The Death of Ivan Ilych
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Key Facts
full title · The Death of Ivan Ilych
author · Leo Tolstoy
type of work · Novella
genre · Exemplum (tale told explicitly to illustrate a moral lesson); satire of upper class; psychological novella
language · Russian
time and place written · Begun in August 1885. Tolstoy completed a finished draft of the story in January 1886, but he revised the proof sheets and submitted a virtually new version of the story in mid-March. The novel's final revision was presented to the publisher on March 25. Written in Russia.
date of first publication · 1886
narrator · Omniscient
climax · The major climax of the novel occurs in chapter XII when Ivan Ilych is suddenly struck in the chest and side and pushed through the black sack into the light. Ivan finally discovers the right way to live and realizes the error of his past life.
protagonist · Ivan Ilych
antagonist · Bourgeois society in general, which may take the form of Schwartz, Praskovya, Peter, or a professional colleague.
setting (time) · Late nineteenth century
setting (place) · Petersburg and the surrounding Russian provinces and cities.
point of view · The novel is from the point of view of the omniscient narrator, although action occasionally progresses from Ivan's point of view.
falling action · Insofar as Ivan experiences his climactic epiphany in a single moment before his death, the novel contains no falling action. The falling action for the other characters occurs in Chapter I of this chronologically out-of-sequence novel.
tense · Past
tone · Frequently satirical and mocking; subtly pedagogical
themes · The right life; the inevitability of death; inner life vs. outer life
motifs · Reversal; alienation; the pleasant, the proper, and the decorous; contraction of time and space; bourgeois society; foreign language references
symbols · The black sack
foreshadowing · By means of ambiguous foreign language references (le phenix de la famille, respice finem), symbolic dreams (the black bag), and descriptive imagery (the fly to a bright light), Tolstoy foreshadows Ivan's death and spiritual rebirth.
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