Comparison of Death of Ivan Ilych and The Metamorphosis

Comparison of Death of Ivan Ilych and The Metamorphosis

Introduction

There are two stories which have to be covered and both the stories have the comparison. There is story of The Metamorphosis and The Death of Ivan Ilych. The story of The Death of Ivan Ilych begins with the report of the death of Ivan. It explains the story of Ivan's life. “The life of Ivan Ilych's was the most terrible and at the same time it was ordinary”. He conformed and led a largely safe and unexamined existence, a life that strived not to fail rather than to its fullest potential (Tolstoy, Leo, 1991).

There is another story of The Metamorphosis which has III sections and each section is important in order to understand the story. It starts with the description of Gregor Samsa, who is successful travelling salesman and the main provider of his family, who lives comfortably. The story has emphasized disgusting physical details, bizarre events, repulsive conduct, and strange juxtapositions of the comic and the horrific, the inhuman and the absurd. It is the story of any human being who fears finding himself in circumstances that are grotesque in themselves and that threaten to drag that person himself down into the depths of grotesque thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Along with the bleak determinism of The Metamorphosis, the surrealistic scenario depicted its particular mixture of the impossible and the real is typically “Kafkaesque”. The realist aspect of these texts encourages the reader to probe beyond the specific circumstance a man, for example, literally becoming an insect to uncover its symbolic and allegorical implications. The image of the insect is evocative on several levels.

Discussion

Death of Ivan Ilych

Ivan was born in a stable, affluent, and middle class family. Ivan was a middle son, often the one who does not receive the same attention as his older and younger siblings were getting but lived his life pleasantly and modestly. At one point narrator said that “Ivan was the happiest child between all of them, he was lively, intelligent, agreeable, and polished man”. Ivan believed that an individual person should “perform their duty properly, to get a well-mannered life accepted by society; person should implement a positive attitude towards their official duties”. He decided to “live thus all alone on the brink of the depth, with no one who understood or pitied him.” Ivan conforms readily to his culture's expectations and considers the appearance and respectability of every detail in his life. Tolstoy basically wants us to consider Ivan as an Everyman. Ivan has resonated so deeply since his inception because he such a universal figure. His story like his corps is “a reproach and a warning to the living”. Ivan got married with Praskovya Fedorovna. He got married with her not because he fell in love with him or they had similar interests and views, but the reason was that “his social circle approved of the match”.

When their marriage didn't go successful and became less ...