Death of Ivan Ilych:" the spiritual vs. The material

In "The Death of Ivan Ilych," the Russian author Leo Tolstoy presents a man of the professional class who is so obsessed with 'getting ahead' he refuses to accept his own death until confronted with the inevitable. The title is ironic: Ivan defined himself throughout his life by everything but his mortality, but in the end that is all with which he is left. Tolstoy portrays "Ivan to be so little developed beyond his own narcissism that he does not recognize the most certain fact of his life: his own death. Not only Ivan but his whole professional group (which stands for a central part of modern life), have built their lives around their career success and the pleasures it makes possible. Little moral development is seen beyond the organizational conformity needed to pursue their self-interests" (Feldman 2004). Ivan simply lives...
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