Refer to The Death of Ivan Illych by Tolstuy Write a 7501000

Refer to The Death of Ivan Illych by Tolstuy. Write a 750-1,000 word paper that analyzes the story Ivan Illych in terms of concepts of the \"healing enviornment\" found in chapter 7-9 of Called to Care: A Christian Worldview of Nursing. Be sure to address the phenomenolgy of illness and disease (i.e. the personal \"What it is like\" of illness and disease) in paper. Please make this paper orginal and cite any reference you may use.

Solution

Ivan Ilych Golovin - The protagonist of the novel. Ivan is a nondescript, unexceptional man. He admires those with high social standing, and conforms his values and behavior to their rules. Ivan has a penchant for formalizing every human relationship. In his official work, he is careful to remove all personal concerns from consideration. In his private life, he adopts a fixed attitude toward his family.
CHAPTER 7:
Ivan Ilych is essentially dead. He awaits only formal removal from the scene. Opium and hypodermic injections of morphine do not relieve his pain. The special foods prepared for him are distasteful and disgusting. He can no longer control his own bodily functions. Yet in the midst of the unpleasantness, Ivan receives his first comfort. Gerasim, the servant from Chapter I, is assigned the task of helping Ivan with his excretions. Gerasim is a \"clean, fresh peasant lad, grown stout on town food and always cheerful and bright.\" He is young, strong, and energetic. Unlike the health and vitality of others, Gerasim\'s health and vitality do not offend Ivan. One day, as Gerasim is helping Ivan to the sofa, Ivan finds that his pain is much relieved while Gerasim is holding his feet. After that, Ivan frequently asks Gerasim to hold his legs on his shoulders, finding that that position is best of all. Gerasim serves Ivan \"easily, willingly, simply, and with a good nature.\"
More than the physical pain, what begins to torment Ivan most of all is the awful deception of those around him. They use the pretense that he is not dying but is simply ill. As Ivan sees the act of his dying reduced to an unpleasant and indecorous incident, he is bothered by the fact that no one seems to understand his position. Ivan longs to be pitied as a sick child is pitied, to be petted and comforted. But not his wife, nor his daughter, nor his friends can offer Ivan that consolation. Only Gerasim\'s attitude toward Ivan seems to provide Ivan with what he needs. At times Gerasim supports Ivan\'s legs all night. Gerasim alone does not lie about the nature of Ivan\'s situation. With the words, \"We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble,\" Gerasim makes clear to Ivan that he does not consider his work a burden, but a service to a dying man. Moreover, as the falsity around him continues to \"poison\" his final days, Ivan is only truly comfortable in Gerasim\'s presence.
ANALYSIS
Tolstoy\'s moral elevation of Gerasim, a \"peasant lad,\" is both a defiant attack on convention and traditional authority as well as a clear statement about the proper way to live. Not the elite, nor the wealthy, nor the nobles experience the peace and assurance that Gerasim does. Only the peasant servant has no fear of death and no discomfort in dealing with someone who is dying. Gerasim accepts unpleasantness and pain as a part of life. He understands that the world is unpredictable, and he knows the value of sympathy.
Gerasim\'s qualities temporarily rescue Ivan from his life of isolation and unhappiness. Ivan is cut of from his family, friends, and colleagues not only by their indifference to his predicament but also by his own chosen attitude toward life. Through Gerasim, Ivan renews contact with another human being. He reverses the lifelong process of self-enclosure that has characterized his behavior. It is interesting that Gerasim\'s contact with Ivan is intimately physical. He not only helps Ivan with his bodily eliminations, he also comforts Ivan by \"supporting\" Ivan\'s feet on his own shoulders. This position is strikingly similar to the position of women during childbirth, and Tolstoy may be hinting at a process of spiritual rebirth helped along by Gerasim as a kind of midwife.
In addition to his function as spiritual midwife, Gerasim also represents truthfulness. Gerasim\'s willingness to admit and accept the fact that Ivan is dying is in contrast to the hypocritical attitude of Ivan\'s family and friends. By acknowledging that it is death and not illness, Gerasim explodes \"the lie\" and is able to connect with Ivan on a sympathetic and human level. By the end of the chapter, it is the moral pain caused by \"the lie\" that torments Ivan most of all. And it is clear that \"the lie\" carried on by his friends and family is symptomatic of a larger problem plaguing Ivan\'s society as a whole: the inability to acknowledge the unpleasant aspects of life.

