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The Function of Painin Tolstoy'sThe Death of lvan ll'ich

David Danaher

University of Wisconsin, Madison

His pairL that dull gnawing ache that never ceaieafor a moment [...], acquired a nrew and moreserious significance [...]* (85; 143)'

ln Tolstoy's short novel The Death of lvan ll'ich,lvan undergoes agonizing pain in the monthsbefore his death. The gnawing pairL the presumedresult of a fall while hanging curtains, comes tointerfere with every aspect of his life. For threedays immediately preceding his demise, hescreams without stopping. By the end ofthe story,Ivan's pain has become not onlythe central fact ofhis existence, butalso ostensiblythe vehicle ofhissalvation.

What is the function of pain in the narrative?This is an especially important question since thenecessity of Ivan's suffering and its role in hisspiritual resurrection have been called into ques-tion by some readers. Edward Wasiolek haspointed out that some critics of the story findIvan's spiritual hansformation "by way of greatphysical and moral suffering" artistically'tlum-sy'' and *arbitrary" (1961, 314). In this view,Ivan's unbearable pain seems "unrealisticallydisproportionate to the probabilities of his char-actef (314). Ivan's sudden death bed conversion,when the pain ceases to have meaning for him,"has struck some readers as incredible or artisti-cally u4justified'(Jahn 1993, 30).

In this paper I will systematically and formal-ly examine the role of pain in the story.' I willspecifically address its intimate connection tothecluster of figurative motifs which form the artisticbackbone of the story and its symbolic value asthe logical representation of Ivan's life. In so do-ing, I will not only demonstrate that the pain

serves a central artistic purpose, but also suggesthow an examination of its role provides someinsight into Tolstoy's understanding ofa meaning-ful life.

I do not intend to introduce a radically newinterpretation of the story's meaning. This wouldnot be an easy task since, as Jahn, among others,has pointed ou! "there are, in fact, few storieswhose intended meaning is so abundantly clear"(1982, 237.3I offer instead a furtherexplorationof the coherence of different elements in the texton a formal level- "The novel lends itselfmagnifi-cently t . . . 1 to a'formalist' or close linguisticanalysis, for Tolstoy's art is rich in calculatedI inguistic effects" (Wasiolek I 978, I 70). Surpris-ingly, few systematic studies ofthis kind exisq atthe very least the story's potential in this regardhas not been fully exploited.

In Jahn's words, "the text of the novel con-tains within it a number of subtexts [motifs orthemes], which both complement and competewith what is reported on the surface level" (1993,B-7q: These motifs include, but are most cer-tainly not limited to, the following: the journeymotif (Salys); the motif of enclosure or delimita-tion (Jahn 1983 and 1993); fie theme of ambigu-ous foreign phrases (Salys); the light/dark figura-tive motif (Danaher); and thematic repetitions ofkey words and their derivatives, for instance,priiatnyi_(pleasant) and prilichnyi (decoroiri)(Turner).) The motifs in the story cross-referenceeach other, creating a complex network of figura-tive associations. The light and dark figurativemotif, for examplq intertwines with the journeymotif (*he was [. . .J athacted to people of highstation [suel] as a fly is drawn to the light [sver]"[69; 130]); with the theme of enclosure or delimi-tation ("black bordet'' [6]; 123], the screenswhich block outthe gleaming embodimentofthepain [94; l5lJ, andthe blackbag [105; l60D; andwith the motif of ambiguous foreign expressions(in the name *Shwarz," meaning "black in Ger-man, and in the expression "le ph6nix de lafamille" [69; 130D. The motifs not only interactwith each other, but also "interact with the text torqilize [. . .] the transformation ofdeath into life forwhich the novel is remarkable" (JaInl993,77).

To understand the function oflvan's sufferingin the story, one must look at how his pain isrepresented in its principal figurative motifs. Even

DavidDanaher The Function of Pain in Tt 3The Death of han lllrJr I 2l

a superficial examination of these representationsdoes in fact shed some light on the artistic signifi-cance of Ivan's sufferings.

