Futility of Life in The Death of Ivan Ilyich Essay -- Tolstoy Death Iv

Futility of Life in The Death of Ivan Ilyich      Ã‚   Count Leo Tolstoy is considered Russia’s greatest novelist and one of its most influential moral philosophers. As such, he is also one of the most complex individuals for historians of literature to deal with. His early work sought to replace romanticized glory with realistic views. A good example of this is the way he often portrayed battle as an unglamorous act performed by ordinary men. After his marriage, though, Tolstoy started to reexamine his attitudes towards life, especially his moral, social, and educational beliefs (Shepherd 401). Many commentators agree that Tolstoy’s early study of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau encouraged his rebellious attitude. This new deep-seated dissatisfaction with himself and a long frustrated search for meaning in life, however, led to the crisis Tolstoy described in his Confession and Memoirs of a Madman. In these works he formulated a doctrine to live by based on universal love, forgiveness, and simplicity (Valente 127). Simplicity and the moral importance of leading a simple life, for Tolstoy, became the only true way to live a spiritually fulfilled life. After arriving at his doctrine of universal love and simplicity, Tolstoy at first refrained from writing fiction. He even renounced much of his earlier work as too complex and not morally uplifting. Nevertheless, because of Tolstoy’s earnest commitment to the view of literary art as a means for bringing important truths to the attention of the reader, he returned to imaginative literature and wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich to emphasize the message that simple life is best. Tolstoy’s life led him into all kinds of contradictions--sometimes he believed in fighting, s... ... (qtd, in Jahn 20). It becomes clear then that Ivan Ilyich is brought to a re-evaluation of his past life; that the ending is not just a contrived means of closure, but a miraculous conversion of the dying Ivan Ilyich and his important discovery concerning the moral consequence of living a simple and honest life.    Works Cited Gifford, Henry. Tolstoy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. Jahn, Gary R. The Death of Ivan Ilich: An Interpretation. New York: Twayne, 1992. Rowe, William W. Leo Tolstoy. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Shepherd, David.   "Conversion, Reversion and Subversion in Tolstoi's The Death of Ivan   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Il'ich."   Ã‚   The Slavonic and East European Review   71.3 (1993):   401-16. Valente, Luis Ferando. â€Å"Variations on the Kenotic Hero: Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych and Guimaraes Rosa’s Augusto   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Matraga.† Symposium 45.2 (1991): 126-38.