CHAPTER 8

Ivan awakes, conscious that morning has come because Gerasim is no longer sitting with him. By now, Ivan\'s life has become an undifferentiated cycle of suffering, with Death as the only reality. Peter, the footman, enters and begins tidying the room. Ivan is afraid to be alone, and asks Peter to give him his medicine in order to delay Peter\'s departure. Ivan knows that the medicine is \"all tomfoolery,\" but he takes it anyway. With Ivan\'s consent, Peter leaves to bring the morning tea. When he returns, Ivan stares at him for several moments, not realizing who he is. Presently Ivan comes to himself, recognizes Peter, and begins to wash and dress with Peter\'s help. A doctor comes to visit Ivan, and begins his examination. Ivan knows that it is all nonsense and deception, but he submits to it \"as he used to submit to the speeches of the lawyers, though he knew very well they were all lying and why they were lying.\"
Praskovya enters the room, and her cleanness, glossy hair, and vivacious eyes cause Ivan to feel a thrill of hatred for her. Praskovya\'s adopted attitude toward Ivan, much like the doctor\'s relation with his patient, has not changed. When the examination is over, Praskovya announces that she has sent for a celebrated specialist. Saying that she is doing it for her own sake, she lets it be felt that she is doing it solely for Ivan and is only dissembling so as to give him no reason to refuse. Ivan, upon hearing Praskovya, \"felt that he was so surrounded and involved in a mesh of falsity that it was hard to unravel anything.\" He realizes that everything Praskovya does for him is for her own sake, and he finds it incredible that by telling him it is for her own sake Praskovya expects Ivan to think the opposite. The celebrated specialist comes and goes. Ivan is given an injection, and falls asleep until dinner.
After dinner, Praskovya comes into Ivan\'s room. She is in full evening dress, and Ivan remembers that she and the children are going to the theatre to see Sarah Bernhardt. Ivan\'s daughter, Lisa, along with her fiancé, Fedor, come into the room; and Vasya, Ivan\'s son, creeps in behind them. Seeing his son\'s look of fear and pity, it seems to Ivan that Vasya is the only one besides Gerasim who understands him. A conversation between Praskovya, Lisa, and Fedor springs up about the realism of Sarah Bernhardt\'s acting, but it is stopped short when they notice Ivan\'s glittering eyes and indignant expression. As a profound silence fills the room, everyone becomes afraid that the \"conventional deception\" will be revealed, and that the truth will come out. Lisa is the first to break the silence, and on her suggestion, everybody leaves for the play. When they depart, \"the falsity\" leaves with them and Ivan feels better.

ANALYSIS
Tolstoy presents a day in the life of the dying protagonist, and along with monotony, artificiality emerges as a dominant motif. Ivan submits to the doctor\'s examination, knowing the uselessness of the charade, but conforming his actions to the expectations of the situation. The doctor, disregarding the true concerns of his patient, carries on the routine prescribed by his position and his patient\'s condition. Praskovya, moreover, adopting a line of loving concern, fulfills a wife\'s obligations to her dying husband despite her true feelings. What is important to realize is that for Ivan and his society, superficiality chokes out honest and direct human interaction. Actual attitudes are covered over by artificial attitudes. Praskovya\'s loving concern for Ivan is actually hostile impatience for his death. The doctor\'s routinized medical charade is merely a cover for helplessness. And Ivan\'s tacit acceptance of the examination ritual is really sardonic disgust. In Ivan\'s life, individuals are actors. And by associating with the actors, Ivan is drawn into the play, i.e., into the \"mesh of falsity.\"
It is especially fitting that the visit paid to Ivan by his wife, his daughter, and her fiancé occurs before they depart for the theater. The posturing and pretense of the visit is as much a performance as the one they are about to see. The visitors insist on treating Ivan as if he were merely sick instead of dying. Conversation centers on trivial topics, and it is clear that they are paying the visit because propriety calls for their presence. Just as the topic of conversation turns to the \"realism\" of Sarah Bernhardt\'s acting, Ivan refuses to act any further. And as the family leaves to attend the play, we realize that Ivan\'s whole life is a play and that the falseness and artificiality of conventional life has caused his death.