The double meanings inherent in two foreignexpressions alert the reader to the importance ofthe pain in lvan's life. The inscription on lvan,swatch, respice Jinen or 'look to the end, (70;130), emphasizes Ivan's slow, agonizing deathover his comfonable, decorous life. Similarly,fvan's designation as "le phdnix de la famille"(69; 130), poorly translated for Russian readers ofthe collected works as "gordost' sem,i. (69; 130),forecasts his painful death and rebirth in a merg-ing with light- The foreign expressions suggestthat extreme suffering is to be Ivan's destiny.

In the journey moti{ the centrality of suffer-ing in lvan's life is pushed one step further: hisillness with its pain is explicitly compared to hislife. The progression of his illness is described inthe same terms as the progression of his life. Atone point Ivan refers to his life this way: ,.It is asifl had been going downhillfshel pod goruf whileI imagined I was going up" (l0Z; 16l). Thisphrasing is immediately echoed in a description ofhis physical eondition: 'lvith what regularity hehad been going downhill lshel pod gorul- (l0B;162'). At another point the text unequivocallyassociates Ivan's illness with his life: ...Just as thepain fmucheniia] went on getting worse andworse, so my life grew-worse and worse,' hethought'' (108-109; 163),6

At the same time lvan's pain is also heated, inthe motif of delimitation or enctosure, as thatwhich he is desperately struggling against Ivantries to screen offthe pa!n, as he had successfullyscreened offa seriedofother unpleasantries in hislife. His attempts, however, fail; personified in thepronoun it, the pain shines through alt the screens:"nothing could veil If' (94;150). His strugglesthen come to be embodied in the image of con-finement in a narrow black bag. The representa-tion of pain as a source of enclosure or confine-mentis undoneonlymoments before Ivan mergeswith the light at the end of the black bag: ..Sud-denly it was all dropping away at once from twosides, from ten sides, from all sides"* (ll3;167;Jahn 1993,39). With the addition of the evidence

from ttre motif of enclosure, a triple carespodenceis established: Ivan's pain equals lvan's life nfrft* isexactly what he ends up sbuggling against

For lvan, the pain represents the most tenrcious unpleasantness (nepriiatnost) he has everexperienced. It is thus associated with the wiid-nyi/prilichnyi (pleasant/decorous) motif] Thepain, moreover, is present in the lighUdark figura-tive motif from its trivial inception as a dark (andtherefore, negative) image: "only a bruise [sir-r'ak]" (80; 138).'Its effects are also consistentlydescribed in terms of dark imagery

The motif represented by the word clusterspriianyi (pfeasanQ and priliclmyi (decorous) andtheir cognds and derivatives wenhrally merg6witr the theme sf deceit and^untnrttr (.lrilichnaialoztr' [a decorous lie]' [l04D.e A dramatic reversaloccurs, and for Ivan pleamntress and rmnuft be.corne one. The niost significant unpleasantness andthe only one to cause lvan real harr4 the paia isatrected by this: the parn becomes symbolic offuth(pravdo). What was once plersant (his comfortablelife) comes to be seen as a lie, and what watr onceunpleasant (the pain, a dark image) ultimatetyinspires lvan's spiritual transformation, pain as tnrthis qymbolizrd viathe light and dq$ figurative rnotiqin the striningpasonification it'u The pain gleamsand flashes ie persistent message to its reluchntaddressee: '?wouldflash through the screens and hewould s€ if'* (95; l5l). The screens..did not somuch fall to pieces as hame transparen! as if.Ircould pene&ale anything"* (9a; I 5l).

What then do the embedded figurative motifstell the reader about the function of lvan's suffer-ing in the story? Ivan clearly is destined for bothpain and death. The pain, moreover, is intimatelyrelated to his life; his struggle against the paintherefore becomes a struggle against it. The painis also connected with falsity and untruth (lozh).At the same time, it has a positive aspect As thelight/dark figurative motif shows, it becomes anembodimentofthe true lighf From a dark bruiseto a bldzing light that nothing can block ouf thepain develops from a mere unpleasantness to anexternal representation ofthe truth. pain is simul-taneously lvan's cruel destiny and his means ofsalvation.

