Toward Death
In Plato’s Apology, Socrates rationalizes:
“The fear of death amounts simply to thinking one is wise when one is not: it is thinking one knows something one does not know. No one knows, you see, whether death may not in fact prove the greatest of all blessings for mankind; but people fear it as if they knew it for certain to be the greatest of evils” (29).
Death is close to every human being but we all dislike thinking the fact that death is unavoidable. Leo Tolstoy emphasizes this nature of human in his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Chapter one of the story illustrates a pessimistic response to death by most of the characters in the novel. In this essay, we will explore some instances where Ivan Ilyich’s colleagues show this negativity and some of the other feelings that Ivan Ilyich’s family display upon his death.…show more content… When the first time that Ivan Ilyich’s associates heard about his death, all of them firstly think about their possible promotions and transfers. Tolstoy truthfully reveals the Ivan’s close acquaintances thought by writing as “the very fact of the death of a close acquaintance evoked in them all the usual feeling of relief that it was someone else, not they, who had died.”(Tolstoy 33). People believe that death is a tragic thing and so as the friends of Ivan Ilyich. They pessimistically consider death as a horrible incident and they would like to avoid it as much as they can. Therefore, all the Ivan’s acquaintances are reluctant to attend the funeral service and complain about all the inconveniences. Pyotr Ivanovich, a close friend of Ivan Ilyich, grumbled that Ivan “live so terribly far away” (Tolstoy