Death of Mentality

As Ivan Illych tries to live up to the standards of propriety, dishonesty secretly gnaws on his soul, ultimately causing his death. His lose of innocence was progressively replaced with the poison that is society. Tolstoy begins his novella with an unbiased view in the third person of this poison in his first chapter to give the reader insight into the life Ivan lives before introducing the reader to Ivan himself. This technique is effective because without the context of this society so obsessed with propriety that morals are meaningless, the reader would not feel pathos towards the main character. In his first chapter Tolstoy indirectly attributes Ivan's death to the environment in which he lived.

The only pleasantry that Ivan remembers is from his childhood, before he lose his conscience; therefore,the majority of his life has been a road to his current miserable self. His downfall began in Law School, ironically, a place where students are taught both justice and how to get around the law. There he had done which "formerly...made his feel disgusted with himself," but as he continued to see such actions done by people who were in high positions, he losses this self hatred. He and the people around him feel that they are above mortality, and that truth does not apply to them. As a man of the law, Ivan sees himself as a God-like figure to those he is evaluating. Ivan never abused his power, but he also took pride in the fact that many people were "completely dependent on him." He and the men he surrounds himself with think that death is just a abstract idea that would never fall upon them. Ivan's realization that he is dying comes as a complete surprise, and those at his funeral, who are now closely exposed to death, act awkwardly and decide that because death came to Ivan, it cannot come to them.

In the midst of his downfall, Ivan marries Praskovya, for the equal reasons that he loved her and that it was socially correct. The love fades quickly, and the bond is left to hold on the basis of propriety alone. Ivan begins to hate every detail of his wife as the years progress. This hatred and the falsehood of their loving marriage to others disease his mind before he becomes physically ill. He is so consumed with negative thoughts that when his physical accident happens he cannot recover.

Instead of looking from within to cure his illness, he turns to doctors and medicine. The more he extends himself to the physical world, the worse his condition gets. At one point he seems to blame every problem in his life, even those that preceded his illness on the failure of his medication. But it is this physical world in which he lives in that will cause him the most pain. His injury was caused by his knocking his side on the window frame, which he took so much pride in, and his loved ones are so invested in their own lives that they do not take the time to pity Ivan. In the end Ivan only wants pity; however, no one will give him this pleasure, except Gerasim, the only person in the story not part of high society. Ivan feels as if there is no one to live for and ultimately gives up on life.

Ivan is so invested in this corrupt society that he cannot even see the injustice anymore, however, unlike the rest, Ivan has a conscience, somewhere, because as his life follows this awful path, his mind, struggling to hold onto what little morals are left, causes the downfall of his physical self. (620)