The Death of Ivan Ilych Chapter IV Summary & Analysis

Summary

Ivan begins to experience some discomfort in his left side and an unusual taste in his mouth. The discomfort gradually increases and soon Ivan is both irritable and quarrelsome. As his ill humor begins to mar the easy and agreeable lifestyle he has worked so hard to construct, volatile disputes with his wife occur more and more often. Praskovya, "with characteristic exaggeration," comments that Ivan has always had a dreadful temper. Ivan now starts all the arguments. Realizing that her husband's uncontrollable rages are making her life miserable, Praskovya begins to feel sorry for herself. She hates Ivan and would like to see him die, if only his salary would not cease.

One day Ivan goes to see the doctor. At the doctor's office Ivan is struck by the similarity between his attitude toward the accused in the law courts and the doctors attitude toward him. To Ivan, the only important question is whether or not his case is serious. But ignoring Ivan's concern, the doctor focuses on the strictly medical question of whether Ivan's problem is a floating kidney or appendicitis. This question the doctor answers brilliantly, and as Ivan thinks, in favor of the appendix. Ivan gets the feeling that his case is very serious and he is struck by the doctor's indifference and utter lack of sympathy to a matter of such importance.

Ivan heads home, depressed and fearful. He begins to tell his wife about the examination, but before he can finish, his wife leaves with their daughter to go out. Ivan takes medicine and strictly follows the doctor's orders, but more tests reveal that the doctor's initial prognosis was incorrect. Ivan then attempts to deal with his sickness by forcing himself to think that he has gotten better, but any unpleasantness with his wife, lack of success in work, or bad cards at bridge bring to mind his disease. Ivan goes to see more doctors, including a homeopath, but each doctor diagnoses his illness differently from the others. Ivan becomes annoyed with himself one day when he starts to believe that a wonder-working icon can affect miracles.

Ivan realizes that those around him think everything is normal, and do not understand nor care to understand his condition. Ivan's wife and daughter are annoyed at his depression and intolerance. Praskovya adopts a formal attitude to Ivan's illness. It consists of the beliefs that Ivan's condition is his own fault and that if he strictly follows doctor's orders he will improve.

At the law courts Ivan notices people looking at him inquisitively as if his post might soon be vacant. At other times, his friends, and especially Schwartz, joke about his illness as if it were a trivial and temporary condition. Even card playing ceases to hold its previous allure. One night when playing bridge with friends, Ivan is on the verge of making a grand slam. Suddenly, he becomes aware of the pain in his side and the disagreeable taste in his mouth, and it seems ridiculous to him that he should derive pleasure from a grand slam. Ivan misplays the hand and misses the grand slam. And despite his partner's distress, Ivan realizes that he does not care, "and it was dreadful to realize why he did not care." Conscious that his life is "poisoned" and is poisoning the lives of others, he feels alone on the "brink of an abyss," with no one who understands or pities him.

Analysis

The symptoms that mark the onset of Ivan's illness coincide curiously with the symptoms ascribed to Praskovya during her pregnancy, i.e., fits of anger, a strange taste in the mouth, and a tendency to disrupt the pleasant and easy course of life. And just as Praskovya's symptoms were the result of burgeoning life, so too, the sickness that is causing Ivan's physical death seems somehow associated with growing new life. It is interesting to note that Praskovya's reaction to Ivan's sickness mirrors Ivan's reaction to the unpleasantness introduced by Praskovya's pregnancy. Praskovya sees Ivan's condition as an unseemly burden. She minimizes the amount of time spent in his company and retreats from him as soon as an occasion arises. Recall Praskvoya's hasty departure in the middle of her husband's account of his visit to the doctor. Reminiscent of Ivan's formal attitude toward marriage, Praskovya adopts a "definite line in regard to his illness." Even Ivan's colleagues at work maintain a nonchalant and superficial attitude toward Ivan's illness. Tolstoy seems to imply that for Praskovya and Ivan, as well as for bourgeois society as a whole, formal and concrete attitudes toward life replace sympathetic and emotional connections.

Previous section Chapter III Next page Chapter IV page 2