In Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych, how does the explication of the double entendre depict the metamorphosis of Ivan's perception on the futility of life, relative to our own mortality?
"The goal of the artist is not to solve a question irrefutably, but to force people to love life in all of its innumerable and exhaustible manifestations." The greatest contribution that Tolstoy wanted to make as an artist is not the answers that he gave, though he gave many, but the attitude towards life that he inspired. He wanted his readers to have such an appreciation of the grandeur of the universe and of the totality of life that they would be inspired to seek out the answers for themselves. Tolstoy poses the biggest questions of all, questions often forgotten, until the age of perceptible decay: “Is there any meaning in my life that will not be destroyed by my death?”
Upon discovering that Ivan is dying, Tolstoy embeds within the reader questions to consider as to what his illness may be. Most readers and what Ivan likewise assumes is the cause of his condition is the fall he endured from the ladder. Tolstoy, however, never reveals the source of his death. Consequently, Tolstoy forces us to grapple alongside Ivan with the strangeness of the event he is confronting, an event beyond all explanations, all labels, and all causality. Ivan tries in vain to place a label on this experience, but he just cannot conceptualize it until this moment. “And suddenly the matter presented itself in a quite different aspect. It’s not a question of appendix or kidney, but of life and…death. Yes, life was there and now it is going, going and I cannot stop it. Yes. Why deceive myself?Isn’t it obvious to everyone but me that I’m dying, and that it’s only a questionof weeks,days…it may happen this moment. There was light and now there is darkness.I was here and now I’m going there! Where? A chill came over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the throbbingof his heart.”
In reducing people to moments of introspection, Tolstoy, haunted by this concept of futility in our life and fragility within our own mortality, projected his fears onto Ivan, acknowledging that we have to confront that very “it” on our own. Tolstoy continues to repeat this word throughout the context of the novel, serving as an indication of his very purpose for the novel. In Russian, “It” is an interesting word as it also directly translates to the word “she.” "как будто она проникала через все, и ничто не могло заслонить ее." This sentence is a quote originating from the original Russian text that states, "And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for consolation -- new screens -- and new screens were found and for a while seemed to save him, but then they immediately fell to pieces or rather became transparent, as if “IT” penetrated them and nothing could veil “IT”. Additionally, the implication of the double entendre is seen in the word “right” in the following quote. "He struggled as a man condemned to death struggles in the hands of the executioner, knowing that he cannot save himself. And every moment he felt that despite all his efforts he was drawing nearer and nearer to what terrified him. He felt that his agony was due to his being thrust into that black hole and still more to his not being able to get right into it." Although the denotation of the word “right” indicates Ivan’ inability to be forced into the sack, it also connotes his distress and struggle to attain salvation and peace within death as he oversees the course of his life and his very being as a waste. What he once perceived to be the image of perfection and satisfaction was in fact a mirage of the impractical and trivial niceties of life, of which Tolstoy had contested with in regards to his prior works such as Anna Karenina and War and Peace. However, Ivan finally becomes aware of his redemption as he understands that he too still could be forgiven for the
