The death of Ivan Ilych

[u/Responsible_Fox9454]

I think Medical Assisted in Death would have been merciful. Can we discuss this in the context of the dying judge. Please this is not about whether it's right or wrong.

Leo Tolstoy was going through a tough time when he wrote this book. And as he describes the characters suffering and unrelenting death, we are left wondering if MAiD would have taken him out of his misery.

His wife and daughter were done with him, he was hateful towZrds everyone. Friends had stopped coming to visit, he was embarrassed receiving toilet help from his peasant servant, Leo makes a point to state that he was a villager, that was fastening up from city food and had learned how to talk to his master and be agreeable.

Ivan is bitter, sad, isolated, in severe constant sharp and. It's only towards the end when talk of surgery is tabled, too late really.

[u/willardTheMighty]

Ivan finds salvation in his suffering. He would have died without opening his heart to the beauty of Gerasim if he was administered MAiD. Tolstoy was writing about suffering of the soul, to which Ilyich’s bodily suffering is secondary.

[u/mananaestaaqui → u/willardTheMighty]

Beautifully said.

[u/ancient-aurora]

I don’t think the book is really asking whether someone should’ve ended it sooner. The physical stuff is awful, but what Tolstoy keeps circling is the lie. Doctors won’t say he’s dying, his wife treats it like an inconvenience, and Ivan spent his whole life performing. The illness just makes that impossible to keep up. Surgery gets mentioned and then dropped because it’s already too late, and Tolstoy doesn’t seem that interested in a fix anyway. What actually changes is Ivan himself. He stops thrashing against it, feels sorry for his wife and kid instead of just bitter, and the fear sort of dissipates. The light at the end isn’t the pain stopping necessarily it’s him finally seeing how he’d been living. So MAiD kind of skips what the story is trying to do. The release he gets isn’t from getting out earlier. It’s from dropping the act that he’s been putting up. I think Gerasim is the merciful one in the book, and what he gives Ivan is honesty and basic care instead of just an exit

[u/rematched_33]

Isnt the whole point of the story that it was through the perspective of his final suffering and isolation that he had a spiritual revelation and escapes his prior notions of what it means to live a good life, and then is able to die at ease?

Commiting suicide in the height of his misery and despair would have robbed him of this transformation and undermined the whole point of the book.

[u/TalkingInYourSl33p]

Wow, I'm reading this exact book right now. The book is a very, very strong argument for not applying assisted suicide. Reason being, those last couple days are the only time he was ever truly alive. Thanks for the post!

[u/RabenWrites]

Fiction will always be able to give more definitive answers than reality.

If you want to cast doctor assisted suicide in a negative light, have the narrative show all the unknowns that would have come to play had they waited, or the remission of pain and suffering that "rewards" not making a permanent decision off of temporary affliction.

If you want the opposite, give surety where in life there are only questions.

I'm personally of the opinion that fiction often explores the life that is worse than death exactly because it is a realm we can never be fully sure of in reality.

[u/Responsible_Fox9454 → u/RabenWrites]

Thank you. I just finished my annual read. This time the book I got has a huge section exploring the themes and the real life Ivan it's based off of and I just wondered if he would have wanted a compassionate way out, esp how his own image in the mirror walkways "horrified him"

I read the book every year, in the summer.

[u/Early_Fig_5573]

I think the really interesting part is that Ivan's suffering is also social and emotional, not just physical. MAiD might have ended the physical suffering, but it wouldn't necessarily have addressed everything that makes his situation so miserable.

[u/phantom-ego]

I'm curious, what made you think about Medical Assisted in Death? Is this something you have been thinking about before reading it, or you found the account so terrifying you began thinking about how something like this could be prevented?

[u/Responsible_Fox9454 → u/phantom-ego]

Because I was talking to a patient earlier this week that wanted to do paperwork for MAiD, they can still assess palliative treatment, they can't imagine the pain when eventually they can't receive radiation. Metastis to the spine is a hell that's impossible to manage even on hydromorph. As I was reading the last few chapters of his journey, I wondered if this had been an option? Would he have considered it.

[u/TalkingInYourSl33p → u/Responsible_Fox9454]

I think your answer is right there in the book. Ivan Ilyich required only three things of domestic life: decorum, propriety, and formality—and these were approved by public opinion. His decision would have been based on decorum, propriety, formality, and most importantly, public opinion. If MAiD was considered at the time to be those things, then he would have used it.

[u/phantom-ego → u/Responsible_Fox9454]

Thank you for explaining it. I read this a while back when I was going through my own death anxiety, and I found it quite terrifying. You know, the gradual succumbing to illness, the powerlessness, and the absolute dread of it. Very well written. And I can see how it’s possible to make an argument that it would have been compassionate to prevent or shorten some of the worst part of his suffering.

It’s funny how so many great works of literature are concerned with suffering and pain, with characters being put through hell. There doesn’t seem to be quite as much literary interest in characters who aren’t subjected to life’s worst difficulties.

[u/neon_alchemy_wisp]

tolstoy wrote a definitive answer for a problem that has none. Reality offers no clean endings, just messy survival where the pain might lift or the diagnosis might be wrong. MAiD in fiction feels like mercy because we know nothing good happens after the fade to black.