The Death Of Ivan Ilych Sparknotes

Leo Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilych as a statement towards life. Most young people waste their youth attending school, with twelve years of public/private education that is required by law, and then on to an estimated amount of five years of college schooling. During the prime time of a person’s life, they are busy using their money to pay for an education that leads to years of career that straps them down for their life until retirement. The plotline of Death of Ivan Ilych is about the very problem of people not fulfilling their lives. Ivan Ilych’s life was full of working and making a ton of money, however, Ivan had so many regrets not marrying the one he loved that he worked all of his hours to avoid his home life with the woman he
Ivan chose his career over a woman, and throughout his life he was regretful of that. All of his choices past this point of his life were used to escape his miserable home life. He worked all of his life and because of this he received mass amounts of money, yet this didn’t matter to him. When he was fixing up his house he fell, this was the moment that Ivan realized that his life was going to end shortly. At this point of the story he realizes all of his regrets, and now he was becoming bitter. Tolstoy showed all of these events occurring in Ivan’s life to show how important it is for a human being to live their life how they wish, even if they have the slightest doubt, they should proceed so they can say they have done all they wish they could have done. “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” (Death) The biggest regret that any human being can have is giving up the person they love, and this was probably the topic that Tolstoy pushed the
With how cheap and accessible travel is every person should have the opportunity to travel to parts of the world. Technology now a day has people in contact with family members who have the opportunity to live around the world. However, people aren’t fulfilling their traveling goals because of finical issues or family issues. There are a million reasons why people do not travel, but the lack of traveling is close to being the first thing people regret in old age. “Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?” (Death) The newest generation will be the generation of old folks on their death bed saying the lack of travel was their biggest regret because they have a huge difference between the old folks now. The old folks of the modern age had the draft to deal with and most of the population has gotten to see the world, but not in the brightest way, but they have no desire to return. The younger generation is worrying too much about money issues and will never have the opportunity to see the world full of