22 / Tolsroy Studies Journal

In his life, Ivan has systematically alienatedhim-self from others- He screens out unplquant_ness, he attempts to wall himself off (;ogradit'sebia" f74; l34l,"vygorodit, sebe mir', 174 l34l),and in his judicial work he is a master of the"priem otstraneniia" (72; l3Z) which allows himto deal only with the superficial, formal elementsof each case. Ivan's symbolic confinement in thenarow black bag figurativety embodies thisalienation. The black bag is his life, pushed to itslogical extreme-

Ivan's pain exacerbates his alienation. Jahnnotes: *As his sufferings increase he withdrawsmore and more from the life ofthose around him',(1993, 3 8). Elaine Scarry, author of a study of thepsychological effects of pain, has wriuen aptly:"[]n serious pain the claims of the body ufterlynulliff the claims of the world', (33). Tolstoykfictive world reflects this. pain poi*n,

"u"ryaspect of lvan's life: he makes mistakes in courghe loses concentration while playingcards, and aihome he is looked upon as a nuisance. His suffer_ingcompletely isolates him, his field ofmovementgraduallycontracts until he ends up lyingalone onthe sofa in his study (Jahn 1993, Zg_SOl.

In this way, Ivan's pairq like the image oftheblack bag represents a logical extension of hislife. Wasiolek has written that *ever5rttring thathappens inThe Death of lvan ll,ichhappens withthe necessity of a formal syllogism- (fiOt, tSt).Ivan suffers because the effect ofthe pain_<om-plete alienation-is an extreme form of how heliyed his life. His agonyphysicalty represents hislife reduced to its unforhrnate essence.

The alienating role of the pain comes out inano'ther motif in which the pain comes to beintimately associated with hatred (nenavist) andanger or spite (zloba). This motif vividly illus_trates the story's moral that compassion and pity(zhalost) forolhers, the direct opposites of isola_tion and alienation, are fundamental to spirituathealth.

-At several junctures the text refers ominouslyto the connection between fvan's illness and hisIack of compassion for other people. Strugglingwith the first stage ofhis illness, Ivan.basangryat the misfortune, oi at the people who were

causing him unpleasantness and killing him, andhe felt that this anger was killing him',* (86; ltr,4).It is anger or malice toward others that is theimplied source of his fatal sickness. Similarly:"this embitterment fozloblenie] with circum-stances and people aggravated his illness',* (g6;144). I-ater the text reads: ..anger [zloba] wassuffocating him-* (91; 148), which implies aconnection to the motif of enclosure and thesuffocating narrowness of the black bag. Even onthe brinkofspiritual rebirth, Ivan lets himselfhateand suffers because of ic '.As soon as he admittedthat though! his hahed fnenavkt,l increased and,along with the hatred, agonizing physical suffer-ingfmuchitel'nye stradaniiaf,,+ (l I l; 165).

Before his spiritual transformation, Ivan ismotivated only by self-pity, and, despite his owncomplete lack of compassion, he hates otherpeople who are either unable or unwilling to pityhim. After his fint visit to a doctor, Ivan con_cludes that it looks bad for him and that the doctoris indifferent this conclusion struck Ivan pain-fully, arousing in him a feeling of prty fzhalost,lfor himself and angry bitterness lzlobal towardthe indifferent doctof'* (Sa 14Z)- Ivan will notpity the doctor for his coldness despite the fact hehimselfbehaved like the doctortoward defendantsin court. Praskov'ia Fedorovna also ilities herselfand hates others: "Having come to the conclusionthat her husband had a dreadful character andmade her life miserable, she began to prty herselffzhalet' sebiaJ; the more she pitied herself, themore she hated her husband.* (83; l4l). Self-pityis an index of spite or hatred for others whicli, inturn, is a direct source of Ivan's pain.

Because ofhis selfishness, Ivan cannot engagein healthy relationships with other people. Heresponds to kindness with spite: ..This unusual\rkind fook embittered him fozlobilo egof,,* (90;147). He responds to his wife's touch with hatred,which explicitly makes him suffer: ..Her touchmade him suffer from a surge of hatred towardhet''* ( I 02; I 57). Ivan even responds to inanimateobjects, such as his night stan d (tumbochka),withspite: "it was in his way and.it hurt hinq he grewfurious with if' (92; l4S).tr Hatred and spitecontrol and poison his life and consequently make

t i iiitIlt l

David Danaher

him suffer.Ivan's sickness at first only increases his

spitefulness, isolating him further from others.Only when he is completely alienated from others,does he discover how difficult it is to be alone:*it's hard for me alone" (96; 152),12 "Ivan il'ichdreaded being left alone" (100; 155), "he wept onaccount of [. . .] his terrible loneliness" (105;160). He discovers also thatthe cure forlonelinessis treating others as he himselfwants to be treated,that is, compassionately.

