Summary The Death of Ivan Ilyich


Leo Tolstoy
Death of Ivan Ilyich
In the break of the meeting, the members of the Trial Chamber learn from the newspaper about the death of Ivan Ilyich Golovin, which followed on February 4, 1882 after several weeks of incurable illness. The companions of the deceased, who loved him, involuntarily count the possible relocation in the service, and everyone thinks: “What is it, has died, but I’m not here.”
At the requiem, everyone feels an awkward feeling, caused by the realization of the common pretense of sorrow. The only calm, and therefore significant, only the face of Ivan Ilyich, which was “an expression of what was to be done, done, and done right.” In addition, in this expression there was still a reproach or reminder alive. ” The widow Praskovya Feodorovna tries to find out from Petr Ivanovich, whom he calls “Ivan Ilyich’s true friend,” whether it is impossible to receive more money from the treasury on the

occasion of death. Pyotr Ivanovich can not advise anything and says goodbye. He is pleased to breathe clean air on the street after the smell of incense and corpse, and he hurries to his friend Fyodor Vasilyevich, so as not to be late for a card game.
“The past history of Ivan Ilyich’s life was the simplest, and ordinary and most terrible.” His father, the secret counselor, had three sons. The elder, cold and tidy, made the same career as his father. The younger was a loser, relatives did not like to meet with him and without an emergency, they did not remember him. Ivan Ilyich was the middle between brothers not only in age, but also in everything that makes up and directs human life. In his youth, his qualities were already defined, which then did not change – Ivan Ilyich was a clever, capable, lively and sociable person, strictly fulfilling the life rules adopted by the people above him. If he ever deviated from these rules, he justified himself by saying that such actions were committed by high-standing people and were not considered bad – and calmed down.
Having successfully
completed the course of jurisprudence, Ivan Ilyich with the help of his father receives the post of official of special assignments in the province. He serves honestly, is proud of his honesty, but at the same time pleasantly and decently rejoices – within the limits of the accepted norms of decency in society, he makes a good career. He becomes a judicial investigator – a new appointment requires moving to another province. Ivan Ilyich leaves the old ties and starts new ones so that his life becomes even more pleasant. He meets his future wife, and although he could count on a more brilliant party, he decides to marry, since the bride is pleasant to him and besides, Ivan Ilyich’s choice looks correct in the eyes of people standing above him in the light.
The first time after the wedding, Ivan Ilyich’s life does not change, and even becomes a more pleasant and approved society. But gradually, especially with the birth of the first child, marital life becomes more complicated, and Ivan Ilyich develops a certain attitude towards her. He requires from matrimony only those amenities that he finds, filling the sense of his own independence in the affairs of the service. This attitude bears fruit – in public opinion, Ivan Ilyich is adopted as a good family man, and as a good campaigner. Three years later he was made a comrade of the prosecutor and seven years later the services in one city were transferred to the place of the prosecutor in another province.
It takes seventeen years since the marriage. During this time, five children were born, three of them died, the oldest daughter is already sixteen years old, she is studying at home, Praskovya Fyodorovna, the boy, gives to the gym to spite her husband, who wanted to see his son in law. In all the discord and misery of the family, Praskovia Fyodorovna blames her husband, but he avoids quarrels. All interest in the life of Ivan Ilyich is absorbed by the service. Money is not enough for life, and Ivan Ilyich in 1880, the most difficult in his life, decides to go to Petersburg to ask for a place in five thousand salaries. This trip ends with an amazing, unexpected success. The life that has burst into life again takes on the character of pleasantness and decency.
Inspecting the new apartment, Ivan Ilyich falls from the ladder and strikes sideways about the handle of the window frame. The bruise hurts, but soon passes. Despite some disagreements, family life proceeds safely and is filled with the concerns of the new device. Service at Ivan Ilyich is easy and pleasant, he even feels virtuosity with which he conducts his business.
