The Death Odf Ivan Ilych
The book I read was the Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. It chronicles the death of a man and the emotions he feels while encountering it. It tries to show why we should live better lives and not just let life pass us by. I think that it was a very good book, and it made me think about how I live my life each day. It is very important to accept the reality of death.
The book starts at the end, when Ivan’s friends learn that he has died. They are happy that they have not died themselves. They are eager to learn what promotions and gifts they will get from his death. His close friend, Peter Ivanovich, comes to the realization that everyone must die.
The story then goes back thirty years and tells of Ivan Ilych’s life. It starts with the phrase “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” He goes to law school and learns the values of a high standing person. He gets married to Praskovya and things go well until she gets pregnant and she no longer amuses him like she used to. He absorbs himself in his job as an examining magistrate. He goes from job to job and house to house never really finding the satisfaction he desires. While hanging drapes in his new house, he falls of a ladder and hurts his side. It is not very serious, though, and he enjoys his new house, and develops a love for the card game bridge.
Ivan begins to have pain in his side, and he becomes annoyed and loses interest with life and its pleasures. The doctors can not pin point his illness, and Ivan comes to the realization that he is dying. He tries to block out the fact that he could die , but it continues to haunt him. His servant Gerasim seems to be the only one who realizes Ivan’s problems and has compassion on him. Ivan ponders the reason behind his suffering and struggles with the meaning of his life. He wonders whether his family, business, and social life have all been meaningless. He realizes true joy came when he...
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