Humanities 201: December 13, 2022

Kelly Todd Brewer

 What is Realism? When was Realism?
1) An art movement that began in France (c.1840 until the end of the 19th
century) that attempted to portray a truthful or “objective” image of
everyday life? But what does this mean?
2) It emerged in the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1848 (or the Springtime of
the Peoples) in which the middle classess and the peasantry came to the
forefront of the political landscape. Leftist politics European monarchies we in
trouble.
3) Realism attempts to capture everyday life, ordinary situations and ordinary
people.
4) It eschews Romanticism or the artistic expression that suggests escapism to
nature, the highly ornamental or emotional. Instead it focused on the problems
and social antagonisms that produce social inequalities: gender, class struggle,
hierarchies, institutionalized violence.
 Caspar David Friedrich: A Wanderer above the Sea Fo

Wallace Stevens 1818

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

A reminder of Romanticism and the transition to Realim

 Diego Velazquez 1599-1660
“La mulata de la cena” 1618 The Kitchen Maid
 Gustave Courbet
”The Meeting Bonjour Monsieur” 1854
Gustave Courbet
A Burial at Ornans 1850
Gustave Courbet—1819-1877
“Stonebreakers” 1849
Jean Francois Millet 1814-1875
The Gleaners 1857
Ilya (Yemifovich) Repin: 1844-1930

“Barge Haulers on the Volga”—1873

Édouard Manet-- A Bar at the Folies-
Bergère 1882
 Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
1828-1910: Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire
“The goal of the artist is not to
solve a question irrefutably, but
to force people to love life
in all its countless,
inexhaustible manifestations.”
 Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880
Honoré de Balzac, 1799-1850
Emile Zola, 1840-1902
Henrik Ibsen, 1828-1906
Realist Charles Dickens, 1812-1870
Authors Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821-1881
Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1927-2014
Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961
Benito Pérez Galdós, 1843-1920
Abuses of power, human motives, greed, jealousy, marriage and the family, lust, infidelity, and the agrarian society

Yasnaya Polyana

350 male serfs along with their families lived on

Tolstoy’s estate. The could be bought sold and
1867 1877
flogged.
The historical background for The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Alexander Romanov the

Reformer 1818-1881
• ENDS SERFDUM IN 1861
• Introduces judiciary reform
• Limits the power of the nobility
• Ends corporal punishment
• Promotes university education

US ends serfdom/slavery in 1865

Brazil in 1888
Cuba 1867-1886
 Tolstoy and teaching philosophy
Who has the right to educate? Nobody has the right to educate? Grant
power to educate and you grant the supreme authority over human society:
the right to form the minds of generations.

Tolstoy established some 13 schools around his estate, but never believed
in compulsory education. Students were free to come and go as they
pleased and there were no grades.
 Tolstoy’s Spiritual and Social Transformation
• He became vegetarian
• Gave up wine and other spirits
• Stopped hunting
• He began to make boots for his family
• He refused to allow servants to wait on him
• He eventually gave up most, if not all, all of his worldly possessions

Prior to this transformation, he even slept with the wives of his serfs. It is
also believed that he fathered children with several serf women.
Learns to ride a
bike at age 67
 Matthew 5:3–12
Gerasim
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the Earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all
kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the
1894 same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
 The other characters of the novella

Luke 6:24–26

But woe to you who are rich,

for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false
prophets.

1894
 Synthesis of all religious beliefs in their purist forms.
Tolstoy read prominent 19th century Orientalist scholar’s
Tolstoy believed translations of Buddhist texts, but concluded, like Arthur
Schopenaur that Buddism ultimately denied life and glorified death
in Moses, as a form of “nirvana.”
Tolstoy’s religious believe centered around four univeral truths
Christ, common to moral and ethical codes of all the prominent religions.
a) A universal ethical code
Mohammed and b) The ritualistic and the dogma are contradictory to reason
the Buddha c) Religion should affirm life and action
d) The individual is responsible for his actions—the individual is
accountable.
*Ultimately, Tolstoy believe that religion should conform to
common sense and reason.

