates. When Tolstoy says “…most ordinary and therefore most terrible”, I suspect that he means he lived a life conforming to what is believed to be the right thing.
I think that this quote is important because, throughout the entire story, we see that this idea of conformity is prevalent not only in Ivan’s life but everyone else in his social circle. At the beginning of the story, Ivan’s colleagues only attended his funeral because of the “tiresome demands of propriety”. This is related to the larger theme of how social class and relationships can affect one’s decision-making in life.
In the first three lines of chapter VI(6), “Ivan Ilyich saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it”
at this point in the story we have seen Ivan’s earlier and happier moments in life and in this chapter, we see the unfortunate illness he has uprooted his life, and reality starts to set in. This quote is important because it shows the fall of a man’s happiness and comfort when he gains awareness of mortality. This quote leads to the downward spiral that Ivan Illyich is going through and how he is trying to combat it by thinking “Healthier thoughts” and trying to return to his normal life, which doesn’t end up working. It also connects with the heavier theme of death and the feeling of dread and knowledge of not being able to control it and all you can do is “nothing could be done with it except to look at it and shudder”
“Ah, terribly! The last, not minutes, but hours, he didn’t stop screaming. For three days in a row, he screamed incessantly. It was unbearable. I
can’t understand how I endured it. It could be heard through three doors. Ah! what I’ve endured!” (Chapter 1)
In this scene, Ivans’ wife was having a conversation with Pyotr about Ivan’s condition before he had passed away. The purpose of the conversation was for her to obtain from the death of her husband. Now here the wife was talking about how Ivan suffered for 3 days before his death and was in pain. The important part of this quote was how the wife flipped the script and made it seem like she was the one that was suffering.
This quotation was meant to show the selfishness and inconsiderate wife of Ivan. Instead of mourning her husband and feeling sad for the pain he suffered before his death she made it about her. She made it seem like she was the one that endured everything and felt what her husband was feeling.
This relates to the story because I believe in a way it foreshadows the relationship of Ivan and Praskovya and how their dynamic was. Since the story beginning after Ivan’s death we were able to infer Praskovya didn’t feel for Ivan and his health was not her priority. At the end all she cared about was the money she was going to get from him.
A quote from Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” that interested me would be the one on page 746 “Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible”. This quote goes to exemplify what Ivan had realized on his death bed that he was leading an ordinary life one where he was conforming to society and those around him never really doing anything for himself or that he truly enjoyed. He was just pleasing the societal views not seeing the unhappy unfilling life he was leading, living this ordinary life was a terrible mistake for him. All these things and people he associated with lacked authenticity that he desired. This quote was interesting to me as it can be reflected to real life in how one must be true to themselves and not waste their life away in doing what they don’t want to do.
On page 766 the text states, “What tormented. Ivan Ilyich most was the deception, the lie which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and that he only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result.” I think this quote is significant because it shows the reality Ivan Ilyich is in and how he is the only one to understand his own pain. He also hates the fact that his family and doctor are in denial (when they clearly know the truth). This pain that Ivan Ilyich goes through alone is tormenting him physically and mentally and he could not escape it. What trully hurt Ivan was the fact he would not receive any compassion for his eventual death, and he realized that things like this were more important than looking for a lifestyle he never wanted.