La muerte de ivan ilych

Essay 1
Dying from an agonizing death is the most meaningful experience in a person’s life. Leo Tolstoy wrote a novella The Death of Ivan Ilych in the late 1800’s in Russia about a prominent judge. The author explores the transformation of this ordinary person, Ivan Ilych, in the face of painful and agonizing illness, and early and joyful death. Before the onset of his illness, Ivan Ilychis selfish, powerful, and materialistic. Ivan Ilych exhibits signs of arrogance and lack of sympathy when he avoided his pregnant wife. Not caring about her needs, he chooses to pay more attention to his work “... as the need for him to fence off a world apart for himself outside his family life became still more imperative” (101). This way he presents himself as a person who lacks compassion.Ivan is selfish when he marries his wife because he did not marry her for love, but because it was the right thing to do for a man of his social status. Ignoring her feelings, he marries her because other people of his social circle tell him it is a good thing to do, and he does not have any objections. The fact that Ivan Ilych prefers to play bridge with his friends in his spare time, instead ofspending time with his family, proofs that he is more concerned about his personal pleasure; therefore, lacking consideration for others. Apart from being selfish, Ivan is also very powerful before the onset of his terminal death. Ivan Ilych willingly accepts every position that will bring him higher in the social hierarchy. He prefers to spend long hours at his job most of the time. He realizes thatthe higher his position is, the more prestige, respect, control, and power he will receive from society. When Ivan Ilych was appointed to become a judge, he truly enjoys his social status and exercises his authority by making decisions for his court cases without deeply caring about the impact his decisions have on people. Tolstoy points out that “[t]he sense of his own power, the consciousnessof being able to ruin any one he wanted to ruin ... delighted him ...” (103). In addition to being selfish and powerful, Ivan is also materialistic. Like other members of society with high status, Ivan Ilych cares extremely about material possessions. For example, he enjoys buying things that impress other people. He buys an expensive house with expensive antique furniture and expensive flooring.Ivan gets very irritated when something in the house is out of place or damaged, especially when he comes home to eat lunch. He even marries his wife because of her external qualities and because she has some money and property. In other words, Ivan looks for material comfort and appreciates superfluous and excessive possessions. During his experience of illness and impending death, Ivan Ilychgoes through physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual transformations. The physical aspects of his process of dying include various causes of pain. Ivan’s suffering begins with physical discomfort after his falling accident. Ivan Ilych begins to feel uncomfortable pain on the left side of his stomach. Gradually, the discomfort becomes not exactly a pain, but a continual sense of weight inhis side. With time the discomfort continually increases to the point that it becomes unbearable pain. Another physical symptom that Ivan Ilych experiences is the unusual and unpleasant taste in his mouth. Tolstoy describes Ivan as having “... a loathsome smell even from his breath, and his appetite and strength kept dwindling” (115). Even though he takes different medications and teas, his queertaste, and loathsome smell was present all the time. Ivan Ilych is gradually losing all his physical strength. Because of Ivan’s physical condition in which he degenerates rapidly, most of his internal and external organs start to fall apart. Also, his brain feels dim and misty. Later on, Ivan’s lack of strength is causing him to lose the thread of his speech; as a result, he makes blunders. At...