Tolstoy believed in the religion of “humanity” and not the

institutionalization of religion.
Christian Anarchy,
Socialism and
Liberation Theology
Tolstoy Peaceful “Resistance”
 “The goal of the artist is not to
solve a question irrefutably, but
to force people to love life
in all its countless, inexhaustible
manifestations.”

To love life or to “recognize” life

in all its inexhaustible
manifestations
“The hero of my tale, whom I love
with all the power of my soul, whom I
have tried to portray in all his beauty,
who has been, is, and will be beautiful,
is Truth.”
Leo Tolstoy

Why would Leo Tolstoy say this? How does it resonate with “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” as a literary work?
How can we realistically grapple with the Truth, when Truth is universally embedded as an antagonist to conformity?
 1886
Themes
Life and death/how to live—“Comme
il faut.”
Greed, status, jealousy and money
Social class, deference and “equality”
Life as a series of rituals and milestones
Profession: identity as essence
Climbing the social ladder
Language and meaninglessness: truth
Humility, empathy and resentment
 Pierre Bourdieu, France—philosopher,
sociologist, linguist: 1930-2002
“Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no
longer even see IT.”

Culture is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer see IT.

(In other words, we eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner whether we eat or
not).
Greed, Jealously and Envy are so rooted in our collective unconscious that
we no longer see IT.

It is for this reason that Ivan Ilyich lives “a most miserable life.”
Jacques Ranciere, 1940 French Algeria—The Distribution of the Sensible

The distribution of the sensible refers how the dominant social order in
society determines how which individuals and groups will be recognized as
having some form of importance. And having voices that are worth
listening to. Power dynamics

Notice how material and material possession motivate the characters of

the novella
 The Novella as Genre
A short work of literature that takes less than a day to read
A simple plotline
Focuses on one character and not a host of characters
Longer than a short story but shorter than a novel that arguably starts in the Renaissance with Giovanni
Boccaccio’s Decameron in 1353, picked up by Miguel de Cervantes in his exemplary novels.

Examples
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Proper Mérimée, Carmen
George Orwell, Animal Farm
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
 The Narrative Obituary of Ivan Ilyich (Ölum
yazısı)
1) The story is not about the death of Ivan Ilyich, but rather it in a dark
way “celebrates” (or retells) the life of Ivan Ilyich
2) The narrator—3rd person omniscient narrator gives the details of the
characters and makes comments about the society in which Ivan Ilyich
lived from childhood until his death.
3) The novella as obituary was taken up by William Faulkner in a Rose for
Emily and Gabriel García Márquez in “Big Mama’s Funeral.
4) The narrator presents the ordinary aspects of social life that the author
wishes to highlight such as work and marriage and how Ivan Ilyich has
lived while asking the question of “how to live one’s lifes” as the
central issue.
 Chapter I: Death and Funeral of Ivan Ilyich.
What really goes on at a funeral? When someone dies? What come next?

• Starts in the workplace

• Who will be his successor?
• How to express condolences? Is it fake? Is it sincere? Or do we just say it
to be “polite”
• Looking at death in the face? Peter Ivanovich
• Words of “comfort” and things to say: bromide and platitudes
 Foreshadowing: Gerasim—the peasant
Gerasim, the servant of peasant stock, darted out of the dead man's room, and sorted through
all the fur coats with his big strong hands before finding Pyotr Ivanovich's coat and handing it
over. 'Gerasim. How are you feeling, my boy?' said Pyotr Ivanovich, who had to say something.
'A bit sad?' “It's God will. We shall all come to it someday,” said Gerasim, displaying his teeth—
the even white teeth of a healthy peasant—and, like a man in the thick of urgent work, he
briskly opened the front door, called the coachman, helped Peter Ivanovich into the sledge, and
sprang back to the porch as if in readiness for what he had to do next.

