Tragic Relations

As we progress in our lives, we find that many things that have seemed sure and comfortable for us in our pasts have been proven to be lies and should only have been taken for face value. This much is true in the life of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy as shown by his family and friend’s reactions to his death.
The friendships of Ivan Ilych during his life seemed to have been long-lasting and typical, but as we read we see that these “friendships” are much less than close and numerous. Upon hearing of their so-called friend’s tragic death, rather than feeling pity and sorrow, his friends are first to feel that it is better he died than they, which seems a shallow feeling for people who had been his “friends” since childhood (18). Not only do they feel no depths of sympathy, but the friends also find it a monotonous and annoying task to see to going to the funeral and giving their condolences to the wife. It is as though the author is making a statement that the middle class only has exterior couth, on order to be looked upon as good people by those above them. The author shows that one of the great problems with society in this story is that people of this class only feel for others exteriorly, and are more concerned about their own lives than the lives of those who claim to be close to them. Even Ivan’s own wife is more concerned about her monetary gain from the death of her husband than the actual loss. The whole society seems to take no pity on others and simply concerns itself with individual affairs. This is portrayed as almost tragic in the story because we, as readers, see, through the wife’s eyes, the suffering and pain of Ivan Ilych but his pain is taken as a pain of her own rather than a pain of his. While, in a manner, it is Ivan Ilych that lived his life for others and contributed little to society, it is “terrible” that the end of his life meant only an annoyance to those who were supposedly close to him (55). The visual of friends being frustrated by the death of a life-long friend rather than troubled by the loss shows the reader how Ivan Ilych pushed away those nearest to him by conforming to society and adding nothing as well as makes a statement that human beings are innately selfish.
This story is one of terrible truths about the detachedness of society and the problems with conforming to what is expected of you and contributing nothing to the society around you. It is tragic that something as unfortunate as death can reveal the truths of false friendships and relationships. While these two interactions with those around you seem long-lasting and constant, friendships and relations change in an instant and sometimes things only as tragic as death can prove the truth of the relationship. While Ivan Ilych died before completely realizing the tragedy his life had become, the reader can see that his eminent coming to reality was one of complete change in not only lifestyle and heath but of the realization that both his family and friends did not hold him in as high a regard as he would have expected and hoped (559).