Category: Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is one of the questions that have attracted the attention of many philosophers as well as writers. Two different views on this issue are expressed by Richard Taylor and Susan Wolf.

According to Richard Taylor, a person can subjectively determine whether his/her life is meaningful. In this case, perceived enjoyment and satisfaction can be the main criteria that an individual should consider. In contrast, Susan Wolf disagrees with this statement and calls for a more objective interpretation of meaningfulness. So, it is necessary to compare and evaluate these approaches.

Richard Taylor believes that a certain activity can be called meaningful if a person finds it satisfying or engaging. Additionally, an individual should focus on his/her subjective experiences in order to evaluate the quality of his/her life. In order to illustrate this argument, the author refers to the famous myth of Sisyphus, who perpetually rolls a stone up the hill. To a great extent, this myth symbolizes meaningless and endless labor, which does not bring any results.

However, this interpretation can change dramatically if one assumes that Sisyphus finds this activity satisfying or desirable in any way (Taylor 323). Additionally, the author urges the readers to remember that in many cases, people’s lives can be compared to the labor of Sisyphus. For example, one can speak about people who designed and constructed ancient temples or palaces that eventually turned into ruins (Taylor 332). It is rather difficult to suppose that they perceived their lives as something meaningless.

More likely, they assumed that they created paragons of beauty, and the meaningfulness of their actions could hardly be questioned. In this way, the author wants to show that the source of meaning lies within the individual perception of a person. These are the main details that can be distinguished.

In turn, Susan Wolf adopts a different approach to this question. According to her, a person’s life can be called meaningful if he/she actively and successfully engages in projects that promote “positive values” (Wolf 8). In this context, the word “project” can be described as any goal-directed behavior (Wolf 8). In turn, the word

“positive” implies that a certain value is recognized and accepted by other people (Wolf 10). In other words, the activities of a person should bring certain benefits to other people.

Therefore, unlike Richard Taylor, Susan Wolf believes that one should look for a more objective evaluation of a person’s life. Additionally, according to her interpretation, meaningfulness does not necessarily imply that an individual is happy. Moreover, in many cases, his/her actions can be questioned from an ethical viewpoint. These are the main elements of her approach.

Overall, I tend to support Richard Taylor’s views on this issue. In my opinion, the meaningfulness of a person’s life should be based on subjective interpretation. At first, it is important to mention that in many cases, a person can suffer from frustration and depression provided that his/her behavior does not reach the accepted standards of success. This is one of the problems that originate from Susan Wolf’s approach. Admittedly, people should be engaged in activities that promote the welfare of other individuals.

In this way, a person can make his/her life much more fulfilling. Nevertheless, it is not permissible to set the standards of meaningfulness. The approach developed by Susan Wolf is based on the premise that a person can accurately estimate the effects of his/her actions. This task is critical for determining if a certain activity promotes positive values. However, sometimes, a person cannot easily do it. Furthermore, other people may fail to appreciate the value of a person’s work.

For example, the attempts to develop non-Euclidian geometry were deemed to be useless at the least at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, mathematicians engaged in such activities were often regarded as insane because very few people could see the implications of their work (Restivo 103). If they tried to follow the line of reasoning proposed by Susan Wolf, they would have come to the conclusion that their life and work had been meaningless.

However, later, it turned out that hyperbolic geometry could benefit various areas of science, especially physics. Apart from that, the approach adopted by Susan Wolf does not include such a notion as happiness, which seems to be critical for the meaningfulness of any life. This is another reason why Richard Taylor’s interpretation seems to be more plausible. Finally, such a notion as success is often subjective, and it is difficult to measure it.

On the whole, this discussion shows that there are different approaches to the questions about the meaning of life. It is more appropriate to consider the subjective interpretation of this issue because this approach helps a person discover happiness. Admittedly, other people may not agree with this subjective assessment.