Forshadowing: a literary technique in which an author gives a subtle hint of an indication of

what is to come in the narrative. In the case of Gerasim, why is he so humble? Problematic:
does Tolstoy idealize the nature of the worker? This seeming idealization may be rethought
towards the end of the novella.
Contrast Gerasim with the other middle-class people with whom Ivan Ilyich has worked.
“The dead man lay, as dead men always
lie, in a specially heavy way, his rigid
limbs sunk in the soft cushions of the
coffin, with the head forever bowed on
the pillow. His yellow waxen brow with
bald patches over his sunken temples
was thrust up in the way peculiar to the
dead, the protruding nose seeming to
press on the upper lip.”

The dead man. The ritual of death.

The pagentry of death.

The story is alludes to death but the

story is about how Ivan Ilyich lived: “a
most miserable life.”
Praskovya Fydorovna, sighed, went up close to him, took him by
the hand, and said: "I know you were a true friend of Ivan Ilyich ...
" and looked at him, expecting some action from him that would
correspond to those words. Pyotr Ivanovich knew that, as there he
had had to cross himself, so here he had to press her hand,· sigh,
and say: "Believe me!" And so he did. And, having done that, he
felt that the result achieved was the desired one: that he was
moved and she was moved. " Come while it hasn't started yet; I
must talk with you," said the widow. " Give me your arm."
 Chapter II: a mediocre life and the “stage”
“Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore
most terrible. ”

“Even when he was at the School of Law he was just what he remained for the rest of his life: a capable,
cheerful, good-natured, and sociable man, though strict in the fulfillment of what he considered to be
his duty: and he considered his duty to be what was so considered by those in authority. Neither as a boy
nor as a man was he a toady, but from early youth was by nature attracted to people of high station as a
fly is drawn to the light, assimilating their ways and views of life and establishing friendly relations with
them. All the enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him; he
succumbed to sensuality, to vanity, and latterly among the highest classes to liberalism, but always within
limits which his instinct unfailingly indicated to him as correct.”

“It was all done with clean hands, in clean linen, with French phrases, and above all among people of the
best society and consequently with the approval of people of rank.”

What is Tolstoy trying to convey? Is the message clear?

 Ivan Ilyich: the Humble Braggart
“But now, as an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilyich felt that everyone without
exception, even the most important and self-satisfied, was in his power, and that
he need only write a few words on a sheet of paper with a certain heading, and
this or that important, self- satisfied person would be brought before him in the
role of an accused person or a witness, and if he did not choose to allow him to
sit down, would have to stand before him and answer his questions.”

“The work was new and Ivan Ilyich was one of the first men to apply the new
Code of 1864.” (Under the reign of Alexander II, the Russian Empire
underwent a series of legal reforms that were based on Western standards).
 Praskovya Fedorovna: Miserable Married Life
The preparations for marriage and the beginning of married life, with its conjugal caresses, the new furniture,
new crockery, and new linen, were very pleasant until his wife became pregnant—so that Ivan Ilyich had
begun to think that marriage would not impair the easy, agreeable, gay and always decorous character of his
life, approved of by society and regarded by himself as natural, but would even improve it. But from the first
months of his wife's pregnancy, something new, unpleasant, depressing, and unseemly, and from which there
“ was no way of escape, unexpectedly showed itself. His wife, without any reason—de gaiete de coeur as Ivan
Ilyich expressed it to himself— began to disturb the pleasure and propriety of their life. She began to be
jealous without any cause, expected him to devote his whole attention to her, found fault with everything,
and made coarse and ill-mannered scenes.

Marriage as institution.
The Institution of marriage
Marriage as a web of class and social relations
Marriage as a contract and a text

Jean Paul Sartre, “Hell is other people.”

 Chapter III: Greed, Envy and Jealousy
“He returned to the country more cheerful and contented than he had been for a long time. Praskovya
Fedorovna also cheered up and a truce was arranged between them. Ivan Ilyich told of how he had been
feted by everybody in Petersburg, how all those who had been his enemies were put to shame and now
fawned on him, how envious they were of his appointment, and how much everybody in Petersburg had
liked him.”

“He was so interested in it all that he often did things himself, rearranging the furniture, or rehanging the
curtains. Once when mounting a step- ladder to show the upholsterer, who did not understand, how he
wanted the hangings draped, he made a false step and slipped, but being a strong and agile man, he clung
on and only knocked his side against the knob of the window frame.”

