In Tolstoy’s novella “The Death of Ivan Illych,” the only person with the ability to comfort Illych and to help him forget his terrible, painful suffering is his servant Gerasim. Anyone else who is even remotely acquainted with Illych seems to only irritate him further or offer him no real comfort at all. One day, in the third month of Illych’s illness, when Gerasim enters Illych’s room to attend to him, Illych asks him to please raise his legs because it makes his pain easier to bear. Gerasim does so and Illych discovers that he feels immensely better while Gerasim holds his legs up, and worse once Gerasim sets them down. Although it seems as if it is the position of Illych’s legs that affects his level of pain or comfort, I believe that it is actually the presence or absence of Gerasim’s companionship that affects Illych’s well being.
While Illych has Gerasim hold his legs up, he also asks Gerasim to sit with him for a while and talk to him. Illych grows to rather like Gerasim, and though “health, strength, and vitality in other people were offensive to him…Gerasim’s strength and vitality did not mortify but soothed him (paragraph 216).” Gerasim almost becomes Illych’s role model. Although Illych knows that he will never again be young and healthy like Gerasim, simply being around him allows him to remember the only somewhat happy period of his life—his youth. Maybe if Illych could have learned from Gerasim and adopted some of his good nature, he would have recovered from his illness, or at least lived his last few days in peace.
What bothers Illych most about his condition is the fact that others around him constantly deceive him in relation to it. They either feign sympathy for him, make excuses not to see him, or deny that he is dying when he knows he really is. Gerasim is the one exception to this norm as he does not lie to Illych, and truly does pity him. This small dose of actual concern that Gerasim begrudges Illych does more good for him and gives him more comfort than any dose of medicine that he takes. He even begins to look to Gerasim as a friend, not a friend like the phonies he used to play bridge with, but an actual, honest companion.
It is worth noting that Gerasim himself is a mere peasant, therefore not in the social class to which Illych worked so hard to ascend. Perhaps if Illych had merely allowed himself and his wife and his family to live out their days as happy peasants, and not always worked so hard to advance his position in life, he might have had a happier life. He might have found more companions in life who made him truly happy, or led a life that he could look back upon and remember fondly, rather than miserably. Unfortunately though, Illych passes away as an unhappy, lonely, middle-class man.
(WC 496)
2 comments:
Ally--A very nice, thoughtful essay on Gerasim's role, filled with good insights into the power Tolstoy endows him with, the power to comfort a dying man. The only thing i can possibly thing of to add is that I think the reason Gerasim can do what no on else can is that he's not frightened. All the others, coming into the presence of death, react like Peter did in the first chapter: they are horrified by the possibility that what is happening to Ivan could, in fact, happen to him. That thought is inadmissible, and so therefore is any true compassion for the dying man. Gerasim, on the other hand, does not fear death. He knows it will happen to him and hopes that when it does, someone will give him the comfort he now gives Ivan.
Well done!
Hey Ally. I felt the same way about Gerasim. What Ivan Illych wanted most was to be comforted and acknowledged--two acts that Gerasim provided.
I really like this line "This small dose of actual concern that Gerasim begrudges Illych does more good for him and gives him more comfort than any dose of medicine that he takes."
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