Greed, Purity, and Corruption Theme Analysis

Focusing on Ivan Ilyich’s careerist worldview and its destructive qualities, The Death of Ivan Ilyich warns against the toxic, soul-corrupting effects of fixating on status, money, and power. By giving an overview of Ivan’s life before his illness, Tolstoy illustrates that success and praise can easily lead to greed and isolation, as Ivan becomes less and less capable of caring about anything except his job. By the time Ivan falls ill, he has effectively cut himself off from anything that might have actual value to him on his deathbed, including his relationships with his wife, Praskovya, and adult daughter, Liza, both of whom have grown accustomed to his disinterest in family life. In fact, Praskovya and Liza have structured their own lives based on the same desire for power and admiration that has driven Ivan up until this point. For this reason, Ivan begins on his deathbed to idealize the few people in his life who have not been corrupted by greed or egotism. Removed from his false sense of self-importance, Ivan covets people like his peasant servant, Gerasim, and his young son, Vasya, both of whom he sees as innocent and pure. That these are the only characters in the entire novella who embody these qualities is especially noteworthy, since this indicates that Tolstoy believes everyone else in Ivan’s milieu has been corrupted by the very same bourgeoise affectations and superficial concerns that leave Ivan feeling so lonely and wretched at the end of his life. With this in mind, it becomes clear that Tolstoy sees the trappings of high society as capable of poisoning otherwise pure and authentic ways of moving through the world.

The influence of greed is all around Ivan, so apparent in his social circles that even his supposedly close friends can’t help but think about how they might benefit professionally from his death. Upon hearing that Ivan has died, people like Pyotr Ivanovich—who is not only his colleague but also an old friend—immediately start thinking about the fact that Ivan’s position has just opened up, devising schemes to capitalize on his death as if it’s nothing but a new opportunity. Pyotr Ivanovich maintains this insensitive mindset when he attends Ivan’s funeral and eagerly looks for excuses to leave, wanting nothing more than to make a quick exit so he can go play cards with his friend Schwartz, who winks at him during the services and makes no effort to hide how unwilling he is to let Ivan’s death get him down. Thinking this way, Pyotr Ivanovich manages to leave the funeral, meeting up with Schwartz and three other men to play a game of whist. That he chooses to gamble instead of paying respects to an old friend shows readers that, throughout Ivan’s life, he tended to associate with people who exclusively cared about earning money and socializing.

As the story jumps back in time to chart Ivan’s professional rise, Tolstoy frames the development of young Ivan’s careerist attitude as something that slowly but surely poisons his inherent moral sensibilities. While studying law, Ivan starts to do things that he finds “utterly revolting,” and though Tolstoy never clarifies the nature of this behavior, he notes that Ivan Ilyich often feels “disgusted with himself” during this period. However, as Ivan continues to do these things, he notices that well-respected and successful people are behaving in the exact same way. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily convince him that this lifestyle is completely good or virtuous, but recognizing the behavior of his superiors allows him to excuse his own actions. By the time he himself is a lauded magistrate, he has completely stopped questioning his behavior, having fully relaxed into a way of life that he instinctively felt at the outset of his career—when he was still young and uncorrupted by greed and opportunism—was shameful and uncouth.

When Ivan is on his deathbed, he can no longer truly enjoy the power and wealth that previously distracted him from acknowledging his life’s shortcomings. Throughout his adulthood, he has become increasingly attached to his work and less involved in his familial relationships. Anytime he and Praskovya have fights, for instance, he distracts himself by turning his attention to his work, looking over documents instead of trying to mend their relationship. Similarly, he obsesses over the appearance of his apartment, going to great lengths to decorate it so that other people in his social circles will think highly of him. When he falls while hanging a curtain and bruises his side, the injury signifies the extent to which his fixation on appearances has superseded all other concerns, indicating that his greedy, egotistical outlook on life is taking a tangible toll on his wellbeing. After all, none of the work he does nor the effort he puts into his apartment actually matter when he’s on his deathbed, since these things cannot heal his illness or atone for his past mistakes. Accordingly, he finally recognizes while dying that his life has become utterly vapid, but that it’s too late to go back and lead a more substantial existence. Consequently, he covets his relationship with Gerasim, a young servant from a humble background who remains untainted by the materialistic and power-hungry preoccupations that have consumed everyone else in Ivan’s environment. For Ivan, Gerasim, along with Ivan’s own young son, Vasya, represent the kind of faultless integrity that he himself could have embodied if he hadn’t wasted his life chasing wealth and status. In this regard, The Death of Ivan Ilyich warns readers about the harmful effects of leading a greedy, superficial life, ultimately suggesting that such lifestyles can corrode a person’s virtues, and eventually their happiness.