Pity (zhalosr) is the antidote to the pain.Ivan's pain eases when Gerasim is with himbecause Gerasim pities him: "Only Gerasimrecognized lvan's position an d pitiedfzhalenhim.And so lvan ['ich felt at ease only with him"*(98; l5a). His son, too, feels true cornpassion forhis father: "Itseemed to Ivan ll'ich thatVasiawasthe only one besides Gerasim who understood andpitied [zhalell him" (104; 159). Precisely at themoment when his son kisses his hand,Ivan fallsthrough the black bag and sees the light "Then hefelt that someone was kissing his hand. He openedhis eyes, looked at his son, and felt sorry for lstalozhalkolhim. Hiswifecameuptohim [.: J Hefeltsorry for fstalo zhallal her, too" (l l2-l 13;166).Lack of pity and the presence of pain are one andthe same thing: "He felt sorry for fzhalkolthem;he must act so they won't be hurf'* (l 13; 167),

Ivan's habit of screening or walling himselfoff from the 'unpleasantness" of other peoplefinds its e)$reme form in his illness and in thesuffering which accompanies it. He finds anantidote to the pain and a solution to a life wrong-ly lived only in understanding the necessity forcompassion and pity.t3

What else besides the necessity of pity andcom-passion does Ivan discover about life in hisalienation and agony? As with all Tolstoyan spiri-tual heroes, Ivan uncovers the falseness ofsocialrelations and artificiality of social conventions.laBefore his transformation, Ivan was a character"blind to life" who "acquire[d] manners fromsociety in order to turn away from the reality ofhis natural self' (Smith 224-25). During hisspiritual transformation, he returns to his child-

The Function of Pain in Tt 3The Deadr of lvan ll'ich | 23

hood as the one source of true light in his life, atime before the comrpting influence of highsociety on his behaviour. In short, he turns awayfrom the "artificial" and returns to the "natural."'tHis struggle with the pain forces Ivan to "sim-plify" his view ofthe world by relearningtrust forhis instincts.

Ivan's salutary retum to the "natural"throughthe coercive medium of physical sufFering isfleshed out in a motif which I will call the themeof the five senses. The text quite openly detailsIvan's coming to terms with his pain through thenatural language ofthe senses.

Forms of the verb videt' (to see) and theadverb ochevidtto (evidently) constantly recurthroughout the story.l6 lvan clearly learns todistinguish the artificial from the natural by sightWhen lvan's brother-in-lawvisits, he commentstoPraskov'ia Fedorovna: 'o'Don't you see it? Why,he's a dead man! Look at his eyes-there's nofight i; them" (59;147).Ivan wonders; "Isn't itevident fochevidnoJto everyone but me that I'mdying?"* (9 I ; I 48). Ivan's progress in understand-ing his sickness is often described in terms of hissense of sighf *That look [vzgliadl told IvanIl'ich everything"* (89; 146), "Ivan ll'ich sawthathe was dyingr (y2; 1,49). Looking at his wife,daughter, and a doctor at one poinl Ivan "sees"the truth: "In them he saw himself-all that forwhich he had lived-and saw clearly that it wasnot real at all, but a terrible and huge deception"(ll0; 164). "Seeingl' becomes the opposite ofhiding of screening off reality and the tnrth:"OnlyGerasim did not lie; by everythinghe did itwas clear fvidno bylolthat he alone understoodthe facts ofthe case and did not consider it neces-sary to hide fslryvatJ them"* (98; 154). Ivan!'sees" the light at the end of the black bag (l 12;166). One possible cause of lvan's illness is a*blind guf'('slepaia kishka" [91]). The Russianslepoi, as the English blind, has a connotation ofinability to understand the truth or see reason(slepaia' liubov' [blind love] or politicheskaiaslepota [blind to politics]). The implication isthatblindness (slepota) is precisely what lvan mustoveroome. He must regain his sight to be able tosee the truth.

