Leo Tolstoy and Deathbed Conversions

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Leo Tolstoy's novella, "The Death of Ivan Ilych." It shows how Tolstoy's work exploits the meaninglessness behind conventional norms, through examining the differences between artificial and authentic living and the inevitability of death. The paper looks at how Tolstoy focuses his characters around the death of Ivan Ilych.

From the Paper:

"However, despite all the evidence of Ivan Ilych's deathbed conversion is a genuine realization, there is still another interpretation of Tolstoy's work. Moments before Ivan Ilych's death, he tries to apologize and ask for forgiveness from his family members. However instead of successfully saying "'Forgive me'," Ivan Ilych mutters a '"Forego' and wave[s] his," which questions the sincerity of his deathbed conversion (302). If Ivan Ilych truly meant and understood everything that led up to his conversion, why didn't he completely follow through? Perhaps, Tolstoy leaves Ivan Ilych's apology partially fulfilled to highlight the conversion as an additional example of yet another customarily for no good reason, meaningless, act people go through. Just as Tolstoy dissects the common life Ivan Ilych lives into a conventional, empty, hollow one; he may be doing the same to Ivan Ilych's conversion. Therefore whether or not "Death is finished" for Ivan Ilych because he successfully converted to Christianity, as opposed to merely doing so as an expected norm, is still up to our individual interpretations."

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