Fatal Flaw

Ivan Ilych spends his dying moments regretting the life he has lived. Though he lived his life in the pursuit of what he thought would make him happy, the lack of passion with which he did so proved to be his fatal flaw. Though the way he conducted his life adhered to the social norm, Ivan Ilych comes to realize in his last days how shallow and meaningless such a life really is.

From the very start, we as readers know that there is nothing special about Ivan Ilych’s life. The author, Leo Tolstoy, introduces the main character’s life story by saying that it, “had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible” (55). His childhood is only grazed over, and the focus is placed instead on how quickly he tries to become an adult. Oddly enough, we learn about Ivan Ilych’s death in the first chapter, but we hear very little about his childhood until the second-to-last chapter. Tolstoy initially introduces Ivan’s youth by saying, “all the enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him” (58), but when Ivan reflects on his life, he thinks of his childhood as the “one bright spot there at the back, at the beginning of life, and afterwards, all becomes blacker and blacker” (312). Unfortunately, the moment he graduates from the School of Law, he forgets all about what he will one day realize was his “bright spot” and sets out to become a person of high station. Ironically, in the midst of his preparations—such as ordering clothes from the “fashionable tailor” (60)—he places a medallion on his watch-chain that reads in Latin “Think of the end (of your life).” What would have been good advice is only a fashion statement to Ivan Ilych, however, and he sets off to make his career.


For the rest of his life, the main character causes his own misery. He is a shallow and passionless man, obsessed with work and what is socially accepted. For example, the only reasons he marries Praskovya Fedorovna is because “it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates”(70) and because “when the girl fell in love with him he said to himself: “Really, why shouldn’t I marry?””(69). As soon as his married life becomes more complicated and doesn’t fit into his easygoing lifestyle, he chooses to avoid it by engrossing himself in work rather than working out problems with his wife. However, there is reason to believe Ivan Ilych has found his match: his shallow behavior towards her during their early marriage is paralleled by her shallow behavior towards him while he is dying. The author conveys Ivan’s detached behavior when he says, “…and with the real and imaginary illnesses of mother and child, in which Ivan Ilych’s sympathy was demanded but about which he understood nothing, the need of securing for himself an existence outside his family life became still more imperative”(75). When Ivan lies dying, however, he longs, “for someone to pity him as a sick child his pitied. He longed to be petted and comforted” (218). Perhaps, if he had attended to Praskovya Fedorovna with sympathy and love while she was ill, she would have shown him the same care in his dying days. The saddest part of the story is the fact that Ivan Ilych finally realizes, “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done” (304), but by that time, it is too late to change his life. He cannot go back and create closer personal relationships with his family and friends, rather than surrounding himself in nothing but work and games of bridge. Perhaps he could have befriend people not only of high stations; realized that his wife “expected him to devote his whole attention to her”(72) in early years of their marriage because she wanted a close relationship with him; or even just dwelt a little bit longer in his childhood. Unfortunately, it is only with his dying breaths that Ivan Ilych apologizes to his wife and son, knowing that he had lost the opportunity to lead a meaningful life. (692)