Death as a Theme in the Death of Ivan Illych and the Fall of the House of Usher - Book Report/Review Example

Running Head: DISCUSSION OF DEATH AS A THEME Death as a Theme in The Death of Ivan Illych and The Fall of the House of Usher. Institution: Abstract. Death is the common theme in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illych and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. However, both stories differ markedly in their treatment of death. The protagonists, Ivan Illych and Roderick Usher, face death in different ways, the reaction of the other characters is not similar and above all, the message conveyed by the two tales – one of hope and the other of despair, is totally different. Death as a Theme in The Death of Ivan Illych and The Fall of the House of Usher. Death emerges as the central theme in both Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Illych and Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, The Fall of the House of Usher. Both narratives culminate in the death of their respective protagonists, Ivan Illych and Roderick Usher, and it is their demises which mark the climax of the stories. However, the similarity between the two works ends there. The Death of Ivan Illych and The Fall of the House of Usher differ markedly in their treatment of the theme of death, in the response of the protagonists and of the other characters and in the message conveyed to the readers by the two authors. The Death of Ivan Illych is as much a commentary on life as it is on death .The major part of the narrative is devoted to an account of Ivan Illych’s life, his marriage, his career, his marriage, his house and his interests. Although the story begins with the death of Ivan Illych, the succeeding account of his life and career, which “had been most simple and most ordinary” (Ch.2, p.1), is almost boring and lulls us into a false sense of complacency in the belief that “life flowed pleasantly” (Ch.3, p.28). Details of fashionable clothes, friends, games of bridge, dances and house decoration contribute to a lightness of treatment. The transition from life to death is done so gradually, that one is hardly aware of the shift in emphasis from the cost of “cakes and sweets” to the inevitability of Ivan Illych’s impending demise. Ivan Illych’s illness extends over a period of months: “So one month passed and then another” (Ch.5, p.1) and death comes as the end of a gradual deterioration and in the midst of continuing life, where his family and friends follow their usual routine of “their visiting, their curtains, their sturgeon for dinner” (Ch.7, p. 34) and visits to the theatre. Life and death go hand in hand in The Death of Ivan Illych. In marked contrast, The Fall of the House of Usher is unabashedly painted in dark shades of impending gloom from start to finish. The central theme of death and doom is highlighted by the bleak natural surroundings: bleak walls, rank sedges, decayed trees, black and lurid tarn; by negative emotions: “insufferable gloom of spirit,” “utter depression of soul,” “unredeemed dreariness of thought” (Para. 1); by the gloomy interior: dark draperies, black floors and dull furniture; by the description of the house as “a mansion of gloom” (Para. 2). The aura of death pervades the narrative, unrelieved by any mitigating feature. Madeline Usher’s blood-stained robes and the “blood-red moon” (Para.43) provide the only morbid splashes of color in the palette of grey and black used by Poe to depict death. Ivan Illych and Roderick Usher react very differently to their impending deaths. Both the protagonists are obsessed with their anticipated demises, but in markedly different ways. Ivan Illych is “acutely sensible of his disease” (Ch.4, p.15). He consults medical books and doctors, oscillates between the hope that “everything would come right” (Ch.5, p.12) and the despair that his pain “will never cease” (Ch.5. p.12). He goes into denial, rejects his mortality, considers death to be impossible in his case and attempts to hide from the reality of death behind “new screens” (Ch.6, p.8) of work and décor. Gradually, Ivan Illych comes to face facts and accepts “the approach of that ever dreaded and hateful Death which was the only reality” (Ch.8, p.1). He then feels sorry for himself, resents the health of others, fears Death, is tortured by his mental and physical agony and weeps in his helplessness and loneliness, railing against the cruelty of man and God. Ivan Illych finally comes to terms with his death, after the realization of the falsity of his life dawns on him. In his acceptance of love and forgiveness, Ivan Illych conquers his fear and conquers death itself, as seen in the final triumphant cry of his soul: “Death is finished” (Ch.12, p.19). On the other hand, Roderick Usher, right from the beginning, has accepted his inevitable doom and does nothing to avoid it. His reaction is characterized by purely nervous symptoms: oscillation between extremes of intense excitement and depression. Although death is evidently hovering in the air throughout the narrative, Roderick Usher, unlike Ivan Illych, has no physical pain and does not grapple with the idea and manifestation of death. Usher’s struggle is portrayed, not as that against death, but as a “struggle with the grim phantasm, Fear” (Para. 