Discussion Questions

At the office each colleague first thinks of promotion; at the wake Pyotr Ivanovich crosses himself, consoles the widow and ends the night at cards. What does each of these gestures of decorum spare him?

Gerasim is the only one who, at the wake, speaks of his own death together with the dead man's. Why does this sentence fall to the servant, and to none of the colleagues?

Ivan Ilyich forgets the youthful acts that disgusted him, and in marriage he takes refuge in work when life at home ceases to be agreeable. What do the two movements have in common?

The narrator says that Ivan Ilyich married out of taste and because those above approved the choice, and refuses to keep only one of the reasons. Why does he insist on joining them?

Ivan Ilyich finds the new house unique, and the narrator shows that it is the same as those of everyone who wants to look rich. What must he not see in order to be happy in it?

The fall on the stairs is told in the middle of the decorating and soon forgotten by Ivan Ilyich himself. What changes in the reading of this episode for someone who has already seen, in chapter I, how his life ends?

Ivan Ilyich recognizes in the doctor the air he himself used to take on before the defendants. What does he discover about himself, now for the first time on the side of the one who waits for the answer?

Praskovya Fyodorovna tells acquaintances that her husband does not follow the treatment and torments the family. What does this version of the illness allow her not to see?

Ivan Ilyich spends the afternoon trying to fix the kidney and the night correcting the appendix in his imagination. What did the name of the organ guarantee him, and what does he lose when he stops thinking about the organ?

Caius's syllogism is correct, and Ivan Ilyich never disputed it. Why do the memories of childhood serve him as proof against a conclusion he himself accepts?

The drawing room, which hid the idea of death while he arranged the album, reveals it when his wife speaks of hurting himself. What do the screens he looks for have in common with the life he led?

Ivan Ilyich wants to shout that they stop lying and never does, and in front of Shebek it is he who plays the part. What keeps him from breaking the lie that torments him?

The strength and health of others offend Ivan Ilyich, and Gerasim's calm him. What does Gerasim do, or fail to do, that the others do not?

In the scene before the theater everyone falls silent at once as they look at Ivan Ilyich, and it is Lisa who breaks the silence. What was the silence threatening to reveal, and to whom?

On the night of chapter IX, Ivan Ilyich hears that the court is coming and answers that he is not guilty. What place does he now occupy in the court where he has always been on the side of the judges, and what place does he refuse to occupy?

The voice of the soul asks whether he really lived well and pleasantly, and the joys dissolve the closer they come to the present. Why do only the memories of childhood endure?

Ivan Ilyich smiles as he rejects the idea that he lived wrongly, as if someone could see the smile and be fooled by it. For whom is this smile, if he is alone with his face to the wall?

Communion brings Ivan Ilyich relief and hope, and his wife's question, whether he is not better, undoes them. What does her question have that the communion did not?

Lisa asks her mother what they are guilty of, and the book does not answer. What does Lisa see, and what does she not see, in her father's anger?

In the end Ivan Ilyich discovers that one can still do that, and, asking himself what it is, grows calm without answering. Does what he does next read as the answer?

Those present hear the end of a two-hour agony, and for Ivan Ilyich everything happened in an instant. What does the novella gain by telling the same death from both sides?

The book begins with the wake and only afterward tells the life. What does the reader see in the biography of chapters II and III that they would not see if it came first?

Ivan Ilyich recognizes in the famous doctor the air he himself assumed before the accused. What does the illness teach him about the office he exercised?

The lie that he is only ill torments him, and he himself plays a part before Shebek. Who lies to whom in the Golovins' house?

Gerasim is the only one who speaks of death without evasion, from the wake to the third month. Why does the book give this speech to a pantry servant, and not to a colleague or to the family?

What holds Ivan Ilyich in the black bag is the certainty that his life was good. Why does the defense of the correct life prevent passage?

Falling into the hole, he says that one can still do that, asks what that is, and falls silent. Does the gesture that comes next answer the question?

Confession and communion bring relief and hope, and his wife's question undoes them. What weight does the book give the rite, and what weight does it give the pity he feels at the end?

The narrator calls the life of Ivan Ilyich the most ordinary and the most terrible. Does the book accuse one man or describe a class?