There is no one to answer to but yourself.
Ivan Ilych was a rotting man. He was not always rotting and he was not always sick. His body has not always been plagued by the humiliating occurrence of incontinence.
In fact, he was once a powerful judge who held the power over a convicted person’s life or death. The plot of Ivan Ilych’s story is that he had everything an ambitious man could ever desire to achieve. He had wealth, status, and even power over the convicted person’s life or death. Ilych has power over his colleagues’ job security. A powerful man like Ilych was indestructible and respected by Russia’s high society — up until cancer struck him down from his high post.
It was only after Ilych had gotten sick, people who had once “respected” him didn’t actually care about him. They only felt admiration of fear of Ilych, but no genuine love. When Ilych was no longer powerful, no longer able to affect the career trajectory of his colleagues, that people treated him as they’ve actually felt towards him: indifferent and disgusted.
At the beginning of the story, it is revealed that Ivan will not recover from a terminal illness. He may lie dying throughout Tolstoy’s story, but Ivan Ilych still has very important things to say to the living.
Ilych tells his story in a first-person limited omniscient point of view, where he tells his story from his eyes, but with limited information. Ilych doesn’t know answers to difficult questions like why was he born just to suffer and die? The only saving grace Ivan has throughout his sickness is that he can reflect on how he lived his life, and he regretted it. Those regrets enable Ivan Ilych to offer stories, that fall under Landy’s thirteen ways of looking at fiction’s three main branches.
Ivan is a strong exemplary model in the way his life and actions model how trivial success and material wealth are to a dying man. Even the setting where Ivan Ilych revolved his whole life around is in high and impressive government, bureaucratic, and judicial courts. Around his deathbed, the most prestigious and elite reside. That elite environment is used to structure the exemplary, affective, and cognitive functions of Ilych’s story.
The social influences in that gorgeous, impressive, and elite environment had so much influence over Ilych’s series of choices. In his youth, Ilych did things that he did not feel good about morally, but because “…he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong” (Tolstoy, 777). Filled with that glamour, the young Ilych continued on a very specific path where he worshiped and devoted his whole life to obtaining status. Ilych traps himself in an unhappy marriage, because “…the marriage gave him personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates.” (Tolstoy 779). As an exemplary model, every single one of Ivan’s choices has been made because of status, with no other drivers.
Ilych serves his cognitive purpose in the way he can express the experience of dying with a terminal illness. The terminally ill may feel isolated and withdrawn because no one else is experiencing their symptoms. They may start to question a lot of the philosophies they used to hold with reverence. They may feel betrayed by the values they once held. They are in constant physical pain. They are always given medicine that does not work and is treated by doctors who can’t save them.
The people taking care of sick Ivan may have a difficult time coping, so they continue as normal as if he is not ill. But then this makes Ivan feel lied to and dismissed.
The chronically ill may be vulnerable to false cures. There is a scene in the book where Ivan was listening attentively to a homeopathic treatment a lady acquaintance mentioned. They are waiting around to see if they will live or die. And while they are waiting, they are vulnerable to any amount of false hope that there may be a cure. Ivan will continue taking medicine that cannot save him.
As time passes, there are a lot of ruminations and intrusive thoughts about death. When he sees his wife and daughter going to plays and operas, he feels that the world has moved on without him. He has become nothing but a stain in their lives, poisoning them. Finally, he shows that the dying is trapped with their own thoughts and are forced to reflect on their past actions. The dying are forced to answer if they are satisfied with how they’ve lived their life.
In Ivan Ilych’s reflections, the answer is “no”: he is dissatisfied. He had used up his all of time to pursue social acceptance and respect. To try to gain the love and respect of people who did not love him. When death approaches, there is no one to answer to but yourself.
Ilych serves his affective purpose, by being able to address an underlying anxiety everyone has: “What if my whole life has been wrong?” (Tolstoy). Did Ivan live his life in a worthwhile way? That is the struggle in the novel. When death approaches, there is no one to answer to but oneself. That message pressures its readers to live out their finite time in a way that they would be satisfied with.
Works Cited:
Tolstoy, Leo. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Literature: The Human Experience, edited by Richard Abcarian, Bedford/St. Martins, Boston, MA, 2016, pp. 770–811
Edit 2021:
I was drawn to this story,
but could not put into words why it was so poignant to me. Maybe because I’ve felt this constant pressure to live a “well-lived life. Maybe because I felt my mortality a bit more acutely than other people, with an understanding there was only a certain amount of time we have and to “make it count”.
But I think that Tolstoy's story was also a warning to a young person, do not worship things that don’t last. Because it absolutely comes at a cost. Even the pursuit of status isn’t free, it costs youth and time to achieve that reverence. And even in the end, when that goal of prestige, respect, and accomplishment is obtained- it’s always hard to know if people like you for the actual person or the person forced yourself to be (for their acceptance and approval). I’ve gotten less status anxiety over the years, as I have just started to ponder what was meaningful to me.
I want to believe that I live in an interesting world. I want my experiences to breathe life into me. And with that everything I experience, well, maybe there’s more to it than I could see. I want to believe that life isn’t as mundane or rigid (you either fail or succeed), as I believed.
I felt my mortality so acutely, that I had tried to go on as many adventures as I could, meet and befriend as many people as I could, tried an enjoyed a much as I could, and have so far lived in my young life in a way that if I had to go tomorrow or today, I am okay with that. I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do, but I hope to do more. Maybe writing and reading was just my way of leaving something behind for the people who did genuinely cared for me, and try to make meaning out of my experiences. As my grandmother had put it, “I can't take my accomplishments and achievement with me when I am gone”, I feel the same way as her. The advice and hard-earned wisdom I’ve gotten along the way has to go somewhere, be made into something that had helped people feel better off having had known me.
“What was an important reason to wake up every morning and make the most out of a very short day? “ is, what I think is the most important question for a young adult to discover. Because there are going to be trials and tribulations, setbacks, disappointment, and a series of life events no one will ask for. But knowing what is meaningful and matters at the end of the day helps string a person along for a well-lived life.
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