What Do We Live For?

At what key points does Ilyich begin to re-evaluate his life? How does Tolstoy attempt to make this process credible? Does he succeed?

Ilyich begins to think about his life when he is on his deathbed. After having lived his entire life for society, money, work, and comfort it is only natural for him to question why didn’t he live his life more for himself. He plays with the idea several times by trying to remind himself that he is prosperous and is happy to be comfortable. But when asking God why this horrible pain and illness had to happen to him, he discovered his flaws in living. It almost seems as if someone does not live life to the fullest or appreciate it, then they have no right to keep it. Ilyich, having been comfortable with his situation until his sickness, sees all of his family and employees around him and doesn’t understand still. Though he can see that Gerasim and his son are living their lives well, he also sees his wife not doing so. Perhaps out of jealousy or maybe even hatred, Ilyich questions his wife’s true intentions and his marriage to her. On his deathbed, Ilyich goes back and forth on his outlook of his soon to be over life. In the end he decides that overall he is sorry for having been completely distant from his family and friends. Tolstoy makes this credible by still showing Ilyich’s personality traits even if he is changing his state of mind. Through his last month or so, he related his thoughts to his career and questioned his relationships and what they are based on. By simply being unsure of how he himself feels, Ilyich is believably questioning his life and all the people in it.


What purpose is served by placing Ilyich’s funeral at the beginning of the novella rather than at the end?

As readers, we tend to feel sorry for characters we are reading about as we get to know them. I believe that Tolstoy placed the funeral at the beginning to show how other people felt about him. Though, in the end, Ilyich did have a moment when he made peace with himself, his family was still affected. His wife was very concerned with money and was concerned with playing the widow role rather than truly grieving. His close friend, Pyotr, had his mind on a card game and time rather than the death of Ilyich. Most of the guests seem to have the thought going through their minds “better him than me.” This is a sad idea that at a funeral of an acquaintance or friend people are thinking about themselves. I believe the end was also placed at the beginning to make us wonder why people were feeling this way about Ilyich even after his death. Some of his colleges were also wondering about his job and position and who would collect it. Everything surrounding Ilyich’s death seemed to be not about him. Through the guests we see, a quest for personal gain after another’s demise, greed, and selfishness. None of these things should be seen at a funeral, which brings us back to the original question, what has Ilyich done through out his life to make people think this way at his funeral? We do however see sorrow from one person, his son, who is young but reminiscent and sorrowful. The end was very cleverly placed at the beginning so that the reader would ask themselves these questions while reading and could draw their own conclusions about how Ilyich lived his life (601).