The Death of Ivan Ilyich

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is an 1866 novella by Leo Tolstoy describing the death of a fictional judge named Ivan Ilyich.

Summary
The novella begins with a narrative frame after the death of Ilyich. Several of his colleagues are in attendance at his funeral and reflect on his death, expressing both relief and terror that it could have easily been any of them lying there dead instead of Ilyich. Ilyich's wife talks to some of them in order to try to convince them to increase the compensation she receives. The narrative then shifts to the chronology of Ilyich's life. He was very successful at climbing the social ladder by performing the duties ascribed to him by society. He becomes a judge and makes more money, but is not wealthy. Nevertheless, he constructs a façade  of wealth. In the process of decorating his living room with decorations that give the appearance of wealth, he falls and hits his side. His pain begins to increase and he finds out from a doctor that his condition is terminal. He grows increasingly frustrated at his family's attempts to minimize the severity of his malady and finds solace in his manservant Gerasim, who understands and pities him. Ilyich cannot understand why he is being forced to suffer this pain, as he has lived "as [he] ought". As he comes closer to death, he suddenly reaches out and touches his son's head and pities him, realizing that he has not led a good life because his life was founded on artifice and selfishness. He comes to terms with his morality in the last moments, ceasing to fear death and hoping that his death will deliver his family from their troubles. In his last moments, death itself is no more.

The Moral of the Story
This novella is deeply concerned with leading a right life. For Tolstoy, leading a right life means living with an acknowledgement of one's own mortality and accepting death as a part of life. Ilyich's revelation in the last moments of his life allows him to see the error of his course of action. His dictum on his deathbed of "Why speak, I must act" points to the central moral imperative of the book: action. A right life is based on acting on one's moral principles (the same moral principles that he had abandoned earlier in his life due to societal pressures and then rediscovered on his deathbed). Interestingly, the action that he undertakes first (and last) is to die and, through this, to deliver his family from their suffering. Thus, death is no longer something to be feared, but in fact a moral necessity for Ilyich in his situation. Living with an acknowledgement of one's own mortality and acting on personal moral principles instead of those dictated by the demands of society are then the central moral imperative of the book.