However, this evaluation has to be accepted if a person’s activities do not adversely affect the lives of other individuals. In contrast, Susan Wolf’s approach implies that there are certain objective standards. However, there are many cases when these standards are not applicable. These are the main aspects that can be singled out.

Works Cited

Restivo, Sal. Red, Black, and Objective: Science, Sociology, and Anarchism, New York: Ashgate Publishin, 2011. Print.

Taylor, Richard. Good and Evil, New York: Prometheus Books, 2000. Print.

Wolf, Susan. “The Meaning of Lives.” Philosophy UMass. Web.

The idea of Will and the privilege of choice is the central topic for Schopenhauer. He thinks that an individual’s character is molded by a blend of genetic and environmental circumstances. For Schopenhauer, it is critical, because the surroundings in which an individual’s life outlines itself mainly by the way the individual looks at it. This point of viewpoints toward the fact that an individual’s character is the utmost factor in happiness.

This isn’t too far-off from several current findings in psychology indicating at a checkpoint for person’s happiness, apparent, for instance, in the fact that individuals who recover from devastating injuries or win the lotto both go back to their previous level of self-stated fulfillment throughout the interval of only several months. Schopenhauer believes that it is the individual who has the power to choose his or her attitude towards life situations, and he undoubtedly believes that there is always a choice for everyone (Schopenhauer and Taylor 371).

Will should relentlessly be considered the ultimate reality and the basis of all life including our own. This can be explained by the fact that we, humans, are in charge of anything that happens throughout the lifetime. The phenomenon of purposelessness, also known as meaninglessness, is one of the most debatable issues. Speaking of the purposelessness, the crucial component of this point of view is the emptiness within a person. On this issue, Schopenhauer’s opinion connects with Frankl’s. The individuals are the prisoners of the situations that Frankl has called the existential vacuum (Frankl 130).

It is rather interesting that the Mayans considered that our existence is only an illusion, where the reality is represented by our own Will. Such an assumption actually sounds reasonable if we reconsider the fact of our very existence and admit that an individual is only a container for the Will, which is the true representation of the human. This point of view eventually reflects the fact that one cannot comprehend the meaning of life away from the meaning of misery because misery is an unavoidable feature of an individual’s reality (Nietzsche and Fritzsche 210).

Being a carrier of the Will means to suffer on many levels, but that is the ultimate purpose of human life. Another point made by Schopenhauer is that the Will as the continuation of life with no higher or intelligent purpose is possible but seems pretty ignorant, as an individual always has the ultimate ability to choose where to go, what to do, and what to live for. Life’s meaninglessness is most probably the same for both human beings and different life forms.

For instance, we can take Mitch from “Tuesdays with Morrie” as a perfect example of an individual who got lost into materialistic stuff and led a meaningless life (Albom 18). In the end, all of Morrie’s lessons deliver an extensive message that each individual should throw away the values imposed by society and nurture his or her own values. The only difference (and, in fact, a significant one) between human beings and different life forms is in the fact that an individual is able to get out of the meaninglessness slump, while any other life forms are not.

In his work, Schopenhauer claims that the overcoming of death is the most important point of religion. It is an important statement, as you cannot make up for anything the existential void caused by the loss. In this case, Schopenhauer connects with Grey, who believes that there is a very high possibility that after death, one still will not be fully aware that the people he or she lost are not alive to any further extent (Grey 1).

This statement actually raises the question of whether there is immortality as the continuation of the life of the species and if it lies behind everything we do. It is important to understand that this theory is consistent with the definition and the purpose of Will, as an individual is the Will itself, not just a spiritual singularity locked up in a human body.

If we speak of the sexual love as of an example of the Will as the perpetuation of the species, it is critical to remember that the desire to continue the family line has been an unconscious expression of sympathy towards an individual from the ancient times. In most cases, we, as an intelligent race, should consider this expression to be based on an unconscious drive to continue life. On the other hand, Schopenhauer evidently hints at the key idea of his works, which proclaims that there is always the choice and, at long last, it is all about the individual’s Will and authority of choice. It is quite possible that we would not continue life if we were only driven by the unconscious sympathy towards one another, but the current situation in the world is quite opposite to what Schopenhauer proclaimed.

