Tolstoy's The Death Of Ivan Ilych

The ability of one to face the chilling truth of his or her own mortality is a vital one, and Tolstoy makes this clear in his novella The Death of Ivan Ilych. He uses Ivan Ilych as an ordinary, relatable person to express his opinion that facing one’s own mortality is a vital part of the end-of-life process, and it is the single most important method to be able to work towards peace at the end of one’s life.
Tolstoy’s story is still read commonly in the present day due to the degree to which he was able to express the mindset and struggles that a dying patient can undergo, caused by his or her relationship with the physicians providing care. Papadimos and Stawicki point out the fact that Tolstoy here is showing us an example of the intersection …show more content…
Tolstoy shows us that the responsibility of a doctor in the situation where he or she knows something that the patient doesn’t is to tell the patient; friends, family and even the sick can’t always fully grasp the idea of death without somebody to help make it apparent. In The Death of Ivan Ilych, we see this in the reaction of Ivan Ilych’s brother-in-law when they meet for the first time in a while; his brother is the first capable person around Ivan to describe the fact that “There is no light in his eyes” (Tolstoy Chapter V), and that he looks like a dead man. This is the point at which Ivan Ilych is able to finally understand what he is moving to and that all of the doctors around him are lying. Facing the possibility of death doesn’t instantly change his views on his own life, but instead allows different assessments to emerge over time that wouldn’t have otherwise arisen. Ivan begins to seek reassurance from himself that he has lived his life in the most appropriate way and that he has completed everything the way that he was supposed to (according to