a. How does Ivan's quest for status, advancement, prestige, and generally the approval of others endanger his chance to live a more meaningful life?
In “The Death of Ivan Ilych”, Ivan’s quest for status, advancement, prestige and getting approval of others had endanger his chance to live a more meaningful life because he is following the society’s way of living rather than his own and that he didn’t create a more enjoyable/fun life for himself. The first sentence in the second chapter of the book, it started with “Ivan Ilych’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible”. I guess he is a very, very normal guy, but being normal, in this case in the story, it had led him to his death. Even though his brothers are unusual, Ivan is the only one who is exceptionally in balance, where he is leading his life to be “capable, cheerful, good-natured and sociable man”. However, he thinks of these as his “duty” that is “considered by those in authority”. It seems he is making his life the way society wants him to be, and even though he seem okay with what he is doing, I think he is living pitifully since he isn’t regarding what’s correctly right for he, himself truly on what he thinks is meaningful to live on.
With his marriage to Praskovya Fedorovna, half of the reason was because “his social circle approved of the match” and which he was “swayed” by both reasons (the other half that he fell in love) since “it was considered the right thin by the most highly placed of his associates”. I think this makes his love life half meaningful if half of his reason is that his associates approved of the match rather than him really loving Praskovya. When his wife is pregnant, he “tries to ignore his wife’s disagreeable moods” rather than helping her go through it. Both of them are responsible to go through this trial of nine months so they can be closer and to be able to be more caring when the child comes out. But instead that period had seemed to distant Ivan and his wife because Ivan finds his wife and the pregnancy to be “unpleasantness”. Ivan doesn’t like depressing things and disturbance of his peaceful life, which I think makes his life not motivating or meaningful. Because he won’t be able to learn from the mistakes but a lot of us go through obstacles, and learn something from it.
The job that he has, being a council and later on with the examining magistrate position was the right job for a person to have in the society. Ivan follows the path of the society’s right path of life and when he knew that he was going to get a higher position, he starts to become greedy. And with getting a wife, it makes it hard for him to get the money he needs so Ivan started to crave for more attention and to seek for money and power. “Ivan Ilych felt that everyone without exception, even the most important and self-satisfied, was in his power” but he didn’t “abuse his power”. I think even though he says that, I think he is very happy that he has that kind of power because power is a need to stand out in the society. But Ivan’s need for power became an obsession, which has start to corrupt his health.
As the disease/dull depression that Ivan started to create, he quarrels with his wife over a little thing that Ivan finds irritable and made the whole family uncomfortable. He goes to in search to find medicine that would heal him and knowing that he’s going to die, he lies to himself that he is “simply ill”. He started to hate the others around him (maybe except Gerasim), but he “wished to be pitied” by them. I think he wanted value, good memories before he died but in his heart, he can’t find meaning in loving them no more. I’m not sure why but he know that the things he have done is “himself to blame” and so no one would look at him. Rather than getting upset, irritable and building hatred, for example, to his wife, he could have reconciled and make better memories with the family. The life that Ivan had build up, what is “proper” for the society to see, has only led him to emptiness and loneliness. His intent to make everything pleasant has caused him more pain, making him curled up in the “black sack” of his heart.
At the end of the story, I think Ivan realize that to stop the disease and the pain, he have to free himself and his family members sufferings. I guess he was blinded at first, not understanding why the pain has started and pushing all the blames to the family and colleagues. His quest for the value and fame from the society has helped him lose the value and love from his family. Only at the end that to “release [the family members] and free himself from these sufferings”, he should end his life. Before the disease, I think his life is meaningless but at the end, he found meaning in his life, meaning for the family and for himself. If Ivan had created a more meaningful life, I don’t think he would have suffered as much as the illness has bought. He bought the illness to himself, the lack of happiness and value caused him to create a bigger hole, emptiness. Everybody needs emptiness in their lives, but to be able to find happiness through emptiness, then the emptiness would seem far in our minds. I think because of the life that Ivan had, the emptiness grew too much that it exploded, suffering his heart and soul and then died in the end as he grasp what’s need to be done.
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