After carefully reexamining most of Schopenhauer’s statements, one may come to the conclusion that Schopenhauer was such a convinced pessimist that he believed we exist in the foulest of all probable worlds and contentment is a delusion. Schopenhauer might be pointing out what is true, but he does it in such a strict manner that he leaves the reader nothing but puzzled by his cynical view of the world we are living in. For him, there is no escaping from the individuals’ egoism. Schopenhauer explains it, stating that people are self-centered as they are effortlessly thrilled and insulted without any difficulty. Their views can be bought and traded for the proper price.

Schopenhauer thinks that for this exact reason the friendship is habitually driven by egocentricity. In his opinion, exhibiting your intellect makes you extremely disliked because people do not like to be retold of their lowliness. Schopenhauer expects an individual to admit that the world is jam-packed with stupid people, they cannot transform, and neither can the individual.

The Idea of Beauty and a more general attitude toward overcoming our individual Will is consistent with the Fleischacker’s view of things. The idea is that other people cannot enlighten you – therefore, you must enlighten yourself. A perfect society is perfect only when it permits the liberty of self-expression (Fleischacker 16). The meaning behind all this is that one can see that enlightenment is an ethical act, but in the case of Schopenhauer’s point of view, it is certainly an ethical responsibility.

To create meaning in the face of all this implies the understanding of the Will phenomenon and the acceptance of immortality as of the ultimate means of existence. We need to take a more realistic view of life so that we could adopt Schopenhauer’s ideas where it is possible, but we should not turn to the pessimist side in order not to lose the meaning of our lives.

Works Cited

Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson. New York: Random House Large Print, 2010. Print.

Fleischacker, Samuel. What Is Enlightenment? London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon, 2006. Print.

Grey, Julienne. “My Mother Is Not a Bird.” New York Times. N.p. 2015. Web.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Peter Fritzsche. Nietzsche and the Death of God: Selected Writings. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin, 2007. Print.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, and Richard Taylor. The Will To Live. New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co., 1967. Print.

For centuries on end, people have been trying to cognize and comprehend the essence of their existence in the world. The mystery of the meaning of life has been representing an everlasting challenge for those who give it a thought and philosophers have been striving to solve the riddle of the purport of life, each in his way, never achieving an answer which could be universal for the whole humankind. Among the seekers of the sense of life was the American metaphysician Robert Taylor, whose essay “The Meaning of Life” addresses the title issue in a thought-provoking way that involves a negative proof: in his search for meaningfulness Taylor goes from meaninglessness to meaning, and the latter is claimed to be dual thus dividing into subjective and objective meaning.

Contemplating the meaning of life, Taylor assumes that initially, life does not possess a meaning bestowed from without it comes from within, from living beings themselves, depending on what value they ascribe to their activities (28). The whole process of existence is compared by the philosopher to the famous legend about Sisyphus, who rolls endlessly a heavy stone up the hill — an activity never ceasing and leading to no result. The absence of result constitutes, according to Taylor, the absence of any objective meaning to Sisyphus’s activity, as his labors come to nothing (21). Does this mean that Sisyphus’s life, and in a broader sense, all life on earth is devoid of meaning at all? Answering this question, Taylor provides a ray of hope by stating that however senseless one’s activities may seem from an objective point of view, still, meaningfulness could “make an appearance” on condition that Sisyphus attaches personal importance to what he is doing, e.g. is driven by a “strange irrational impulse”, a “perverse desire to do something [objectively] pointless” (22). As soon as Sisyphus himself feels a desire to do precisely what he has been doomed to do due to objective circumstances, his activities and life, on the whole, acquires a mission and meaning of his fate (Taylor 22). Thus develops the concept of ‘subjective meaning’, which can be described as the personal importance ascribed by the doer to his activities.

