Society Structure In Leo Tolstoy’s The Death Of Ivan Ilych
The work of Leo Tolstoy “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” portrays the rich society and their characteristics and through the characters, he represents these bad characteristics to show as the bourgeoisie lived completely different than the proletarian ’s life.
The Ivan’s friends were members of the bourgeoisie, with this example we can understand as the superficial relationships of them work, based on the idea that they need to benefit themselves. Now I must apply for my brother-in-law’s transfer from Kaluga,’ thought Peter Ivanovich. ‘My wife will be very glad, and then she won’t be able to say that I never do anything for her relations.’ ‘I thought he would never leave his bed again,’ said Peter Ivanovich aloud. ‘It’s very sad.’ In this example, we can see that the members of the bourgeoisie say things that do not represent what they are really thinking and they think just in his benefits. Besides considerations as to the possible transfers and promotions likely to result from Ivan Ilyich’s death, the mere fact of the death of a near acquaintance aroused, as usual, in all who heard of it the complacent feeling that ‘it is he who is dead and not I.’ Each one thought or felt, ‘Well, he’s dead but I’m alive!’
This excerpt shows us that bourgeois doesn’t matter with his “friends”, and they just think in your life and if they will get benefits. But the more intimate of Ivan Ilyich’s acquaintances, his so-called friends, could not help thinking also that they would now have to fulfill the very tiresome demands of propriety by attending the funeral service and paying a visit of condolence to the widow. Fedor Vasilievich and Peter Ivanovich had been his nearest acquaintances. In this sentence, we can note that even his dearest friends think that go to Ivan’s funeral was a sacrifice, but to preserve their status, they need to go to the funeral at least for pay condolences for the widow. In conclusion, Ivan’s friend didn’t care for him and they did friends to have benefits and status, only this.
Ivan’s relations with his family were to have more status, too. But, this relation has a little different from the relationships with his friends, because he has a little more love that was represented in these excerpts. Praskovya Fedorovna blamed her husband for every inconvenience they encountered in their new home. Most of the conversations between husband and wife, especially as to the children’s education, led to topics that recalled former disputes, and these disputes were apt to flare up again at any moment. There remained only those rare periods of amorousness, which still came to them at times but did not last long. These were islets at which they anchored for a while and then again set out upon that ocean of veiled hostility which showed itself in their aloofness from one another. In this example, he is represented as the relations with his wife works, sometimes they were loving, but most of the time they were blamed each other or they were indifference. Their daughter came in in full evening dress, her fresh young flesh exposed (making a show of that very flesh which in his own case caused so much suffering), strong, healthy, evidently in love, and impatient with illness, suffering, and death, because they interfered with her happiness. In this excerpt, we need to know that Lisa going to married with Fedor Petrovich, and she was happy, but the illness of his father was interfering. This shows that Lisa didn’t matter with Ivan, she just thought in her life and in her happy. In conclusion, the family of Ivan Ilyich was like his friends, were done to have status and both didn’t like or matter with him because he didn’t do anything for them.
I think that Gerasim was the only person in the world that mattered with Ivan because he was a proletarian ( a class that Leo Tolstoy like because their values were based in a sense of compassion for and empathy with fellow human beings) and Ivan was his chief and he was the butler’s assistant. ‘We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?’ — expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do the same for him when his time came. This excerpt shows as Gerasim was honest and realistic when he told to Ivan that he gonna die because nobody did this. ‘It’s God will. We shall all come to it someday,’ said Gerasim, displaying his teeth — the even white teeth of a healthy peasant — and, like a man in the thick of urgent work, he briskly opened the front door, called the coachman, helped Peter Ivanovich into the sled, and sprang back to the porch as if in readiness for what he had to do next. This example represents as Gerasim was faithful to Ivan’s family even his chief had died. He was a worker too because he was a proletarian and need the money to did his necessities.
In conclusion, Ivan had a lot of problems in his life as his friends, family and his thought that he can’t die, because he lived to have status and power or recognition. His friends were based on interests and benefits, he married to have more status, he didn’t care with his family and when he knew that he gonna die he wasn’t prepared to Death and this situation complicated his life and a good accept death. Leo Tolstoy, according to the book The Death Of Ivan Ilyich, seemed like the values of proletarian, because they weren’t.
