Chapters I to III: The Wake and Life
the very fact of a close acquaintance's death awakened in everyone who heard of it, as always, the feeling of joy that it was he who died and not I.
Explanation and analysis
During a break in a court session, Pyotr Ivanovich reads in the newspaper the death notice of Ivan Ilyich, a colleague of the Judicial Chamber who died on February 4, 1882. Before any lament, each of those present calculates what the vacancy opens up for promotions, and the narrator sums up what everyone felt, without exception, in a single sentence.
The expression as always places the reader in the group of colleagues. The feeling is not anyone's particular malice: it is the relief of someone who finds himself beyond the reach of what has just struck another. The sentence passes from he to I without warning, and it is this I, placed safe by the living at the wake, that the illness will make impossible to protect. That is why it serves as the opening of the whole book: another's death reaches the living as news about their own fortune, and the decorum of condolences covers a joy that no one confesses. Whoever reads has already seen the coffin and knows that this relief will not last long.
The text leaves two readings open. It may be the narrator's irony about the hypocrisy of condolences. It may also be the observation of a defense reflex that does not depend on character, and that the reader recognizes in himself.
His face bore the expression that what had to be done was done, and done correctly. Besides, in that expression there was still a reproach, or a reminder, to the living.
Explanation and analysis
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So then, Brother Gerasim? said Pyotr Ivanovich, just to say something. Does it grieve you? It is God's will. We shall all end up there.
Explanation and analysis
The past life of Ivan Ilyich was the simplest, the most ordinary, and the most terrible.
Explanation and analysis
he, like a moth to a light, was drawn to the best-placed people in society, adopted their manners and their ways of seeing life, and established bonds of friendship with them.
Explanation and analysis
Ivan Ilyich married for both reasons: he did something pleasant for himself, acquiring such a woman, and at the same time did what the best-placed people considered correct.
Explanation and analysis
In truth, it was exactly what is in the homes of all those not very rich, who want to look like the rich and therefore resemble one another only.
Explanation and analysis
Once he climbed a small ladder to show the upholsterer, who did not understand, how he wanted the drapery; he missed his footing and fell, but, being a strong and agile man, he caught himself and only struck his side on the handle of the window frame.
Explanation and analysis
The joys of service were joys of self-love; social joys were joys of vanity; but the true joys of Ivan Ilyich were the joys of the game of vint.
Explanation and analysis
Chapters IV to VII: The Illness and the Lie
It was all exactly as in court. Just as he, in court, assumed an air before the accused, exactly so the famous doctor assumed an air before him.
Explanation and analysis
There was no question of Ivan Ilyich's life; there was a dispute between the floating kidney and the appendix.
Explanation and analysis
It is not the appendix, it is not the kidney, the case is life and... death. Yes, life existed, and now it is going away, going away, and I cannot hold it back.
Explanation and analysis
Before there was light, and now there is darkness. Before I was here, and now I am going there! Where?
Explanation and analysis
That syllogism example he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic, Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had seemed to him all his life correct only in relation to Caius, but in no way in relation to him.
Explanation and analysis
And it is true that here, on this curtain, I lost my life as in an assault. Can it be? How horrible, and how stupid!
Explanation and analysis
The chief torment of Ivan Ilyich was the lie, that lie accepted by all for some reason, that he was only ill and not dying.
Explanation and analysis
We shall all die. Why should I not make an effort?
Explanation and analysis
he wanted someone to feel sorry for him as for a sick child. He wanted them to caress him, kiss him, and weep over him, as children are caressed and consoled.
Explanation and analysis
Chapters VIII to XII: Death
everyone was afraid that the decorous lie would suddenly break in some way, and it would become clear to all what it was.
Explanation and analysis
He wept for his helplessness, his terrible loneliness, the cruelty of people, the cruelty of God, the absence of God.
Explanation and analysis
It was as if I were going downhill at an even pace, imagining that I was going uphill. And so it was. In public opinion I was going uphill, and to the same degree life was slipping away from under me... And that's it, now die!
Explanation and analysis
Perhaps I have not lived as I should have? came to his mind all at once. But how not, if I did everything as one should? he said to himself.
Explanation and analysis
and what if in fact my whole life, my conscious life, was “not that”?
Explanation and analysis
What prevents him from passing is the recognition that his life was good.
Explanation and analysis
He wanted to say “forgive,” but said “let pass,” and, no longer able to correct himself, made a gesture with his hand, knowing that whoever needed to understand would understand.
Explanation and analysis
He searched for his habitual fear of death, the one from before, and did not find it. Where is it? What death? There was no fear at all, because there was no death either. In place of death there was light.