Being and time and The death of Ivan Ilyich

INTRODUCTION

     The short story of “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” can provide us some ideas about life and death. I found some similarities between this text of Leo Tolstoy and Martin Heidegger’s theory in “Being and time”. The text of Tolstoy is seen as one of the most influential works about the death and the meaning of existence. We can see in this story how the fact of accept our mortality can shift the way people approach life and also the death. "Being and Time", Heidegger's work, will talk about the essential question of being, he makes use of anguish and of the being-toward-death to disturb the logic of impersonal that drives everyday life. Thus, both works deal with the problems of the inauthentic mode of being.

THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH

     The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1886, introduces the theme of death and the meaning of life, personalized in Ivan Ilyich, a Russian judge who is overcome with dread and anxiety toward his own imminent death.

     The narrative, in fact, begins with the end, in the building of the Court in which Ivan Ilyich worked and where his death was commented by his coworkers. It is Ivan’s funeral and then, the story goes back in time to show how Ivan Ilyich, a respected judge, knows his wife, who marries for money and for her beauty.

     Ivan Ilyich was one of those important employees. With an arranged marriage and a good salary, he was successful, but a mysterious illness have caught him by surprise. He just lived his life by playing a role.

     Because the medicine has failed, the only thing he could do was to wait for the last breath. This situation puts him in front of all the miserable life he has built on lies and appearances. Therefore, he has to struggle to retrieve his usual everyday ways of putting death out his mind, however he does not succeed. In sum, the novel shows the trajectory of the character’s slow deterioration and his difficult to deal this the death.

BEING AND TIME

     Death is an inevitable event. Heidegger argues in “Being and time” that by confronting the certainty of death, we adjust our viewpoints and change our approach towards life. We become beings-toward-death who are able to re-examine life and embrace our world. This philosopher believes that the individual, when he is aware of his condition of being finite, can take ownership of their possibilities, choose oneself more proper and he can be more authentically.

      However, before starting the discussion about Heidegger’s theory is necessary some concepts like Dasein. We can say that Dasein is an individual human being. By his analyses of being towards death, the being there or Dasein understands what is to exist.

     This is because Heidegger believes that man is the only one who can have an understanding of being. In other words, only Dasein (being-there) is able to question about the meaning of Being and the existence. He also says that Dasein may run away from facing the reality of death. So, confronting death may lead us to despair. However if he does it, he may collapse into a state of anxiety. In our everydayness, according to Heidegger, we can lose ourselves in a public identity and in the meaningless chatter of the crowd.

     When Heidegger invites us to look at the time as an open horizon, he makes us realize that among the many possibilities that awaits us, one will occur for sure: the death. Dasein is only complete when he reaches death. Death is closely linked to the phenomenon of existence and should no longer be thought as something external that would determine the end of existence, in fact, the death is essentially Dasein's relation to his own existence.

     If we choose to accept death, we can realize the possibilities of life, so we can conquer life. Freedom for death that enables anguish is what releases the man of everyday banality to the possibility of an authentic existence in which death is contributor of sense other possibilities.                    The way of facing the inevitable makes the difference in living an authentic or inauthentic life. And it's the authenticity that Dasein is able to meet fully with his being. Authentic existence is acceptance of finitude, it means to have the courage of anguish towards death. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Heidegger’s conception of authenticity is notoriously difficult to define.

SIMILARITIES

     We can see “Being and Time” in “the death of van Ilyich” because this story shows a case of a person who lives an inauthentic existence. The main character and his family deny the inevitability of death. Ivan’s family try to comfort him, but despite doing it, they are only denying that Ivan will soon face his death.

     How Ivan’s attitude in relation to death was misunderstood, he could not face and accept his death, and that is way, he had an inauthentic way of living. However, we can say that Ivan was inauthentic long before he learned of his illness. But, when he got sick, rather than accept the fact that had an inauthentic life, he sees the whole state of his disease as absurd. In fact, throughout his illness Ivan has moments when he is able to accept the death, but he also denies his imminent death, as well as accepting and denying that he has not lived authentically.

     We can conclude from these two works that the meditation of death should not make us depressed but in fact, the inevitability of death is just the thing that makes our existence authentic. If we can own the fact of our unavoidable death, we can own ourselves.