Ivan Ilyich Suffering

Every person has a different perspective on what they believe death will be like. Every day there is someone in the world who is told they have very little time left to live. There are many different kinds of reactions to this tragic news. There are the people who are overwhelmed with fear and loneliness, people who have doubts or regrets about how much they accomplished in life, and people who try to ignore it or express their fear in making rash decisions. The main characters in the three stories “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” “The Metamorphosis,” and “Death Constant Beyond Love” perfectly resemble these many different reactions to death. Throughout history many authors have chosen to write about death and how they perceive it. These three stories
come from different time periods with different writing styles meaning they are relatively different, but also resemble several similarities in terms of the context or message. In this paper, we will explore these different writing styles and how they influenced these authors when writing about their own perception of death. One of the biggest regrets people do not want to end up with towards the end of their life is feeling like they didn’t succeed.
We are only given so little time on this earth to achieve everything we feel we are meant to do. This regret is expressed in the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” The main character in this story, Ivan Ilyich, becomes diagnosed with a fatal illness, and at this time everything he hasn’t accomplished begins to haunt him. Ivan spends his last days wondering why he could not have done things differently, whether it is in relation to his job, family, or social life. This is a fairly common reaction to some when they are told they only have so much time left to live. The author of this story, Leo Tolstoy, based some of his perspective in this story off of his own personal experience. In our book it notes that this story resembles his guilt of not caring for his own brother while he was dying of tuberculosis, but of thriving for his own literary fame (739). The story is written during the realism era in literature. The period of realism entailed literature that spoke of the true lives of ordinary middle class citizens. It spoke in much detail of the characters themselves, rather than the surroundings or plot of the story. Tolstoy incorporated this in “The death of Ivan Ilyich” by describing a middle class man who lived “the most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible” life. In doing that, it reflected his novel with the writing style of
this time period. The realism era was a time where civilization was growing and changing, more literary works were being seen across the globe and writers wanted people to see the raw reality of what life was like. Although this style of writing is shown in Tolstoy’s story, you can see that “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” is similar to many other stories throughout history when it comes to the main point in the story, death. This story is a true reflection of someone experiencing death head on, just like the stories “The Metamorphosis” and “Death Constant Beyond Love.” The difference in this story is the realistic detail of Ivan’s personal experience, and that stems from the one significant difference in the writing style of the story. During the first half of the 20th century the style of literature began to form around a style called modernism.
Modernism is different from previous literature because modernists were more focused on the inner self. They did not care as much for nature, or spiritual beings. Modernists saw things as decaying because they lived during a time where the world was in disarray. Several wars broke out during the 20th century, causing the economy and world around them to start deteriorating. Many modernists wrote based on points that were not rational or clear. In the story “The Metamorphosis,” Kafka expressed this modernist writing when he talks about death. Although this story isn’t directly focused on the death, it reflects what the character had to go through leading up to his death. The Metamorphosis is about a man named Gregor Samsa who wakes up one day in the form of a roach. Samsa works at a job that he thinks is unpleasant but does not want to quit because he wants to repay his parents for the debt incurred from his schooling. To roughly summarize the story, he remains in the form of a roach and over time is slowly resented by his parents and sister. He begins to feel alone and as if he has no one anymore who cares for him. Because he feels so guilty for being such a burden to his family, Samsa eventually dies a lonely and sad death. This expresses the second kind of experience of death I had previously mentioned. Kafka drew away from the realism that Tolstoy showed by
his character becoming an insect, but Kafka was still able to express his own version of death and how he perceives it. He perceives Samsa’s death as sad and lonely. This is how I would relate these first two stories because they are similar in the context. Kafka writes more modernistic, and Tolstoy writes more realistic but the message is all the same. The last story I am going to talk about is “Death Constant Beyond Love” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez was an author during the later part of the 20th century. By this time, literature had transitioned for modernism to a more contemporary writing style. One way to explain contemporary literature is that it describes the changes on how people view themselves and how the world is viewing them. This relates to the story “Death Constant Beyond Love” because senator Sanchez initially views himself as a man of power. During his time running as senator again, Sanchez learns that he is dying. He tries to reject his death by simply ignoring it. He is on his campaign when he meets with a fellow he has met many times. During his crossing with this man, he meets the mans daughter. To summarize the plot of the story, the man sends his daughter to seduce Sanchez into getting him what he wants and in turn Sanchez falls for it. This shows that Sanchez is making rash decisions in having an affair because he is dying and is choosing to ignore that. This affair becomes public to citizens, and in return Sanchez spends the rest of his days alone because people reject him after his affair. This explains how Sanchez experiences his death by ignoring it and making rash decisions. He is living as if he still has power, which initially turns around and bites him in the butt. In relation to the other two stories, it is very similar because it is also describing how one man is experiencing his last part of life before death. Marquez writes about his perception of death differently because he is writing in a contemporary style, rather than realism or modernism. All of these stories have a similar theme, which is the explanation of how these three authors perceive their characters own version of death. Each character is different in their own way of how they react or live out their last days of life. Ivan, the main character in “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” is a man whom spends his time before death regretting and doubting what he has accomplished in life. Gregor Samasa, the main character in “The Metamorphosis,” dies sad and alone because of his family’s abandonment. The last character, Senator Sanchez from the story “Death Beyond Constant Love,” also dies alone because he made a rash decision because he ignored that he was ill. These stories consist of similar plots and similar descriptions of these three men. The main differences in these stories are the style of writing, which is realism, modernism, and contemporary. There are many stories throughout history that are going to seem similar to one another. But like everything else, things change in time and literature does too.