7 24 / Tolstoy Stqdies Journal Vol. X: 1998

The subtheme of "seeing" as truth culminatesin the personification of the pain as i/. The pri-mary function of rr is to be looked at:"ft drew hisattention to itself [. - .] only so that he should lookat Il, look it straight in the €/e5"* (941' 150). Italso looks back at lvan: '?was distinctly lookingfgliadel] at him from behind the flowers"* (95il5l). Ivan journeys.to self-knowledge in part byregaining his sight.l? Pain makes him see throughthe artificial and recognize the natural elements inhis life.

Ivan also spends a good deal of time "listen-ing" for the truth. He listens to his pain (85;143),'" and to his brother-in-law's assessment ofhis condition (89; 146)- He listens to the medi-cing full of false hope that it will cure him: *Heremembered his medicine, got it took i! and laydown on his back, listening ftrislushtvain'l forthe beneficient action of the medicine-* (90-l;I 47). Immediately before merging with the light atthe end ofthe black bag Ivan listens for the truth:"[Ff]e grew still, listening" (112;166).

It is important to note that the pain is de-soibed explicitly in terms of sound. It is neverquief 'the gnawing, agonizing pain, never silentlne utiLhaiushchaia] for even an instanf'* (99;155).rv tt is a dull or deafening pain ("glukhaiabol"' [85J). The Russian term glukhaia bol'translates as "dull pain," but glul&oi has an addi-tional sense not captured by the English word"dull." Consider the pbrases glukhaia provintsiia(god-forsaken provinces), lesnaia glush' (thedepths ofthe forest), and,v glushi (in the back,water, in a remote place). In these expressionsglukhoi implies a lack of truth and clarity, a senseof being at a dead end or being lost As with theword, slepoi (blind), the use of the word gluHroi(dull, deaf) in regard to the pain is particularly aptin its implication that Ivan must find a way out ofthe spiritual backwater (v glushi) by overcominghis deaftess (glukhota)to the truth.zu

The pain is also related, although less perva-sively, to the senses ofsmell and taste. It is associ-ated with foul odours: "The pain in his side stilloppressed him, [i]t seemed to him that his breathhad a disgusting smell"* (87; 144). When lvanmust be helped by Gerasim to go to the bathroom,

he experiences "torment fmucheniial from theuncleanliness, the unseemliness, and the smell"(95; 152). It is significant that Gerasim himselfdoes not mind the foul smell and that Ivan notices"the pleasant smell of tar" from Gerasim's bootsand'the fresh winter aif' (96;152) which Gera-sim brings with him.

Another index ofthe pain is a strange taste inIvan's mouth: "a queer taste in his mouth" (82;l4l) and'the same familiarloathsome taste in hismouth" (9 I ; I a8). How things taste to lvan even-tually seems to become.an index oftheir goodnessor naturalness. The blandness of the special foodprescribed bythe doctors undermines its curativepowen "Special foods were prepared for him onthe doctors' orders, but all those foods becameincreasingly distastefu I fb enkusneeland disgust-ing to him" (95; 152). More-over, the medicinewhich the doctors prescribe is also understood tobe inefficacious by its 'familiar sick$-sweet[pritornyf]hopeless taste"t ( 1 00; t 55).21

Of all the senses, it is touch which sparksIvan's discovery of the truth. Before learning thevalue of cornpassion, lvan screens off physical(not to mention emotional) contact with others-Touch is painful to him. Talking to his familyabdut the bruise on his side, Ivan says eerily:"'Kogda tronesh'-bol'no"l (30).22 6erasim'stouch gives Ivan real alleviation of the pain:*Again lvan ll'ich felt better when Gerasim heldhis legs" (97; 157); *Strange to say it seemed thathefeltbetterwhileGerasim held his legs up" (97;153):3 Furthennore, as we have already seen,lvan merges with the light at the end of the blackbag precisely at the moment when his son kisseshis hand (ll2;166). Ivan's rediscovery oftouchand its relation to compassion is therefore alandmark on his journey to seltknowledge.

