Ivan Illych
In the Bible the Pharisees were the Jewish upper class. They socialized with the Roman governors and Israel's finest citizens. The Pharisees were the richest and most educated men in the area; they were also the leaders in the Hebrew society. They appeared to be the most successful men of their day, but in reality it was all a smoke screen they used to look successful. The Bible shows that they were hypocrites who only cared for themselves. The Pharisees did not care about their families or their religion. In one instance Jesus was preaching to a crowd of people and said, " Everything they do is done for men to see" (Matthew 23:5). The Pharisees only about how people saw them. Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilych focuses on a modern "Pharisee". In the story Ivan Ilych's self-centered formula for success was really a failure. Ivan failed in his family and official life. He also placed too much emphasis on material possessions, and he ruined his social life. Part of Ivan Ilych's formula for success was to make others think he had the perfect family, but his family was only for show. Ivan married Praskovya Fedornva for social acceptance and not love. When Ivan decides to get married Tolstoy tells us, "To say
wrong, he was able... to forget about them entirely" (Tolstoy 522). People are so driven by the idea of becoming successful that they do not care about their actions or who that they might hurt. In corporate America businessmen will stab each other in the back to gain a new promotion. In the story Ivan Ilych would have done anything to gain a higher rank in the justice system. To Ivan his friends and colleagues were nothing more than steppingstones for his career. After he gained his first promotion, Ivan was "obliged to give up the connections he had formed and to make new ones" (Tolstoy 523). Like many people in this world "the worth of [Ivan's] colleagues was their capacity to advance his welfare and his pleasure" (Wasiolek 172). In today's world people value others for what they can get and not for whom they are. This idea often causes hard feeling between the parties and devalues human life. Another big problem Ivan had was that he was power hungry. In the novella Ivan enjoyed "being able to ruin anybody he wished ruin, the importance, the external dignity of his entry into court" (Tolstoy 527). Ivan was driven by his quest for power; he thought that by becoming powerful he would become successful. He thought that when he became powerful enough he would become successful. All that Ivan Ilych's quest for power earned him was the ill feelings from the colleagues that he used and jealousy among his peers. Ivan believed that taking advantage of people and doing whatever was easiest to do in a situation would make him successful; all that it made him was average. Ivan Ilych also thought that acquiring material possessions would make him successful in life. Ivan thought that he had to wear the most expensive clothes made by the most fashionable designer in order to become successful. After he graduated from that Ilych married because he fell in love with Praskovya Fedornva and found that she sympathized with his views of life would be as incorrect as to say that he married because his social circle approved" (525). A lot of "successful" people marry women they don't love because it makes them look good. In the story the only reason Ivan married Praskovya was to improve his social standing in his community. Ivan did not care Praskovya; he only cared about making himself look successful in society's eyes. Wexelblatt, Robert. "The Death of Professor Golovin." The Midwest Quarterly. Autumn 1995. 4 Oct. 2000. himself, his faith in his on strength" (Spiers 142). Whatever the reason behind the story, Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych shows that caring about others is the only way to become successful. Spiers, Logan. Tolstoy and Chekhov. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Jahn, Gary R. The Death of Ivan Ilich: An Interpretation. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.
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Approximate Word count = 2104
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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