Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan
Illych follows the following plot
outline:
Exposition:
We see Ivan's life as "climbing a ladder." He's a "cog in
a machine," a good member of a Czarist Russian bourgeoisie, getting married, having
children--but totally unhappy, spiritually
unfulfilled.
Complication:
We realize he's dying spiritually. We realize that he's
been living a life based only on social expectations, an unfulfilled life, never
developing meaningful relationships with family or friends. It's all about money,
status, possessions.
Turing point:
He falls while CLIMBING A LADDER and HANGING
DRAPES, symbolic that his life has been a climbing of the rungs of the social ladder.
There's a shift in the verb tense from past to present.
Death becomes real. Life is being lived for
the first time, ironically, in
death.
Anti-climax / falling
action: the doctors and his friends are no help; they only make suffering
worse.
Resolution: Ivan must
come to terms with the fact that his senseless life caused
his ridiculous
death.
Denouement: Tolstoy
presents his worldview:
- Ivan must let go of all
justification of his life. - He has a major
revelation - He starts to feel universal compassion for
people whom he had been hating. - He dies content--this
compassion sets him free from the hate, jealousy, and pettiness that had been holding
him back. - The moral center of the work is
the servant, GerĂ¡sim, a member of the peasant
class - This works as a metaphor for
Tolstoy's brand of Christianity
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