The path of life is bestowed variously to us. Between a wide gap of morality and immorality, poverty and wealth, people are born with different realities to be able to live the kind of life one has to either accept or endure. No matter how different the lives of each individual are, the question lies on how to live the ideal of life. The ‘ideal life’ encompassed a broad perspective which presents different answers as well, for people have conflicting ideas no categorizing the ideal life.As a person lives to take his or her own life path, answers to this question may arrive in the middle of struggles, at the start of a certain change, or at the nearing end of one’s life.
One classical work of literature presents the perspective on living the right kind of life. The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy provides two different viewpoints pertaining to life’s ideals; in the personification of the main protagonist Ivan Ilych who has been living the kind of life whom he thought was right. Throughout the course of the novel, Ivan – in one way or another – engaged in a never-ending conquest of questioning what was right.Tolstoy revolved these viewpoints around the characters involved with Ivan. One of the notable characters which ignited the development in Ivan’s perspective regarding his view of life was Gerasim.
Coming from two different life path, it will be discussed how the life of Gerasim has been portrayed the ideal life than Ivan’s. Prior to the discussion, it is essential to take into consideration the differences between Ivan and Gerasim for this will lead to determine factors why Gerasim’s life has been more ideal than Ivan’s.Ivan Ilych has been portrayed as a man who was successful in his career as a judge of the Court of Justice. The journey in attaining his career achievement has been described likening to a step by step plan. To finish all levels of the academe, to be sociable, and to adhere to the rules of his occupation have been the life of Ivan where “all enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him; he succumbed to sensuality, to vanity, and latterly among the highest classes to liberalism, but always within limits which his instinct unfailingly indicated to him as correct” (Tolstoy, 1886, p. 10).
Ivan was too focused in flourishing his worldly career and social circle which made him disregard other aspect of life’s realities. He became too detached with his personal interactions, with life’s experiences which supposedly should fulfill his emotional and spiritual needs. Because despite of all the success Ivan achieved from his career, his fear of death showed his dissatisfaction with his life’s lack of achievement. On the other hand, there was Gerasim.
He was the contrast of Ivan’s life that encompassed the positive youthfulness whose earnestly comforted Ivan through the remained of his sick life. Gerasim was the son of the butler, who - despite being a peasant - has been described as a freshly occurred sunlight penetrating Ivan’s hospital room. Tolstoy’s detailed account on Gerasim’s clean peasant clothes and pleasant smell likened him as an honest, optimistic young man who understood the emotional turmoil Ivan was feeling in the middle of his sickness.The moment Ivan got sick; he felt the need for someone’s care which he did not receive from his friends or family since they chose to lie about Ivan’s nearing death. The ideal life which Gerasim embodied is the kind of life which connects to the people and everything which surrounds him.
That personal connection which Gerasim establish with ease and sincerity helped Ivan to realize that all this time, his life revolved into a world of superficial interactions and materialistic endeavors.Gerasim acknowledged the fact that death will soon fetch Ivan and allotted his time to take care of his sick master, removing the lonely feeling of isolation and the anger of deception that Ivan felt. The ideal life is how well an individual attached himself to others without the purpose of ambitions or socialization. For life does not end with the achievement of mental and physical satisfaction, the emotional and spiritual needs should serve life’s purpose as well and these two are attainable by an individual’s love and empathy to others – the right kind of life worth living and dying for.