In short pain seems to sharpen orheighten allof lvan's senses. In this way, dying an agonizingdeath(smert ) returns Ivan tolife(zhimJ. Priortothe introduction ofpain into lvan's world, his lifeis described in distinctly non-sensual terms.2aBland and monotonous, itis a false life or a death-in-life. However, as Ivan begins to suffer, sensualimagery floods into the narrative. In dying thetext informs us, lvan (re)discovers life. The pain

i

7i

i,i

The Fundion of Pain in 3The Death of lvan ll'ich | 25

impels him to tum awaY the "artificial"social conventions and to turn back to this own"natural" instincts. A sensory image of grotesquedimensions, the pain restores his ability to see andhear, to smell and taste, and, above all, to fee[.

We are now in a position to return to ouroriginal question: what exactly is the function ofpain in Tolstoy's story? In examining the repre-sentations of pain we have first of all seen thatseemingly insignificant details are the interpretivelocus of the text. Word associations in the net-work of embedded motifs hold the key to themeaning of the story- Prosaic words-seeinghearing anger, pity, deaf, blind, life, and death-are "estranged" and impregnated with meaning inthe context of the narrative. [n Jackson's words:"As with Pushkin, one feature of Tolstoy's phe-nomenal genius is his capacityto investoutwardly'simple' prose with all the inner complexity andprotean character of a poem" Ql, n- 7).

In this process of creating meaning out ofthemundane, pain is a central element which disman-tles lvan's comfortable world. The brute reality ofhis illness rips himfrom his familiarsurroundings,eliminates his stake in social conventions, andforces him to seek a new perspective from whichto understand his life. His world is "defamiliar-ized'or *estranged" by the pain: his agony turnshis pleasant and decorous life into somethingunpleasant and false, something to be struggledagainst At the same time, under the influence ofthe pain, Ivan gradually learns to "s€e" thingsrather than merely recognize them.^ By com-pletely alienating Ivan from society, the paincreates the conditions for his realization that hehas lived his life wrongly.

The centrality of Ivan's suffering emergesfrom the series ofreversals which formthe artisticskeleton of the story.26 His suffering motivatesthese reversals. As his torment increases, Ivan'sviews on his own life change radically: his oncepleasant @riianoia/priiatnost) life becomesovertly unpleasant (nepriiatnaia /nepriiatnost ).His trust in social institutions as em-bodiments ofthe truth (pravda) gradually disappears, and heeventually concludes that society is a locus of

deceit and falsehood (lozh ).At the same time, thepain he undergoes transforms his spite (zloba) arLdhatred (nenavist) into love (liubov) and pity(zhalost) for others. Moreover, the sensory insis-tence of physical suffering takes him from a blanddeath-in-life (smert) to a life (zhim) guideddirectly by faith in his own instincts.

I would contend that all these reversals explic-itly come together in the gleaming personifi cationIt (ona, ee).The clear antecedent of-Il is the pain(bol): "But suddenly [. . .] the pain [Dol] in hisside [. . .] wouldtegin its lsvoel own gnawingwork"* (94;150')."' In the critical literahre on thestory, -Ir has been identified with pain (bol),life(zhim), and death (smert), all of which aregrammatically feminine in Russian (see, forexample, Comstock and Gutsche). Surprising as itmay be, .Ir seems to have been underanalyzed. Thecharacterization of pain in the cluster of motifssuggests that the feminine pronoun simultaneouslyrepresents pleasantness Qtriiatnast ) and unpleas-antness (nepriianosr), truth @rnda) and false-ho od (l o z h ), hatr ed (n en av i s t ) and lov e (l iub ov ),as well as life and death. Tolstoy exploits thegrammatical sbucture of Russian to drive homehis point that the pain is the key to the reversals.The pain liberates Ivan from the deadening conse-quences of a formulaic life and is the focal pointof his transformation from death to spiritualrebirth.