11). His fear and his death are linked. Oppression, terror, horror, gloom and melancholy are his reactions. Ivan Illych’s life is at stake, while Roderick Usher stands to lose not only his life, but also his sanity. Roderick Usher expresses his despair through morbid music, books and art. After his sister’s entombment, his condition becomes “one of extreme terror” (Para. 24) and, finally, he loses his sanity completely. He faces death, not with the peaceful acceptance of Ivan Illych, but with the terrified acceptance of inevitability and dies “a victim to the terrors he had anticipated” (Para. 42). Roderick Usher is a victim of death, while Ivan Illych, for all his ordinariness, triumphs over death. Ivan Illych’s egoistical, superficial attitude towards life is mirrored in the attitude of his family and friends towards his death. His colleagues are only concerned about the consequences of his death on their careers and promotion. Peter Ivanovich, like Ivan Illych himself, is governed by propriety and pays his condolence call only to satisfy social decorum. Schwartz’s jovial attitude towards Ivan Illych’s illness is reminiscent of Ivan’s attitude in the past. Ivan Illych’s wife continues to maintain the aloofness which he imposed on their marriage, by adhering to a facade of normality and superficial cheer. Likewise, his daughter is wrapped in her own selfish world of courtship. Even the Doctor deals with Ivan Illych in the same way that Ivan had dealt with men on trial- an attitude which Ivan had formerly considered brilliant, but now terms indifferent. On his deathbed, Ivan Illych is tormented by his family’s lack of sympathy and the indifference of a world which “was going on as usual” (C 4, p 17). He craves understanding and pity and longs “to be petted and comforted” (C 7, p 33). He is defeated “by that very decorum which he had served all his life long” (C 7, p 32). That same decorum is now the medium of others’ interaction with him and the cause of his sorrow and loneliness. It is only Gerasim who touches him with his simple kindness and the sympathetic acceptance of his dying. While all the other characters maintain a façade of normality and cheerfulness towards the dying Ivan Illych, the narrator in The Fall of the House of Usher is almost a mirror image of Roderick Usher himself in his attitude towards approaching doom. The narrator, right from the beginning, confesses that “a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit” (Para. 1). Like Usher, the narrator too ascribes a sentient character to the house, is sensitive to the “atmosphere of sorrow” (Para. 7), and is filled with dread and oppression at the sight of Madeline Usher. Instead of fulfilling the stated purpose of his visit, which was to “alleviate the melancholy of my friend” (Para. 15), the narrator himself imbibes the protagonist’s morbid thoughts, is his accomplice in the entombment of his sister and becomes a victim of the “extreme terror” (Para. 24) which grips Usher. He confesses that “it (Usher’s condition) infected me” (Para. 24). The narrator starts with pitying and sympathizing with the protagonist, and ends by almost becoming one with the protagonist in his anticipation of death. It is in the underlying message conveyed by Leo Tolstoy and Edgar Allen Poe that the greatest difference in the treatment of the theme of death is reflected. The Death of Ivan Illych is a criticism of a life bereft of spontaneity, empty of emotion, lacking the capacity to reach out to others on a personal level. Ivan Illych’s life is governed by “the propriety of external forms required by public opinion” (Ch.2, p.23). It is all form and no substance. The selfishness and meanness of his life are reflected by his pleasures: ambition, vanity and bridge! It is only when he asks himself, “What if my life has been wrong?” (Ch.11, p.11) that he experiences the momentous realization that he has “lived for falsehood and deception” (Ch. 11, p.28). Ultimately, his son’s kiss and tears of genuine sorrow open the floodgates of truth. Ivan Illych realizes that love is the “right thing” (Ch.12, p.7). In empathizing with others and forgiving them through his understanding of their weakness, which resemble his own, Ivan Illych comes close to God and triumphs over his pain, his fear of death and, ultimately, of death itself. “There was no fear because there was no death” (Ch.12, p. 13). Tolstoy conveys a message of hope, of forgiveness, of divine mercy and ultimate joy. The promise of redemption is ever near and within reach. Death itself becomes an agent of deliverance. The Fall of the House of Usher, in contrast, portrays death not as deliverance, but as an agent of vengeance. Death here is inevitable and continues to be an unmitigated horror. Poe’s message is one of unrelieved despair and surrender to insanity and death. Death remains unvanquished and there is no light at the end of the tunnel of suffering. Ivan Illych vanquishes death while Roderick Usher is the victim of death. The Death of Ivan Illych and The Fall of the House of Usher, though centered on themes of death, vary so much in their treatment of it that it can hardly be conceded that they belong to the same genre. Tolstoy gives the reader a commentary on life, while Poe gives the reader a tale of unalloyed horror. Read More

