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The Death of Ivan Ilyich is one of Lev Tolstoy's novellas, written in 1886.
Plot
It tells the story of a man who is dying and takes you from his death to his life to death and the afterlife. It a a beautifully yet simply crafted tale of death, as from the second we are born we begin to die and the second we die we begin to live. Ivan Ilych Golovin dies of an unknown pain in his abdomen and is plagued by, upon reinspection, his worthless life. It is only in completing the long painful process of dying (and essentially living on earth) can then Ivan Ilych be freed from his troubles. In the end, he sees the light and is healed, for one brief sentence he is healed and joyous.
External links
The Text
Analysis & Criticism
- [1] (http://www.enotes.com/death-ivan/)
- [2] (http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lawyerslit/exercises/ilych6.htm)
- [3] (http://www.123helpme.com/assets/9390.html)
- [4] (http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lawyerslit/exercises/ilych.htm)
- [5] (http://www.pennpress.org/mariner10/medicine7.htm)
- [6] (http://www.middlesexcc.edu/faculty/Robert_Roth/tolstoy.htm)
- Interesting Comparison of Kafka's The Metamorphoses and Ivan Ilych (http://www.dasnodgrass.com/college_life/philosophy/TheMetamorphosis_TheDeathofIvanIlych.pdf) (pdf)
Summary
- [7] (http://www.bookrags.com/guides/deathivanilych/)
- [8] (http://urbandreams.ousd.k12.ca.us/language_arts/extended/12/tolstoy/)
Messageboard Commentary
- [9] (http://mobydicks.com/lecture/Tolstoyhall/read.php?f=149&i=259&t=259)
- [10] (http://mobydicks.com/lecture/Tolstoyhall/read.php?f=149&i=256&t=256)
Donald Freeds adaptation of The Death of Ivan Ilych
- [11] (http://www.anotheramerica.org/the_death_of_ivan_ilych.htm)
- [12] (http://www.broadwayplaypubl.com/DEATH%20OF.htm)
- [13] (http://www.denison.edu/publicaffairs/pressreleases/ivan_ilych.html)
Quotes
"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. The syllogism he had learnt from Kezewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius - man in the abstract - was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. He had little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with the toys, a coachman and a nurse, afterwards with Katenka and with all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother's hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle so for Caius? Had he rioted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at a session as he did? Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Illych with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."
"It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend."
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