Book Club Guide

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Key themes

The life unlived — and the recognition that comes too late
Physical suffering as the stripping away of self-deception
Gerasim as the only character who sees Ivan honestly — and loves him anyway

About this book

Ivan Ilyich, a respected judge, is dying slowly and painfully. The novella traces his gradual recognition that his respectable, successful life has been hollow — that he has lived for social approval rather than for anything genuine. Tolstoy's late masterwork is one of the most concentrated and devastating accounts of the relationship between how we live and how we die.

Published in 1886, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is one of Tolstoy's most celebrated later works, written after his religious conversion. He described it as the simplest, most ordinary and most terrible thing.

Discussion questions

Ivan Ilyich lives for social approval and respectability — and only when dying does he recognise this as empty. How does Tolstoy develop this recognition — and does it come in time for it to matter?
The novella is told in a frame — colleagues discussing his death — then in close third person through Ivan's experience. What does this structure add?
Gerasim, the peasant servant, is the only character who treats Ivan honestly. What is Tolstoy saying through this peasant wisdom — and is it sentimentalised?
The pain Ivan experiences is also the experience of recognising that his life was wrong. How does Tolstoy develop the relationship between physical and moral suffering?
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is one of the most widely assigned texts in philosophy and literature courses on mortality and the good life. What specifically does it offer that more comfortable readings of these subjects cannot?