Read about The Death of Ivan Ilych
Class Discussion Questions:
- How do the acquaintances of Ilych respond to the news of his death?
- Who is the narrator of this story? What attitude, if any, does he display toward the characters and action of the story? Does he pass judgment?
- How does Tolstoy reinforce the motif of "propriety" through the tone of the narrator? How can we tell that "propriety" is an important theme of the story?
- Why does this narrative begin after Ilych has already died? Why, in other words, does the narrative not start where Chapter II begins?
- What does Ilych want out of life, and how does he conduct himself in order to maintain this expectation?
- How is Ilych injured? Is this event allegorical?
- What kind of relationship are we encouraged to have with Ilych as we read?
- On what levels does Ilych see his own illness? Does it have symbolic value for him, or is his fatal condition just an unfortunate fact?
- What direction does Ilych turn as his condition worsens?
- When does Ilych begin to use his imagination? For what purpose? Does this change in thinking ultimately help Ilych? How so?
- What is It?
- How does the narration style change as Ilych descends further and further into his suffering? Identify some unexpected strangeness in the approach to storytelling.
- What causes Ilych the most torment as "his last days"?
- The black sack, the falling stone, the railway carriage--what do these images have in common in the story? What do they indicate, being used in the narrative, about Ilych's mind?
- What is the one possibility, which might explain everything, that Ilych cannot at first bring himself to consider seriously? Where is Ilych's epiphany?
- "This consciousness intensified his physical suffering tenfold." Consciousness of what?
- Is this a story with a moral? Or does it have more value as an ethical exercise in distinguishing between what is true and what is false? That is, do we learn a lesson to apply to our lives or do we learn how to interpret more effectively? Or both?
