Leo Tolstoy’s books The Death of Ivan Ilych and A Confession, the Gospel Brief and What I Believe show very similar experiences and thought processes between Ivan Ilych and Tolstoy himself. It is arguable that when writing The Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy reflected himself into Ilych’s character and life. This is evident in both men’s early experiences, thoughts and beliefs, morals, and overall questioning and understanding of life’s existence. Very soon did Tolstoy write that he wanted to be the best in the eyes of the people. He mostly made his life choices based upon what he thought the people around him would approve. Tolstoy expresses this as, “…the desire to be better not in my own eyes or those of God but in the eyes of other people…this
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During his quest for enlightenment, Tolstoy asks, “What is it for? What does it lead to” (Confession 11)? Ilych gets hurt and throughout his dying days he asks, “But what is it for? ... What is it for” (Tolstoy Ilych 146)? Throughout each of their journeys, Tolstoy and Ilych have the same feelings about what they are going through or finding out. There are almost stages of their feelings, which could be described as the Five Stages of Grief. Both Ilych and Tolstoy go through these phases, only some of which will be described, where their thought processes are so similar, it is very clear that Tolstoy wrote Ilych in his own …show more content…
In A Confession, Tolstoy writes about his journey to find the answers to life. These life and death journeys went hand in hand, as did Ilych’s and Tolstoy’s lives. There is such a likeness between Tolstoy and Ilych that one has to believe that Tolstoy wrote Ilych as himself in personality, beliefs, and experience. The importance of status, morals, grief stages, and big picture questions are related, with some using the exact same language. Leo Tolstoy was able to write a story about death, with such an accurate representation of how the mind would work. Tolstoy was able to do this because he went through a parallel situation. An author usually writes him or herself into the protagonist in small ways, but Tolstoy went all out and mirrored his whole life onto a fictional character, making the story realistic and relatable to all of its
During his quest for enlightenment, Tolstoy asks, “What is it for? What does it lead to” (Confession 11)? Ilych gets hurt and throughout his dying days he asks, “But what is it for? ... What is it for” (Tolstoy Ilych 146)? Throughout each of their journeys, Tolstoy and Ilych have the same feelings about what they are going through or finding out. There are almost stages of their feelings, which could be described as the Five Stages of Grief. Both Ilych and Tolstoy go through these phases, only some of which will be described, where their thought processes are so similar, it is very clear that Tolstoy wrote Ilych in his own …show more content…
In A Confession, Tolstoy writes about his journey to find the answers to life. These life and death journeys went hand in hand, as did Ilych’s and Tolstoy’s lives. There is such a likeness between Tolstoy and Ilych that one has to believe that Tolstoy wrote Ilych as himself in personality, beliefs, and experience. The importance of status, morals, grief stages, and big picture questions are related, with some using the exact same language. Leo Tolstoy was able to write a story about death, with such an accurate representation of how the mind would work. Tolstoy was able to do this because he went through a parallel situation. An author usually writes him or herself into the protagonist in small ways, but Tolstoy went all out and mirrored his whole life onto a fictional character, making the story realistic and relatable to all of its