The Theme in the Work
Appearance, in the novella, has a name the narrator repeats: the decorous (приличное, our translation), what looks good in the eyes of the best-placed people. Ivan Ilyich Golovin measures life by this yardstick from the beginning to the end of his career, and the yardstick also governs his death: the wake, the illness treated as an inconvenience, the theater. Reality appears in the few things the yardstick cannot reach: the smell of the corpse, the pain in his side, the family's silence before the sick man, the footman who says that everyone will die.
In ch. I, before the coffin, Pyotr Ivanovich knows that crossing himself never does any harm, and reads on the dead man's face something he did not expect:
На лице было выражение того, что то, что нужно было сделать, сделано, и сделано правильно. Кроме того, в этом выражении был еще упрек или напоминание живым., The face wore the look that what needed doing had been done, and done correctly. Besides, that look carried a reproach, or a reminder, to the living.
In ch. II the narrator shows where Ivan Ilyich's yardstick comes from:
он, как муха к свету, тянулся к наивысше поставленным в свете людям, усваивал себе их приемы, их взгляды на жизнь и с ними устанавливал дружеские отношения, he, like a fly to light, was drawn to the most highly placed people in society, adopted their manners and their views of life, and established friendly relations with them.
The marriage, in the same chapter, is decided by it:
Иван Ильич женился по обоим соображениям: он делал приятное для себя, приобретая такую жену, и вместе с тем делал то, что наивысше поставленные люди считали правильным., Ivan Ilyich married for both reasons: he did something agreeable for himself in acquiring such a wife, and at the same time did what the most highly placed people considered correct.
In ch. III, the house he thinks unique is the same as that of everyone of his kind:
В сущности же, было то самое, что бывает у всех не совсем богатых людей, но таких, которые хотят быть похожими на богатых и потому только похожи друг на друга, In truth, it was just what is found among all people who are not very rich but who want to resemble the rich, and therefore resemble only one another.
In the same chapter, the office requires excluding what is alive:
Во всем этом надо было уметь исключать все то сырое, жизненное, что всегда нарушает правильность течения служебных дел, In all of this one had to know how to exclude everything raw and living, which always disturbs the regularity of official business.
In ch. IV he recognizes in the doctor the manner he himself wore in court:
Все было точно так же, как в суде. Как он в суде делал вид над подсудимыми, так точно над ним знаменитый доктор делал тоже вид., It was all exactly as in court. Just as he used to put on an air before the defendants, so the famous doctor put on an air before him.
In ch. VIII, the family talks of Sarah Bernhardt, of the actress's elegance and realism, the usual conversation, until the daughter's fiancé looks at the sick man and falls silent. In ch. XI, Ivan Ilyich sees in his wife's clothes, body, and voice everything he lived by, and understands that it was a mistake.
The novella's appearance hides no secret: it hides death, and with it life. The narrator of ch. III says that Ivan Ilyich's house looks only like the others; the narrator of ch. XI says that what he lived was an enormous mistake that conceals life and death. Reality, when it arrives, is no hidden revelation; it is what was in plain view for everyone and no one named: that he is going to die, and that a decorous life did not prepare him for it.
Who Embodies It
Ivan Ilyich is appearance built with effort: the room, the career, the correct marriage. Schwartz is appearance without a crack, the solemnity in tailcoat at the wake (ch. I) that reminds the sick Ivan Ilyich of himself ten years earlier (ch. IV). Praskovya Fyodorovna Golovina and Lisa keep up the appearance of the house while he gets worse: the season, the engagement, the box at the theater. Gerasim, who carries the chamber pot without shame and without pretense, is reality without form.
Where It Appears
- Chapter I: The entire wake is made of decorous gestures: the cross, the handshake, the stubborn pouf, the pension, the card game that is not called off.
- Chapter II: Ivan Ilyich orients himself by the best-placed people, like a fly to light, and marries for agreeableness and correctness.
- Chapter III: The new house, which Ivan Ilyich thinks unique, is the same as that of everyone who wants to look rich, and his office requires excluding what is alive.
- Chapter IV: The famous doctor puts on before Ivan Ilyich the air he used to put on before defendants, and Schwartz irritates him with the comme il faut that was once his own.
- Chapter VI: The decorated room serves Ivan Ilyich as a screen against death while he arranges the album.
- Chapter VIII: The family goes to see Sarah Bernhardt, and the conversation about the actress's realism stops in front of the sick man.
- Chapter XI: Ivan Ilyich sees in his wife, his daughter, and the doctor everything he lived by, and sees that it was a mistake.
Where the Readings Diverge
Ivan Ilyich's yardstick can be read as a personal defect or as the form of a class. The ch. III favors the second (the house is the same as that of everyone who wants to look rich, and so they resemble only one another), and the ch. XI the first (the impulses against what the people above called good were his own, and he stifled them).
The text itself holds both in the same scene of ch. VIII: the family talks of an actress's realism while avoiding the reality before them, and the narrator does not choose between the absurdity of the conversation and the fear it hides.