Understanding The Mystery of Life as Depicted in The Death of Ivan Iiyich

In The Death of Evan Ilyich, the author Leo Tolstory is trying to instruct his reader about the life. Ivan didn t really know what marriage was all about until it was too late. Ivan s wife got revenge on her husband at the end of the book. Peter was not the friend Ivan thought her was. There is usually one person in the world that cares about someone the most.

Ivan is trying to tell his readers that marriage is not always what people think it is. When Ivan and Praskovya, his wife were going out he didn t really think about marrying her. When Praskovya fell in love with Ivan he thought, Really, why shouldn t I get married? So he decided to get married. Everything was going well at the start. Then his wife got pregnant, everything changed. She became angry at everything he did. She started saying that he was not paying enough attention to her. He tried to act normal and spend time with his friends. Then his wife got violent with him so he stayed at work more because he didn t want to be at home. They never got divorced but he did have affairs.

When death is upon Ivan his wife pays very little attention to him when he needs it the most. She remembers all the things he did to her when she was pregnant. Not only did his wife turned her back on him, his whole family did except his son. His family felt that he was not there when they needed him, so they are going to do the dame thing to him. It is sad that he could not be there for his wife so she could have been there for him. She really doesn t care about him that much because if she really loved him she would have taken care of him even though he didn t take care of her.

Peter is supposed to be Ivan s best friend. When he dies Peter doesn t even want to go to his funeral. All of Ivan s friends only cared about what they were going to get because if Ivan s death. The people who you think are really your friends don t really care about you. They only wanted the things Ivan had promised they would get when he died. At the end of his life he started to see who his real friends were.

Gerasim is Ivan s servant; he is really the only one that cares about him. Gerasim took care of him when no one else would. Ivan s son also cared about him. In Ivan s will he probably gave nothing to Gerasim and he was the one who really cared about Ivan. Gerasim thought that if he cared about Ivan, then someone would probably care about him. Sometimes the people who care about you the most are the ones you don t respect.

In this book there were a lot of things about life that people don t always think about. It make me think about if I am there for people when they really need me or do I ignore them. I hope when I die that people will care about me and not just wondering what I left them in my will.