Author Question: What is memorable in the character of Ivans schoolboy son? Why is hecrucial to the story? ... (Read 581 times)

SAVANNAHHOOPER23 · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

What is memorable in the character of Ivans schoolboy son? Why is hecrucial to the story? (Suggestion: look closely at paragraphs 349350.)

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Henri Troyat has said that through the story of Ivan Ilych we imaginewhat our own deaths will be. Is it possible to identify with an aging, selfish, worldly, nineteenth-century Russian judge?

What will be an ideal response?

Jane · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Ivans son, though only briefly sketched, is unforgettable. Early in the story (par. 48), Peter Ivanovich finds in his eyes (red with crying from genuine grief) that look often seen in unclean boys of thirteen or fourteen. As in all masturbators (according to popular lore), the awful blue ring under eyes (par. 268). Yet it is the schoolboy, alone among Ivans immediate family, who loves Ivan and feels sorry for him. By kissing his fathers hand (par. 349), the boy brings on Ivans illumination.

Answer to Question 2

Randall Jarrell seems right in his observation that we terribly identify ourselves with Ivan Ilych. Ivan Ilychs life has been a conventional falsehood; The Death of Ivan Ilych is the story of how he is tortured into the truth. No matter how alien they may have seemed to him to begin with, in the end the reader can dissociate neither from the falsehood, the torture, nor the truth: he is Ivan Ilych.