Tolstoy suggests by this that meaningfulspiritual growth cannot take place without dis-comfort. Two kinds of growth could be identifiedin the story: mechanical, additive growth, notmeaningful in a spiritual sense, and integrative,systemic growth, which is spiritually meaningful.Before his illness, Ivan is obsessed with the firstkind of growth: he wants a bigger salary, anostentatious home, a more influential job. Thismechanical accumulation leads to a spiritual deadend or death-inlife,

After his fall from the ladder,Ivan begins toexperience pain. His illness progresses and in-trudes upon his life. He is forced to re-examine hispast and finds it spiritually lacking. The pain isthus a necessary catalyst for his rediscovery ofspiritual life. Growth of this type is intrusive in

from

26 | Tolstay Surdies Journal Vol. X: t998

that a new element is introduced into an existentsystem of relations and forces a readjustment ofthose relations. It is growth from the inside outwhich brings about a fundamental change in wholvan is. The representations of pain in the varioussubtexts clearly reinforce this interpretation.

ln other words, Ivan's suffering both kills andresurrects him. His illness is both the source of hisphysical death and the stimulus for his spiritualrebirth. Whereas North American students of thetext may be quick to associate suffering withpunishment Ivan Il'ich discovers that pain is. acatalyst for self-knowledge and spiritual renewal.I would suggest that this "other, more seriousmeaningl (85; la3) of pain in the text makeslvan's sufferingapivotal element in any consider-ation of the story's artistic value.28

Notes

l. Citations from the story will appear in translationin the body ofthe paper and are referenced to both theoriginal Russian text and the translation (see Workcited)-The frst number refers to the original version.An asterisk (*) indicates that the translation has beenslightly altered to bring out the particularities of theoriginal Russian which are at issue in this analysis.

2. The theme of lvan's pain is, of course, not a newone in the criticism on the story. However, to myknowledge, a systematic treatrnent ofthe theme has notyet been undertaken-

3- For a recent attempt at a new interpretation, seeShepherd.

4. The term 'subtext' conventionally refers to tlreembedding in a text of allusions to other literary orcultural texts and in this context has a peculiar ring toit Jahn is using the word in its more general sense asthe implicit metaphorical meaning of a texl What hehas in mind here is the cluster of figurative motifs orthemes, the collective significance of which runscounter to the development of the bare plot (the .text')-The themesthemselves are obviously contained withinthe fabric of the text, which is another reason why theterm 'subtext' seems inappropriate. In this paper, thewords 'theme' and 'motif will be used in place of'subtexg' although reference is intended to the samephenomenon.

5. The shortening of the chapters as the story pro.gresses might be considered a structural subtext inJahn's sense of the term (Jahn I 982 and I 993); anotherstructural subtext is the placement of lvan's funeral inthe first chapter, which seems to violate a narrativeconvention for artistic ends (seq most recently, Soko-loski). There is also at least one intertextual subtextwhich connects The Death of lvan ll'ichwithConfes-stbn (see Matual). For an examination of the religiousmotif in the story, see Gutsche and Jahn 1993, and foran interesting discussion ofsubtexts involving soundsand word play, see Jackson. Some further motifs in thestory which have not been systematically documentedelsewhere will be examined here.

6. The same idea is contained in the phrase: "Life, aseries ofincreasing suffering5 fstradaniial, flies fasterand faster towards its end"* (109).

7- Gutsche's worft suggests that this motif might beexpanded to include the multitude of words in the storywith the clusterpr- (90). Gutsche specifically pointsout the frequency of verbs with the prefixpra.in thesection of the story immediately before lvan's death(82). I would add the following words, all of whichcontribute to an understanding of the story whendirectly related to this and other motifs: Praskav'io-Pravovedenie (Ivan's ministy and an ironic referenceto his own oincorrecf'behaviour in life), napravlenie,pravda, andpritornyi (the sickly-sweet taste which thepain causes in lvan's mouth). The network of associa-tions in the text via the cluster of figurative motifs, isquite expansive.

8- The Russian word siniak (from sml) explicitlyrefers to a dark (dark-blue) discoloration. Danaherdiscusses the relationship between darkness andnegativity.

9. The tanslation here reads'conventional deception" (159), which entirely misses the connection. Onthe relationship of the motifs of pleasantness anddeceit see Turner (l l9).

10. For a discussion ofthe pronoun 17 from aperspec-tive complementary to the one presented here' seeParth6-

I l. He is also able to "feel sorry fot''money (*pozhal-et' deneg" [92; |49l without being capable of feelingsorry for his family and colleagues.

