Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"

Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"  is a realist work since it makes us feel like we're actually there, watching something happen in real life. The language Tolstoy uses isn't complex, and the plot consists of events that may happen in real life. We witness the thought progress of Ivan, someone from the upper-middle class, and the theme of the story is another thing that makes it realistic. For example, most of the characters we see in his work can't even address death, and when we think about it, it seems true to life.

"The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is very much a moral critic of society. It's a huge criticism of upper-middle-class society and how they behave and how they lived very superficially. We see that Tolstoy's characters act in a certain way that represents their class. Tolstoy's story is a vehicle, an expression of morality. In the story, we see that deceit runs through society: these people perform their roles, obey the rules, and obey society, but that's a great deception. They don't face reality, and they lie to other people in a professional manner. They all go through social pretense, and that stops them from acknowledging reality: even their own mortality. Tolstoy stresses that these people are all the same, they read the same books, and say the same kind of thing— it's a criticism of that class. Everyone behaves the same way, which is why they're all horrible; they lack some kind of knowledge of life.

"Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible", Tolstoy informs us. We learn that Ivan's life was simple, ordinary, and conventional; he had done everything that was expected of him and got rewarded accordingly. That's terrible to Tolstoy: the way these people lived, the way they didn't see life as Gerasim does. Their selfish behavior, living in the spotlight of society. We learn that Ivan does what he's told, and fulfils his role as a judge, what's expected of him. He doesn't make independent decisions or have independent thoughts. That’s also a story about an individual approaching death. The fact day he’s dying makes Ivan philosophical, makes him think about what life is about and recount his life— and he begins to realize the falsity of his life. There's a contrast between being a member of society, functioning in society, getting rewards for this in society, getting a promotion, being recognized, and being an individual with feelings and compassion.

We learn that Ivan treats marriage like a job. And he doesn't find it pleasant. He also ignores his family and he's an absent father. Ivan's real value is money, not his family. He's a selfish man who's obsessed with material possessions. Ivan is symbolic of lots of people of his class— he's kind of every man of that society Tolstoy hates. Tolstoy's style is ironic, and he doesn't have any sympathy for Ivan. Towards the end of the novel, though, we begin to feel sympathy for him since we see that Ivan is transformed through this inner voice that emerges and questions the person he is. He begins to see his previous life as a waste.

Tolstoy promotes living as an individual sharing their life in a meaningful way with other people, with a moral consciousness, but we see that Ivan has done the exact opposite. He has lived as everyone else did, has all the benefits of behaving accordingly, lived in the eye of society. He hasn't really lived and that didn't bring him real joy. He did everything by society, everything that was expected from him and that's the problem since society is corrupt.