61 pages • 2 hours read
Leo TolstoyThe Death of Ivan Ilyich
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1886A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Movement
As an adult, Ivan Ilyich focuses his energy on constantly pursuing upward career social movement. This includes advancing in his profession and moving from one location to the next in an effort to land in a more socially advantageous house and neighborhood. Moreover, he uses movement to avoid emotional entanglement, fleeing his house rather than deal with his wife or children. The novella’s structure echoes this endless motion, galloping through decades of Ivan Ilyich’s life in the space of a few chapters.
This movement slows as his health fails. Within a matter of months, Ivan Ilyich no longer goes to work, becomes housebound, and then confined to bed. Without his regular cycle of movement, and no longer physically escape the home he frequently avoided, Ivan Ilyich has nothing to do but reflect on his life. The novella also slows down here, chronicling Ivan Ilyich’s circular, iterative thoughts as he tries for the first time to think about the meaning of life.
In the final chapter of the novella, Ivan Ilyich reaches complete stillness as he listens for an answer to his question, “What is the right thing?” (301). He “suddenly becomes aware of the real direction” of his life (301). For so long, Ivan Ilyich lived according to how he expected he should, but now he sees that this direction was wrong—as he was moving upward outwardly, he was going downhill.
It
It—a nameless and undefined existential dread—appears in Chapter 6 when Ivan Ilyich recognizes that he can no longer focus at work. He tries driving away the pain, but “It would come and stand before him and look at him, and he would be petrified and the light would die out of his eyes” (281). It is the combination of pain, fear, and the knowledge of impending death. His method of using work as a distraction from the realities of life is no longer effective; he cannot hide from death as easily as he can hide from his wife.
Tolstoy is specific about Ivan Ilyich’s titles and income, the hallmarks of middle-class strivers, yet this concept of It remains vague, as does Ivan Ilyich’s actual illness or diagnosis. This pushes readers to consider possible answers for themselves. Defining It requires individuals to read, interpret, and discuss questions of death and suffering with more critical minds. In this way, Tolstoy invites readers to consider larger questions of life, death, and purpose.
Christianity
Tolstoy explores Christian themes in most of his writing; because of his idiosyncratic ideas, the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him in 1901.
Ivan Ilyich’s circle does not value faith. Peter Ivanovich crosses himself at Ivan Ilyich’s funeral service not because of religious conviction, but as a social custom: “at such times it is always safe to cross oneself” (249). The action is hollow—he makes the sign of the cross only to confirm his manners and social standing. Similarly, at the end of his life, Tolstoy’s protagonist faces profound disappointment when he realizes that social and material success does not bring him comfort when he faces the question of whether he has lived his life right.
In the New Testament’s Book of John, Jesus says, “It is finished” on the cross, referring to his sacrifice paying the debt of mankind’s sins, not to the end of his life. In this novella, a bystander comments, “It is finished!” as Ivan Ilyich takes his final breath (302). In response, Ivan Ilyich mumbles that death is finished (302). Ivan Ilyich is not a Christ figure. However, in his moment of literal enlightenment when his hand brushes Vasya’s head, Ivan Ilyich has conquered his fear of what comes after death. After weeks of asking himself why he must suffer, Ivan Ilyich has a transcendent moment of clarity—his suffering has been a kind of holy torment that results in a moment of revelation.
Tolstoy intentionally poses unanswerable questions—Why must people suffer? What is the right way to live?—believing that we have the capacity to determine our own answers. This appeal to individuals would be a factor in his excommunication.
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