He is healthy – one can not call unhealthy a strange taste in his mouth and an awkwardness in the left side of his stomach. But over time, this awkwardness turns into heaviness, then into pain, which is accompanied by a bad mood. Increasingly, he becomes irritated, especially after the wife insists on turning to doctors. Ivan Ilyich obeys her and is subjected to a humiliating, from his point of view, medical examinations. Doctors shrink from direct answers to questions about the dangers of the disease, and this further irritates Ivan Ilyich, He fulfills all the prescriptions of doctors, finding solace in this, but the pain intensifies. The wife constantly makes observations, finding that Ivan Ilyich is not strictly adhering to the prescribed treatment. In the service, he begins to notice that he is looked at as a person who can make room. The disease is progressing. And no longer with irritation, but with the horror and torture of the physical he does not sleep at night, suffers without a single person next to who can understand and regret. The pains intensify, and in the intervals of relief Ivan Ilyich realizes that it’s not a matter of the kidney, not of the disease, but of “life and death.” Yes, life was and is now going away, leaving, and I can not hold it, I was here, and now there! Where? Really death? No, I do not. ” He always with vexation waits, when the wife coming to help it will leave, and all thinks of a pain, about death, naming it for itself a short word “she”. He knows that he is dying, but he can not understand it. And the remembered syllogism: “Kai is a man, people are mortal, because Kai is mortal,” he can not apply to himself. The pains intensify, and in the intervals of relief Ivan Ilyich realizes that it’s not a matter of the kidney, not of the disease, but of “life and death.” Yes, life was and is now going away, leaving, and I can not hold it, I was here, and now there! Where? Really death? No, I do not. ” He always with vexation waits, when the wife coming to help it will leave, and all thinks of a pain, about death, naming it for itself a short word “she”. He knows that he is dying, but he can not understand it. And the remembered syllogism: “Kai is a man, people are mortal, because Kai is mortal,” he can not apply to himself. The pains intensify, and in the intervals of relief Ivan Ilyich realizes that it’s not a matter of the kidney, not of the disease, but of “life and death.” Yes, life was and is now going away, leaving, and I can not hold it, I was here, and now there! Where? Really death? No, I do not. ” He always with vexation waits, when the wife coming to help it will leave, and all thinks of a pain, about death, naming it for itself a short word “she”. He knows that he is dying, but he can not understand it. And the remembered syllogism: “Kai is a man, people are mortal, because Kai is mortal,” he can not apply to himself. He always with vexation waits, when the wife coming to help it will leave, and all thinks of a pain, about death, naming it for itself a short word “she”. He knows that he is dying, but he can not understand it. And the remembered syllogism: “Kai is a man, people are mortal, because Kai is mortal,” he can not apply to himself. He always with vexation waits, when the wife coming to help it will leave, and all thinks of a pain, about death, naming it for itself a short word “she”. He knows that he is dying, but he can not understand it. And the remembered syllogism: “Kai is a man, people are mortal, because Kai is mortal,” he can not apply to himself.
In the terrible situation of Ivan Ilyich is his comfort. This is a clean, fresh peasant Gerasim, a servant, assigned to care for the dying. The simplicity and ease with which Gerasim fulfills his duties, touches Ivan Ilyich. He feels Gerasim’s inability to lie and pretend in the face of death, and this strangely soothes Ivan Ilyich. He asks Gerasim to keep his legs on his shoulders for a long time, in this situation the pain goes away, and Ivan Ilyich likes to talk with Gerasim. Gerasim feels sorry for Ivan Ilyich simply and truly.
The last days are coming, filled with physical and moral torments. Meetings with the family, with the doctors make Ivan Ilyich suffer, and when these people leave, he feels that with them lies a lie, but the pain remains. And he sends for Gerasimom.
When Ivan Ilyich becomes very ill, he takes communion. In response to the question of his wife, is it not better for him, he answers: “Yes.” And together with this word he sees all the deception that hides life and death. From that moment, for three days, he screams, without ceasing, one sound, “Wu!”, Left by the cry “I do not want!”. An hour before his death a son-gymnastician gets to him, and Ivan Ilyich’s hand falls on his head. The son grabs a hand, presses it to his lips and cries. Ivan Ilyich sees his son and feels sorry for him. The son is being taken away. Ivan Ilyich listens to pain, looks for the usual fear of death and does not find it. Instead of death, light appears. “Death is over, there is no more,” he says to himself, stops at half a sigh, stretches and dies.


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Summary The Death of Ivan Ilyich