Let Evening Come Character Analysis

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In life and death humankind always finds something sacred to grasp onto, whether it be earthy or spiritual. Leo Tolstoy tells about the character Ivan in The Death of Ivan Ilyich finding his social status most sacred. In the film Life is Beautiful Guido Orefice puts his life on the line to protect what is most precious to him, his family. Some characters find sanctity in a supreme being, like Aslan, the lion ruler of Narnia in C.S. Lewis’s book The Last Battle. “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon shows a sanctity in God’s comfort, even in death. Human beings cling to the things they find sacred, as illustrated in these great works. First, Ivan in The Death of Ivan Ilyich finds social status so sacred that he is willing to give up his morals,…show more content…
While he was in law school he began to change his ways so he could fit into the mold of the high class. Ivan would do things which “seemed to him extremely vile and made him feel disgusted with himself; but later, seeing that people of high standing had no qualms about doing these things, he was not quite able to consider them good but managed to dismiss them” (Tolstoy 44). Here Ivan shows that he was willing to change his personality and the essence of who he was, just so he could advance his social status. Further into his life, Ivan is about to get married, but he has a very interesting way of picking his bride. “To say that Ivan Ilyich married because he fell in love with his fiancée… would be as mistaken as to say that he married because the people in his circle approved of the match. Ivan Ilyich married for both reasons” (Tolstoy 48-49). Ivan seems that he cannot make one decision that is not at all based on social status, he marries because of love, but also because he had gotten the approval of his circle, if he had not gotten this approval he most likely would not have married the woman that he did. After being married for some time the reader finds out the perks of marriage in the eyes of Ivan Ilyich. Tolstoy writes “dinners at home, a well-run

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