The Death of Ivan Ilych & the Quest Narrative

The Death of Ivan Ilych & the Quest Narrative

The process of learning begins with the realization that there is an urgency to know something that can be answered; without the realization, learning doesn’t begin. The ‘Death of Ivan Ilych’ dwells in the parameter of upper middle class society, in which Ivan reflects the embodiment of a common ambitious individual of 21st century who follows the norms of the society without questioning them. He doesn’t even question himself about the norms or the decisions he had been taking throughout his life. Throughout the novella, he seeks appeasement from the society and based on that he follows his life and never realizes the fact that at some point, he’ll be leaving these worldly affairs, and dying, finally buried in the graveyard.  Very essential thing to note from this novella is that Ivan never got adjusted in his illness or we should say never “lived with illness” as Arthur Frank describes quest narrative of illness in The Wounded Storyteller. Arthur Frank writes that the stories about illness often takes the form of quest narrative, further describing that the main character suffers through illness with a purpose that he’ll gain something from the illness experience. Having said that, Arthur would say that “the Death of Ivan Ilych” is quest narration, since it talks about the illness and death and that Ivan learned something about him and his life at the end by suffering pain. Well, I would say that it isn’t completely the quest narration because Ivan never showed his easiness with his illness.

Throughout the novella, he was frustrated, angry always fighting to get back to his old, healthy life. Furthermore, after being severely ill, he starts questioning himself that what did he do in his life that he had to suffer such pain as he weep like a child and questions that “Why hast Thou done all this? Why hast Thou brought me here?  Why, why dost Thou torment me so terribly?” (Ch. 9). At this moment, he is feeling vulnerable questioning to Almighty GOD. At the same time, he’s trying to remember and flash back to his life that what wrong he made in his life, since he believed that he always played safe and correct throughout his life. Whether it’s about his marital life, career or financial life, he took decisions that are normally considered to be approved by the society. At this stage, Leo Tolstoy is introducing the knowledge of acceptance in Ivan that he had made some mistakes in his life. However, he didn’t agree that he had truly made a mistake in his life which made him not to live with illness, which altogether was away from any lesson that he should have learned from his illness, which contradicts with quest narration of Arthur Frank. There was a constant search of answers and reason behind his illness. Hence, in the following paras, I’ll try to justify my argument by giving validate reasons that why “The Death of Ivan Ilych” complicates the quest narrative.

“The Death of Ivan Ilych” is not the story that tries to convey about the bitter truth of life that is suffering at the end of life, rather it persist on telling about the way of life to be lived or not to live. Where Frank talks about illness as a medium of realization of one’s mistakes done in past and hence learn from the mistakes by believing that he/she will learn something through the journey of illness and suffering. However, Tolstoy doesn’t want to agree on that, as he makes the character of Ivan as a stubborn and very adamant person determined on following the norms that have been laid by the society. Forget about the realization of his mistakes, Ivan Ilych didn’t even remember that he made any mistakes. Ivan is portrayed as a character who doesn’t even have any knowledge of living a better and correct way of life apart from how he lived. In the beginning of chapter 10, as Ivan tries to search for the reason by his illness and question “Why these sufferings?”  And the voice answered, “For no reason — they just are so.” (Ch. 10). Tolstoy conveys that Ivan doesn’t have any clue about the reason of his suffering and pain as the voice answers that the pain is just for no reason. Well the voice is coming from within the soul of Ivan, which means that he himself is answering those questions and which meant that he doesn’t know the exact reason about the pain and suffering, which bring us to the conclusion that “The Death of Ivan Ilych” doesn’t conform with the quest narrative as the main character or the sufferer doesn’t know the actual reason of his suffering and because pain has occurred him without any reason there is certainly no logic behind learning anything from the pain and suffering.

Another important thing to be noted In “The Death of Ivan Ilych” is that Leo Tolstoy wants his main character, Ivan, to not learn something from his illness but instead wants his readers to divert their attention towards the reason why Ivan suffers from such pain and illness. As described in the novella that Ivan lived his life running for things that were temporary and not after things that brought actual happiness to him. Ivan made choices based on what were agreed by the society and not based on things that could have actually provided him happiness. “And his irritability became worse and worse and began to mar the agreeable, easy, and correct life that had established itself in the Golovin family” (Ch. 4). We noticed the choice of words used in this statement is denoting towards some characteristics about the society prevailing at that time. As if it tells about the norms that society has created that defines good and successful life. Word like “agreeable” tell that the life of Ivan was approved by the society or we can say that such kind of life is termed a successful life and members of society would agree on that. According to those norms, Ivan lived his life correctly and followed those paths but when he encountered such a hardship he couldn’t convince himself, that all those norms that he believed and based on which he blindly made decisions of his life, were ultimately false. The reason he didn’t wanted to agree on that he led fallacious life was because then it would mean that his entire life was a complete waste which was based on the artificial norms set by the artificial members of the society. He achieved things that were claimed to be the best according to the society norms and that he worked sufficiently hard for things and when at the end of his life, it didn’t turned out be the good end, he dissented. Even till very end of the novella, he dissented and wasn’t ready to admit that he had led a fallacious life. It was so because, if he would agree that until now he was living incorrect, then it would mean to him that his entire life was a waste and for a character like Ivan, it was impossible for him to believe it. Things that he achieved were very close to him like job position, his house and it wasn’t easy for him to simply convince himself that those things were not as important as he believed them to be. As he mention “An explanation would be possible if it could be said that I have not lived as I ought to. But it is impossible to say that,” and he remembered all the legality, correctitude, and propriety of his life” (Ch. 8). Here Ivan knows from inside that he made a mistake but is not ready to belief that his entire turned out to be complete failure. Another important thing should be noted is that the way he led his life was based on excessive calculation as he uses words like correctitude and legality. These words also convey that the decision taken by Ivan were very accurate as per the standards and psychology of the society. However, it turned out be the illusion that Ivan was dwelling in.