The Death of Ivan Ilych (Annotated) Leo Tolstoy Author

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1886 It is about the death of Ilyich, his life before and during. The book begins by narrating the mourning. Then goes back in time to show how Ivan Ilyich, a respected judge, knows his wife, who marries for money and for their beauty. After the proposal of becoming a judge in another city, Ivan Ilyich buys an apartment for himself, his wife and two children who have it to be displayed. Ivan moves-first and start the works to decorate the house the way he pleases, but falls and injures himself in the kidney region. At this point, Ivan Ilyich believed to have contracted a disease - that however at no time is diagnosed - which always revolves around a kidney or diseased appendix. At this point, the great lever of the narrative is the continuity of life or death. As time passes, the wound worsens until the character reaches the point of being unable to leave the house: when you try to go to work, is no longer able to perform its functions properly. Restricted to family environment comes to believe in his house lives a lie, and that her family hides from friends. His only pleasure is the company of his son, only 14 years, and a servant his understanding that they would never lie to you. Ivan Ilyich wants to die, because it will be the end of your pain and life of lies you believe in life, but his survival instinct urges make him fight for his life, and he wonders: what kind life want? The character then begins a long process of searching for the meaning of life, during which notices have been few moments in his life that had meaning. Decisions, searches, gestures, words, all responses to demands of the social environment in which he was born. When he is about to die, he bids farewell to the family.