Ivan Ilyich's Redemption Analysis

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Ivan Ilyich’s Downward Spiral into Redemption The way Ivan gains redemption in the story is through a divine process that is able to save his soul. Through this redemption he comes to the understanding that he unwisely devoted his life to a value system that is devoid of actually accepting death as a possibility. He has lived a very simple, ordinary, and terrible life because he lives exactly as the value system of propriety and decorum wanted him to live and did not really live for himself. Never, did he stop and question propriety and decorum which could have helped him gain clarity regarding the major flaws that accompany this complex culture. It is not until the last chapter of the story Ivan begins to go through a process that will lead …show more content…
Although, he is marry he does not really love Praskovya. They consummate their marriage not out of love, and the potential for love between them never flourishes like they had hope. As a result, the marriage is fill with verbal confrontations that have gotten so bad, Ivan has to spend more time out in the evenings. Afterwards, they do manage to have kids but Ivan is so self-absorb he cannot recognize Praskovya is actually terrified of giving birth. As the story continues none of the characters show natural feeling and the characters that are expected to give natural feeling towards Ivan do not show it. They show borderline apathy such as the doctor, daughter, and brother-in-law. Ivan develops an attitude of arrogance and pompous because he has the power to change people’s lives with his position as a chief justice. This attitude further gets reinforce when he is surround by people of similar middle class standings. The text describe the delight he gets when he dances with Princess Trufonova “The pleasures connected with his work were pleasures of ambition; his social pleasures were those of vanity,” (1451). The vanity and ambition are connected to Ivan thinking he is above everyone, and that he can even live among the elite class of Russian

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