Continuing his development of the ‘subjective meaning’ idea, Taylor envisages the whole range of diverse forms of life that are involved in ex fact ‘meaningless’ (i.e., devoid of objective meaning) actions that nevertheless constitute the meaning of life to those who accomplish them. Luminous worms inhabiting caves in New Zealand spend months in the damp environment, only to transform into an insect living a couple of days and dying after having laid a portion of eggs which in their turn will repeat the endless cycle of existence; fish and birds cover immense distances and overcome obstacles on the way, simply to ensure their future generations will do the same; people involved in daily activities mainly directed at “establishing and perpetuating home and family” (Taylor 23-24). All living beings take pains to achieve certain minor goals, most of which are transitory as upon accomplishment one sets forth for the next aims (Taylor 24). Thus, Taylor concludes, “the point of any living thing’s life is, evidently, nothing but life itself” (24).

Advancing from such definition of purpose and meaning of life, assuming that most activities are more appearances than perpetual achievements and judging them from the long-term perspective, Taylor arrives at the idea that if life since a value is nothing but itself then it can acquire no objective meaning, as it is quite impossible to create or attain something that would last long enough to be called objectively meaningful (24-25). Moreover, objective meaning is not only unattainable; it is also undesirable because even pursuing an activity which as a result has an accomplishment everlasting and perpetual, having achieved the desired goal one is left to rest and forever enjoy the result — and that would mean eternal boredom with lack in the meaning of existence expressed in constant strive for new accomplishments (Taylor 26).

However, at this point, Taylor’s contemplations become vague and lack grounding, as there emerges a question of what it ‘long enough’ according to the philosopher — a lifespan of a nation, a millennium, or eternity? The essay never answers it, as well as it does not reveal the ‘judge’ who should estimate the value of achievements against an objective scale. For certain large groups of living beings, one activity constitutes ‘objective meaning’ (or, rather, objective necessity); others see the objective meaning in something else. Taylor’s theory finds itself at a dead end: in fact, there cannot be any sufficient definition of objective meaning as it is unknown who should formulate the objective meaning of life if everything created by people is characterized by a high level of subjectivity. For one thing, whether a vast accumulation of subjective opinions results in the emergence of objective one is dubious; for another thing, the necessity for objective meaning is questionable, as if it does not reflect the interests and values of certain individuals, then it is no longer objective for them.

Being a fatalist, Taylor relies on the idea that “human actions and decisions have no influence on the future” and making a change is quite impossible as life is merely going with some cosmic flow” (qtd. in Ryerson). The value and meaning of things are considered such in so far as things are to be done and one possesses the will to accomplish them (Taylor 28). In saying so and adding the consideration that even worms are carrying on their seemingly meaningless activity with determination and will that impart value and meaning to that activity, Taylor evokes another problematic issue of whether all living beings possess a will and a conscious understanding of what ‘should be done (27). If by ‘will’ Taylor means instinct, then the meaning of worm’s activity becomes objective, as instinct is an objective quality conferred on animals by nature. Humankind still possesses insufficient knowledge of the presence of will in animals to fully and comprehensively answer that question.

For all their imperfections, which are inevitable in any theory produced by the human mind, Taylor’s views on life and its meaning still possess a core of good sense. Due to peculiarities of human nature, which is subjective in most cases, it appears quite impossible to establish any objective values, meanings, or other qualities of life: one can think of speculative concepts, but anyway they would be a product of the subjective mind. Thus it appears reasonable to seek the answers to the major issues of existence in the sphere of subjective, which is successfully done by Taylor. To his contemplations on the meaning of life consisting in life itself, it remains to add that there can exist a borderline case between objective and subjective meaning: when one’s activities are valued not only by oneself but also by others, life acquires an objective meaning formed by the accumulation of subjective opinion.

Works Cited

Ryerson, James. “Consider the Philosopher”. The New York Times. 2008: MM34.