A close look at Chapter VIII in relation to Chapter VII highlights a distinguishing characteristic of Tolstoy\'s art: the juxtaposition of opposites. Whereas Chapter VIII occurs in the day, Chapter VII occurs at night. While in the day Ivan is met by his wife Praskovya and confronts the health/sickness dichotomy, at night he is met by his servant Gerasim and confronts the life/death dichotomy. This contrast of opposites reveals much about the plan of Tolstoy\'s work. Ivan\'s position at this point in the novel is one in which he must choose between these two pairs of opposites, the artificiality and insularity of the \"old life\" versus the honesty and directness of the \"new life.\"
CHAPTER 9:
Praskovya returns late from the play and wishes to send Gerasim away, but Ivan opens his eyes and tells Praskovya to leave instead. After taking some opium and while in a state of \"stupefied misery,\" Ivan dreams that he is being pushed into a deep black sack. Although he is being thrust further and further in, he cannot be pushed to the bottom. He both fears and desires to fall into the sack. The movement is accompanied by suffering, and Ivan struggles but also co-operates. Suddenly he breaks through, falls, and wakes up.
He sends Gerasim away, and as soon as the servant leaves the room he begins weeping. In agony he cries out to God, \"Why hast Thou done all this? Why has Thou brought me here? Why, why dost Thou torment me so terribly?\" Then he grows quiet; he becomes highly attentive and seems to hear a voice speaking from within his soul. \"What is it you want?\" the voice asks him. Ivan answers that he wants to live well and pleasantly, as he did before. Yet when Ivan begins to call to mind the best moments of his pleasant life, they seem \"trivial and often nasty.\" He reviews the entire course of his life and finds that the further he departed from childhood the more worthless and unfulfilling became his joys. He realizes the lack of goodness in his \"deadly official life,\" and comes to the conclusion that while he was moving up in public opinion, life was ebbing away from him. Finally the thought comes to Ivan that he has not lived his life as he should. But he immediately dismisses that inconceivable thought when he remembers that he did everything \"properly\" and correctly.
ANALYSIS
By sending his wife away when she comes to sit with him, Ivan symbolically commits himself to the \"new life\" confronting him. He rejects the artificiality and pretense of his past life, and thereby resolves the tension that had been established in Chapter VIII. In the remaining chapters of the novel, we can expect that Ivan will embark on a process of rebirth in which he will discover the proper attitude toward life, and conquer his fear of death.
Ivan\'s dream about the black bag supports the prediction that he will soon experience a rebirth. Ivan\'s attitude toward the bag is ambivalent. He wants to fall into the bag, yet he fears it at the same time. He resists being pushed into it, yet he also cooperates. If the bag is understood as a symbol of death, Ivan\'s ambivalence becomes clear. He both longs for the reprieve of death and fears relinquishing life. The fact that Ivan breaks through the bag prefigures Ivan\'s escape from the power of death.
It seems reasonable, however, that the symbol of the bag, much like the story itself, operates on two levels. As well as its function as a symbol of death, the bag also symbolizes a womb, the source of life. The pain and suffering that Ivan experiences while passing through the bag into the light refer to the trauma of birth into new life. The duality of the symbol holds a key to the story. In Ivan\'s life, what appears like physical death is actually spiritual rebirth, while his old life was the cause of spiritual death. Things are not what they seem, and the action must be read in reverse. Ivan\'s life was his death, and his death brings new life.
It is interesting to note that upon waking from his dream, Ivan cries out to God in words not dissimilar from those that Jesus used in the Passion narrative of the Gospels, \"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?\" Whether Tolstoy intended Ivan to be regarded as a \"Christ figure,\" however, is not clear. Tolstoy\'s conception of Jesus is very unlike the commonplace, Everyman qualities that characterize Ivan Ilych. Without venturing a conclusive answer as to Tolstoy\'s purpose in drawing the connection, the similarity does seem to add a degree of intensity and significance to Ivan\'s existential moment.
The fact that Ivan hears an inner voice, \"the voice of his soul,\" marks a significant advance in his spiritual development. For the first time the reader receives an indication that Ivan is more than a physiological being. In Chapter V, Ivan\'s understanding of his inner life was limited to his appendix, i.e., to his internal organs. By Chapter IX, however, that understanding has expanded to allow for an inner voice of conscience. Ivan\'s attention has been redirected from the physical plane to the spiritual plane. As this spiritual awakening moves forward, Ivan is finally able to question, if only for a moment, the values and beliefs that he has adopted.
As Ivan begins to examine his life, the similarity between Ivan Ilych and the Scrooge of Charles Dickens\'s A Christmas Carol becomes strikingly apparent. For both Ivan and Scrooge, the recognition that that they have lived badly entails the memory of childhood, and for both protagonists the bright and joyful memories of childhood degenerate into unfulfilling and empty adult lives. Yet a closer look reveals that the similarities between The Death of Ivan Ilychand A Christmas Carol extend far beyond a similar process of recognition on the part of the two protagonists. In structure, genre, and theme, A Christmas Carol, written before The Death of Ivan Ilych, provides a sort of model for Tolstoy\'s own work. Much like The Death of Ivan Ilych, the narrative of A Christmas Carol begins in the present and flashes back to the past. It employs an almost identical narrative vantage point. And it deals with the life and life crisis of a representative member of a society gone wrong. But the similarity is understandable. It is not a secret that Tolstoy admired Dickens more than any other writer. Tolstoy wrote of Dickens, \"I consider him the greatest novelist of the nineteenth century.\" Along with having a picture of Dickens on his wall, and reading almost everything Dickens wrote, Tolstoy internalized and reshaped Dickens\'s work. It is not unreasonable to say that it was Tolstoy\'s reading of Dickens that provided the creative impulse that led to the production of \"The Death of Ivan Ilych.\"