Pregnant Women are not as Moody as Ivan Ilych is.

Assuming that Ivan Ilych’s illness is, in part, mentally self-imposed, then it is no surprise that Ivan’s mood alters so much according to the people who surround him at any given point of time while he is sick. With the idea that the severity of his illness depends on how “false” (251) he feels anyone in his company is, proves or supports the idea that Ivan’s illness is indeed mentally self-imposed. Ivan’s mood changes intrigued me the most about this novella.

Once Ivan gets really sick, his mood changes according to the “falsity” (251) are really apparent. Ivan admits to himself that “the deception, the lie” is really what was “tortur[ing] him.” For me the mental side of Ivan begins with his interactions with Gerasim in paragraph 217. Gerasim’s pure mind and outright intention to do what he can do “for a dying man” because “someone would do the same for him when his time came” (217) is what makes Ivan really happy and comfortable around Gerasim. I do not believe the way Gerasim positions Ivan’s legs has anything to do with Ivan’s welfare.

With the doctors, Ivan feels “[j]ust as terrible as ever,” because Ivan thinks the doctors act “falsely” because they do not say what they truly think. He believes the doctors think, “How are our affairs” and not what they do say, “What sort of night have you had?” (243). Ivan would rather fully avoid Praskovya Fëdorovna, because he–although he doesn’t directly know–he feels he how “false” his wife’s reasons for caring about his health are. Ivan is “always” in pain when his wife is around (282). Accordingly, he “hates her with his whole soul” for how he feels when he is around her (250). Not even his daughter helps to ease his pain. She too seems false to Ivan, because, unknown to her, she is too influenced by her fiancé and mother.
Ivan’s son, who pities him out of freight, does not cause Ivan any change in mood. His son pities him, an action that makes Ivan feel better, but because his son pities him out of freight, and not like one pities a child, Ivan feels sick. His son’s actions cause a zero net change in Ivan’s mood.

The greatest realization about mood comes not from my brilliant ideas, but the self-realization that Ivan himself has. He realizes that his mood is not just affected by others, but he himself and his mood affect the people around him. As Ivan dies he has been killing the people around him (300-305); this is the real irony of the story. Ivan is so mad that others are not curing him and helping him, but he does not realize that he is hurting those around him as well. In the end (of his life and of the novella) Ivan realizes that “must…release them [everyone around him]: release them and free himself from these sufferings” (352). He frees himself by allowing himself to die, and frees everyone else by being dead.

I also enjoyed the confirmation and communion scene because of the way Tolstoy/the narrator describe the feeling Ivan has after confirmation. I liked the way it is described because it accurately portrays the way I feel after confirmation. (541)