Taylor, Richard. “The Meaning of Life”. Life, death & meaning: key philosophical readings on the big questions. Ed. David Benatar. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004. 19-28.

Donald Barthelme’s short story “The School” seeks to explain the meaning of life based on death. He is a post-modernist author whose work tends to be deceivingly simple yet potent and intuitive. Barthelme presents his short story, with a feeling of happiness and liveliness yet his main aim is to give an account of death. He explains through fiction the meaning of life, though the story is presented in a strange manner. Towards the end of the story, the aspect of human death is presented, although through a series of losses that occur and cause major concern when people start to die. The story is based on the school environment that is characterized as jovial, rowdy, and routine because the children are active and lively.

Death among humans is presented systematically. At first, death takes away an orphan, who could not be saved. The death of the first person marks the beginning of losses as experienced by real people. It progresses to parents and grandparents and finally comes to take away the life of the kids following the demise of Tony Mavrogordo and Matthew Wein (Barthelme, 2014). The last event of death is caused by an intruder who knifes Billy Brandt’s father. Even though Barthelme provides a series of deaths in the story, by using Edgar as the older character, he does not provide an explanation why death occurs. The kids are left with questions lingering as to why death occurs.

Edgar, as any other children, is not sure of what may take place to a person the moment they pass on. It is at this point that the story takes an odd turn. Barthelme drifts away from offering a narrative that could be dealt with in actuality but in its place starts to address greater philosophical inquiries. The hyperbolic stiffness of the children’s discourse only serves to lay emphasis on the strain of expressing such enquiries in real life that is the crack between the occurrence of death and the capacity to understand it.

Barthelme’s story does not draw any support from religion or philosophy as has been expressed for a long time. Numerous philosophers have described life, albeit from different perspectives. For instance, Aristotle based life on the human purpose, Aquinas explained life based on beauty, and Kant looked at life based on the utmost good. According to Jones (2020), Koheleth, who is thought to have written the book Ecclesiastes in the Bible, perceives life as “futility” and compares it to “the pursuit of wind”. Jones (2020) states that the Anglo-American-Australasian philosophers explain the meaning of life in the form of the organized effort to pinpoint what people think regarding this topic or what they are referring to by talking of “life’s meaning.”

In general, Barthelme’s story explains the meaning of life through death. The story presents a series of deaths though people are greatly affected when the first person dies. Ultimately the children at school are disturbed by the events. They try to seek for an explanation from the teacher, Edgar, but he also seems not to understand death. In philosophy the meaning of life is explained in various ways but not in the form of death. Barthelme’s description is therefore unique, although it could as well be understood that his view on the meaning of life ends with death. Once death occurs there is no more life.

References

Barthelme, D. (2014). The School.Electricliterature. Web.

Jones, J. (2020). The meaning of life according to Simone de Beauvoir.Openculture. Web.

Life is a journey filled with many questions, some of which are never answered. One of the major questions that many people ask themselves is concerning the purpose of their lives. This question has led many individuals to travel long distances searching for the meaning of life. In his journal “Philosophy and the Meaning of Life,” Robert Nozick uses a traveler searching for life to demystify various typical answers on the topic.

The protagonist travels to the Himalayas mountains, where he meets a sage he believes has answers to the meaning of life. However, after a long pause, the sage states, “Life is a Fountain” (Nozick, 2018). After traveling for a long, the traveler did not expect this answer. Nozick (2018) criticizes the response offered by the sages by arguing that they are individuals who have detached themselves from the world and speak nonsensical words. Nonetheless, he argues that maybe there is more to the answer given to the man. In reaction to the man’s disbelief in the meaning of life, the sage says, “You mean it’s not a fountain” (Nozick, 2018). This issue raises the question of why the man questioned the answer offered to him, yet he had traveled the mountains believing that is where he would get the answers. If he knew so much about the meaning of life, then there was no need to take that long quest. This shows that people seek answers concerning the purpose of life, yet they fail to believe what they are told about life.

