What I am thinking.
what am i thinking?
This article doesn't require you to have read The Death of Ivan Ilych, but it is better if you have. If you haven't read the piece/story/novella before, it is worth your while to do so. If you have read it in the distant past, a second time around could only reveal more depth and meaning. If you so choose, enjoy a complimentary PDF, courtesy of Stanford University: http://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/existentialism/materials/tolstoy_death_ilyich.pdf Tolstoy’s classic short story The Death of Ivan Ilych begins by following and taking the internal perspective of a character named Peter Ivanovich. Ivanovich is an associate of Ivan Ilych’s from the courts, and attends his funeral as a token symbol, though he does not feel a strong personal tie to Ilych or find himself particularly grieved by his passing. In fact, the primary reaction of Ivanovich and his judicial colleagues is an interest in the open position left in Ilych’s wake, which would undoubtedly be accompanied by financial incentive. With his focus on personal betterment, Ivanovich’s somber, affectatious presence at Ivan Ilych’s funeral ends up being unexpectedly trying. Ivanovich struggles with the thought of death as he see’s his colleague lying pallid and heavily slumped in a coffin. The idea that death strikes out untamed and universal haunts Ivanovich and throws him into personal crisis that continues, ebbing and flowing for pages. Each time his terrorized thought reaches a climax, Ivanovich fights it off with the same idea: death is an offense for those who have slipped into its grasp, men unlike myself. The chapter ends abruptly with the distractions of a game of bridge and companionship with the living.
0 Comments
|
AuthorNate Fearer Archives
January 2023
Categories |