12. *Mne tiazhelo odnomu" (96). Here thd ranslation

interprets: "It's hard for me to get up" (152)-

I 3. Edgerton has written tha! in Tolstoy's philosophy,"we find our own spiritual salvation only by losingourselves in active love for others" (299), which isexactly lvan's discovery. For a discussion of zhalost'(or, more exactly, the phonetic and spiritual joumeyfromwhas to zhalka), see Jackson-

14. Silbajoris notes that, for Tolstoy, "[s]ociety is aconstuct of artificeg and enculturation consists ofleaming to perceive these artifices as things natural tohumanff(150).

15. For a provocative discussion of the tension be-tween the "artificial'and thel'natural" in Tolstoy froma semiotic perspective, see Pomorska- On Tolstoyan"naturalness" and its connection to Rousseau, see theessay by Berlin-

16. The Russianwordochevidno is considerably moresemSntically transparentthan its English counterpart Itcould literalty be translated as "that which is seenlvidrcl by the eYes foc hfl -"

I ?. Gustafsonhas concludedthe followin gabout AnnaKarenira: '.A change in the way of seeing the worldresults in a change in the way of being in the world"(143). The same is true for The Death of lvan ll'ich-

18- The translation renders the original Russian"prislushivalsia k boli- (85) as "he watched the pain"(143).

19. The given translation of ne uti&taiushchaia bol' is'hever ceasing pain" (155).

20. This line of thought could be pushed further byconsidering the various senses of the Russian roots/z&&-. The root has the general meaning of"listening"and, as noted above, this occurs in the text quitefrequently. Consider, however, the verb s/rzsfral 'sia,\o

obey.'As with slepoi and glukhoi there is a conmstbetween lvan's behaviour in life-his blindness anddeafiress to the truth as well as this obedience (slukh-)to a spiritually bankrupt social cods-and his death-bedrevelation about the need to struggle against blindobedience !o social norms. This "estrangement''oflinguistic sigrs is a centrepiece of the text which leadsJahn to posit the following principle: "[V]ery often itseems most appropriate to read what are evidentlyfigures ofspeech as though they had a direct, literalsigrificance and, conveisely, to read what is apparently

simple and direct as a metaphof (1993,73:74)'

21. The translation has only "sickly'' (155) for theRussian pritornyi. The use of this word calls to mindthe honey in Tolstoy's Confession which the mantrapped between two certain forms of death licks indesperation. This is a detail in the subtext relatingConfession and The Death of lvan //'lcft which is notpointed out in Matual-

22. The Russian phrase could be literally translated as"Whenyou touch me, ithurB."Thetranslation is muchless general: *It hurts when it's touched'(138)' This isjust one example of a whole plethora of double-edgedphrases in the story (see Jackson for many others)'These phrases have a literal meaning which is sug-gested immediately by the context in which they

"pp*, as well as an "absolutd'or symbolic meaning

with reference outside the irarrative itself in somecases (as in the present one) existing as a comment onthe narrative. As Morson has noted' absolute languageis a common feature of Tolstoy's writings- Thesedouble-edged phrases resemble the foreign expressionsin fie text which have been analyzed by Salys-

23. Note the contrast between Gerasim's raising Ivanup and lvan's *fall" from the ladder which presumablyprecipitated his illness.

24. Wasiolek has compared the description of lvan'sIife before the onset ofhis illness to a chronicle (1978,r6?tr).25. The distinction between'seeingl (videnie) md"recognition" (tznavanie\ was made by the Russianformalist Viktor Shklovslqy in the following terms:"The purpose of the image is not to draw our under-standing closer to that which this image stands for, butrather to allow us to perceive the object in a specialway, in shorf to lead us to a 'vision' of this objectrather than mere 'recognition"'(I0)- "Recogrition" isautomatic; "seeingl' de-automatizes perception-

26. Jahn 1993 provides a thorough account ofthe roleofreversal in the storY.

2?. The possessive pronoun "its" (svoe) is italicized inthe original Russian.

28. I am grateful to Michael Shapiro forhis commentson an earlier version ofthis paper. Thanks are also dueto IS./"s anonymous evaluators and Donna Orwin.

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