A sage is a person who disengages themselves from the rest of the world, looking for enlightenment. If Nozick’s claims are valid, why do many people seek council from the sages? Thus, it is wrong for Nozick to conclude that they speak nonsensical words without factual evidence since these are individuals who are believed to pose high levels of wisdom.

Reference

Nozick, R. (2018). Philosophy and the Meaning of Life. In E. Klemke & S. Cahn, The Meaning of Life (4th ed., pp. 197-199). Oxford University.

In all eras, all across the world, people thought about the problem of life and death. Death has always been a mystery to humans because no one has yet returned from behind a veil, and they cannot tell about what will happen after. Many philosophers attached their meanings to death, and humanity created fundamental beliefs to explain it. Blackburn refers to an idea called the Wisdom of Silenus:

“The dead, beyond it all, are to be envied. Death is a luxury. Best of all not to have been born, but once born, better quickly dead” (Blackburn, 2021)

The idea itself sounds incredibly depressing if you do not consider the peculiarities of the worldview of the people of the past because Aristotle, born in 384 BC, first described the idea itself. When thinking about this idea, it is difficult to take any specific point of view about it because the meaning of life primarily lies in the process of a lifetime; making any goal the meaning of life is not the best idea. After achieving it, a person will be left with spiritual emptiness. Thus, one can conclude that the meaning of life lies in the process of the lifecycle itself. And given that the meaning of life means a goal, death can be considered a luxury. After all, a person is inclined to strive for luxury in connection with the ordinary human greed inherent in each.

Given the above, death is a limitation that adds color to a person’s life. After all, if people were not mortal, there would be no special meaning in life, and soon a person would write himself out, losing the motivation to live; small things and accomplishments would become less and less significant. In addition, in some cases, death is the only way to end the suffering of a terminally ill person. If this were not so, voluntary euthanasia would never have appeared.

Summarizing all my thoughts about this statement, I can conclude that it is frighteningly accurate. After all, life, for the most part, consists of turmoil and suffering, and many people spend their whole lives trying to find peace. But following this idea, vacation awaits us all at the end, and therefore we need to live as brightly as possible: achieve goals, fall in love, rejoice in general, and live life to the fullest.

References

Blackburn, S. (2021). Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed., pp. 66-98). Oxford University Press Academic UK. Web.

It may not seem fair to compare Woody Allen’s play, God with Leo Tolstoy’s short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych.” Whereas Tolstoy has written a highly literary examination of a wasted life from a Christian perspective, God is a farce in which the characters are named after diseases, the play moves haphazardly from Athens to Bensonhurst and back, from the mythic world to the Judeo-Christian, and from the stage into the audience. Yet both these productions are concerned with the same problem: how to deal with the knowledge of our imminent death; but while Allen’s play ends in nihilism, Tolstoy’s story ends in hope.

God opens with two clowns trying to decide how to end the play one of the clowns is writing, and that is how the play closes. The obsessive search for a suitable ending to the play, one that is “in character” and fitting for a “rational animal” (3) leads to a dead-end; however if the universe is not rational the Writer can do anything he wants, but that would mean that life was meaningless and absurd. When they cannot come up with a good idea, they turn to the audience, but there they encounter a new problem: do we see what we see, or do we only imagine it? As the writer says, “they’re watching us in someone else’s play. What if they’re characters in another play? And someone’s watching them? Or what if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?” (4) Using Descartes’ paradox the play undermines all certainties, creating only anarchy. Similarly, when Socrates proves to two muggers that evil is just ignorance of the truth, they break his nose, an example of a physical argument overcoming a metaphysical one.

