The Death of Ivan Ilyitch

The Death of Ivan Ilyitch was written by Leo Tolstoy. This book was translated by Constance Garnett

The Death of Ivan Ilyitch is the story of a socially ambitious middle-aged judge who contracts an unexplained and untreatable illness.

As Ivan Ilyitch is forced to face the death he fears, he asks himself whether the life he thought was so correct was, in fact, a moral life after all.

Written after Tolstoy's religious conversion, the novella is widely considered to be one of his masterpieces.

Many people have different interpretations for the end of the novella. One interpretation is that Ivan Ilyich's whole struggle and agony ends with the great gift of a cessation of suffering. Another is that Ivan Ilyich's breakthrough is the freedom that comes with truth – in his case, seeing the falsity of his life, which enables him to have a brief moment of unselfish love or at least compassion for his wife and children. It can also be interpreted that Ivan did not feel compassion towards his wife, but pity, and saw the truth of humanity in his son, that is, what it meant to be truly human.