Madeline Usher’s blood-stained robes and the “blood-red moon” (Para.43) provide the only morbid splashes of color in the palette of grey and black used by Poe to depict death. Ivan Illych and Roderick Usher react very differently to their impending deaths. Both the protagonists are obsessed with their anticipated demises, but in markedly different ways. Ivan Illych is “acutely sensible of his disease” (Ch.4, p.15). He consults medical books and doctors, oscillates between the hope that “everything would come right” (Ch.5, p.12) and the despair that his pain “will never cease” (Ch.5. p.12). He goes into denial, rejects his mortality, considers death to be impossible in his case and attempts to hide from the reality of death behind “new screens” (Ch.6, p.8) of work and décor.

Gradually, Ivan Illych comes to face facts and accepts “the approach of that ever dreaded and hateful Death which was the only reality” (Ch.8, p.1). He then feels sorry for himself, resents the health of others, fears Death, is tortured by his mental and physical agony and weeps in his helplessness and loneliness, railing against the cruelty of man and God. Ivan Illych finally comes to terms with his death, after the realization of the falsity of his life dawns on him. In his acceptance of love and forgiveness, Ivan Illych conquers his fear and conquers death itself, as seen in the final triumphant cry of his soul: “Death is finished” (Ch.12, p.19).

On the other hand, Roderick Usher, right from the beginning, has accepted his inevitable doom and does nothing to avoid it. His reaction is characterized by purely nervous symptoms: oscillation between extremes of intense excitement and depression. Although death is evidently hovering in the air throughout the narrative, Roderick Usher, unlike Ivan Illych, has no physical pain and does not grapple with the idea and manifestation of death. Usher’s struggle is portrayed, not as that against death, but as a “struggle with the grim phantasm, Fear” (Para. 11). His fear and his death are linked.

Oppression, terror, horror, gloom and melancholy are his reactions. Ivan Illych’s life is at stake, while Roderick Usher stands to lose not only his life, but also his sanity. Roderick Usher expresses his despair through morbid music, books and art. After his sister’s entombment, his condition becomes “one of extreme terror” (Para. 24) and, finally, he loses his sanity completely. He faces death, not with the peaceful acceptance of Ivan Illych, but with the terrified acceptance of inevitability and dies “a victim to the terrors he had anticipated” (Para. 42). Roderick Usher is a victim of death, while Ivan Illych, for all his ordinariness, triumphs over death.

Ivan Illych’s egoistical, superficial attitude towards life is mirrored in the attitude of his family and friends towards his death. His colleagues are only concerned about the consequences of his death on their careers and promotion. Peter Ivanovich, like Ivan Illych himself, is governed by propriety and pays his condolence call only to satisfy social decorum. Schwartz’s jovial attitude towards Ivan Illych’s illness is reminiscent of Ivan’s attitude in the past. Ivan Illych’s wife continues to maintain the aloofness which he imposed on their marriage, by adhering to a facade of normality and superficial cheer.

Likewise, his daughter is wrapped in her own selfish world of courtship. Even the Doctor deals with Ivan Illych in the same way that Ivan had dealt with men on trial- an attitude which Ivan had formerly considered brilliant, but now terms indifferent. On his deathbed, Ivan Illych is tormented by his family’s lack of sympathy and the indifference of a world which “was going on as usual” (C 4, p 17). He craves understanding and pity and longs “to be petted and comforted” (C 7, p 33). He is defeated “by that very decorum which he had served all his life long” (C 7, p 32).

That same decorum is now the medium of others’ interaction with him and the cause of his sorrow and loneliness.

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