The action speeds up as the play moves forward. Various philosophical problems are presented to the audience but they are interrupted by various temptations, Doris Levine in particular. A machine called deus ex machina is wheeled on stage, but the Writer worries that the presence of God would make a man not responsible for his actions while Doris argues that without God there is no meaning. The Writer finally decides that “I’m a free man and I don’t need God flying in to save my play. I’m a good writer”; then again, he would like to become a literary immortal (14). A demonstration changes everyone’s mind. However, when the king is about to kill the messenger brought him the news that God exists, the deus ex machina malfunctions, and Zeus appears strangled by the lowering wire. A telegram arrives to say God is dead, at which point one character says everything is possible and attacks the nearest woman. At the end of the play, the writer and actor are back to discussing the ending. As Hafliði Sævarsson says, “whether it is the absurdity of the God-machine or Zeus, whether it is the boredom or the sex deprivation among the actors sitting in the hall or whether it is the final desperate cries from the protagonist as he realises he cannot control his fate, they all present the audience with a concept itself has to deal with.” In other words, Allen’s play forces the audience to confront their own lives stripped of all illusion and metaphysics, one in which God is an unknowable factor, at least until after we die.

Tolstoy is also concerned with the questions of whether God exists, the apparent absence of meaning in life, and the absurdity of death. He uses the life of lawyer Ivan Ilych to find the answers because his life had been “most simple, most ordinary and therefore most terrible” (7). Ivan Ilych has long modeled his behavior on his social betters. His youth and early adulthood are lived according to the rules of the class above his: he has a few affairs, drinks, and gambles, but does nothing to excess. He marries because it is considered the thing to do. When marriage interferes with his pleasures he escapes into his work, all the more so when his first child is born. His ambition always is to lead “a decorous life approved of by society” (11) but that life finally becomes unsatisfying mainly because he has done everything in his power to avoid involvement in the lives of others, even those of his children.

Once he becomes ill his life begins to run in reverse. Suddenly he is faced with doctors more powerful than himself, who treat him with the same condescension he has always shown those beneath him. He grows to hate his friend, Schwartz because his “jocularity, vivacity, and savoir-faire …reminded him of what he himself had been ten years ago” (20). As his illness grows worse, he feels “abandoned by everyone” just as he had when he was in desperate need of money. He recollects his childhood, a time before he gave up his values to fit in with society, the only truly happy part of his life. In that way, his illness forces him to examine his life for the first time.

The realization that he is dying separates him from the living. Only his servant, Gerasim brings him comfort because he accepts illness and death as part of nature. Ivan Ilych, faced with the prospect of his death, weeps for the absence of God. It is then that he hears an inner voice ask him what he wants. His answers are repeated as more questions, driving him to wonder if he did not live his life properly. That question nags at him to the point where his mental tortures become far worse than the physical ones. He begins to see that before he can find an answer to any of his questions he must first admit that he has misspent his life, and when that happens he begins screaming and continues to scream for three days. Finally, it is his compassion for his son and his wife that redeems him. He has conquered Death because he can now feel for others. His physical illness, therefore, led to his spiritual recovery. The first section of the story, however, shows that his wife and family have not gained from his experience. They remain locked in their materialistic, self-centered lives and cannot be redeemed until their turn comes to face death.

Angela Fratterola recounts that “before Tolstoy died, he told his daughter, ‘The more a man loves, the more real he becomes.’ This seems to be the overwhelming message of ‘The Death of Ivan Ilych’ also.” Therefore it is hard to compare Woody Allen’s comic anarchy with Leo Tolstoy’s examination of an ordinary life redeemed at the last moment by love. Ivan Ilych, by accepting society’s values rather than spiritual ones, silenced the voice of his soul, which is either the voice of God or his authentic self, while Allen’s characters are denied the authenticity of any kind. They are products of their environment to be recycled in time, their lives beginning and ending as meaninglessly as the play; whereas IvanIlych personifies all humanity in its often misguided struggle toward the light.

Works Cited

Frattarola, Angela, “An Overview of ‘The Death of Ivan Ilych’,” in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 1999. Web.

Sævarsson, Hafliði. “Woody Allen’s God.” Universiteit Utrecht. Web.