In class, Mr. Coon’s first question about Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych was why is the funeral scene presented first? I had an immediate answer, but lacked the courage to present what I believed. But, now, I have mustered enough strength to articulate my thoughts.
To me, reading The Death of Ivan Ilych is like watching an artist paint a painting. The first chapter is like the beginning of the painting, the sketches or the outline. Tolstoy provides the reader with the beginning of the painting, enough to make the reader more interested to see how the painting turns out. The reader wants to know what colors are added and why. The reader wants to know what the “random” pencil sketches will turn into.
The sketches and the outline of the painting are presented in the form of the questions raised in the first chapter of the first story. We wonder why Ivan Ilych does not have any true “friends” but only close “acquaintances”. We wonder why Ilych’s “friends” are so impassionate about his death, and why they do not react as most normal human beings would to a friend’s death. We want explanations to add color to the painting.
As Tolstoy continues his short story, the painting starts to come to life. We see colors added to the sketches of figures. We see “fake” colors added to Ivan Ilych’s “friends”; we see colors mixed together. We start to comprehend the true nature of the characters and what the characters represent. An example of this is Peter Ivanovich. The author first paints Peter in colors that show that he is not really a true friend, he is labeled a friend through his motivation for more; but we see that Peter does have some compassion when he feels sorrow for Ivan. We start to learn more about the characters. We see that under the human flesh colors, there are deceiving colors in Ivan’s wife, Ivan’s friend who loves bridge, and Ivan’s coworkers. We learn that behind the colors that stand out, there are really depressing and dull colors. The colors themselves are deceiving.
The metaphor of the short story being like a painting is a great way to view the short story. By keeping this metaphor in mind, the story can be interpreted on a deeper level as the reader continues through the chapters. Tolstoy is not just a great author, but he is a great painter as well.
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1 comment:
Nation--thanks for the blog, and a good analogy. The only thing that's a little different from my point of view is the idea of "normal."
You said, "We wonder why Ilych’s “friends” are so impassionate about his death, and why they do not react as most normal human beings would to a friend’s death." For me, the point is that they do react the way normal human beings do, at least in that culture, and that's the problem Tolstoy wants us to see. their definition of "normal" is way out of whack with what human beings OUGHT to do.
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