Validation, approval, more money, higher status, “look at me now,” being above others, positions of
authority and power”
Do these make one happy?
Things went particularly well at first, before everything was finally arranged and while
something had still to be done: this thing bought, that thing ordered, another thing
moved, and something else adjusted. Though there were some disputes between
husband and wife, they were both so well satisfied and had so much to do that it all
passed off without any serious quarrels. When nothing was left to arrange it became
rather dull and something seemed to be lacking, but they were then making
acquaintances, forming habits, and life was growing fuller
 Chapter IV: Profession As Identity
He went. Everything took place as he had expected and as it always does. There
was the usual waiting and the important air assumed by the doctor, with which he
was so familiar (resembling that which he himself assumed in court), and the
sounding and listening, and the questions which called for answers that were
foregone conclusions and were evidently unnecessary, and the look of importance
which implied that “if only you put yourself in our hands we will arrange
everything—we know indubitably how it has to be done, always in the same way
for everybody alike.” It was all just as it was in the law courts. The doctor put on
just the same air towards him as he himself put on towards an accused person

In this regard, what does Ivan Ilyich feel like outside of his profession?
 Isaiah 38:1

In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went
to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die;
you will not recover."

The “House” of Ivan Ilyich

What is wrong with his marriage?

Why doesn’t work make him happy?
What does Ivan Ilyich want?
What illness does he have? Emptiness? No identity? No individuality? No freedom?
Why is the man dying?
Tolstoy always struggled to be the man he wanted to be or should be. He wanted to
show human beings in their struggles and transformations on the journey called life.
His characters are reflections of this quest on the roller coaster ride of life.. He shows
the length of the human journey. His characters are seeking and searching and
stuggling and hitting dead ends and hitting moments of bliss. But what of it?
 Chapter VII
IT would come and stand before him and look at him, and he would be petrified and
the light would die out of his eyes, and he would again begin asking himself whether
IT alone was true. And his colleagues and subordinates would see with surprise and
distress that he, the brilliant and subtle judge, was becoming confused and making
mistakes. He would shake himself, try to pull himself together, manage somehow to
bring the sitting to a close, and return home with the sorrowful consciousness that his
judicial labours could not as formerly hide from him what he wanted them to hide, and
could not deliver him from IT. And what was worst of all was that IT drew his
attention to itself not in order to make him take some action but only that he should
look at IT, look it straight in the face: look at it and without doing anything, suffer
inexpressibly. And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilyich looked for
consolations—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.
What is IT? What does IT stand for? What can be done about IT? Is IT just öyle?
Gerasim smiled again and turned to leave the room. But Ivan Ilyich felt his presence such a comfort that he did not want to let him go.
“One thing more, please move up that chair. No, the other one—under my feet. It is easier for me when my feet are raised.” Gerasim
brought the chair, set it down gently in place, and raised Ivan Ilyich's legs on it. It seemed to Ivan Ilyich that he felt better while
Gerasim was holding up his legs. “It's better when my legs are higher,” he said. “Place that cushion under them.” Gerasim did so. He
again lifted the legs and placed them, and again Ivan Ilyich felt better while Gerasim held his legs. When he set them down, Ivan Ilyich
fancied he felt worse. “Gerasim,” he said. “Are you busy now?” “Not at all, sir,” said Gerasim, who had learnt from the townsfolk how
to speak to gentle folk. “Then hold my legs up a bit higher, can you?” “Of course, I can. Why not?” and Gerasim raised his master's
legs higher, and Ivan Ilyich thought that in that position he did not feel any pain at all.
 Gerasim

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a

needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of
God.” (Matthew: 19:24)

Ivan Ilyich told Gerasim to sit down and hold his legs, and began to
talk to him. And strange to say it seemed to him that he felt better
while Gerasim held his legs up. After that Ivan Ilyich would
sometimes call Gerasim and get him to hold his legs on his
shoulders, and he liked talking to him. Gerasim did it all easily,
willingly, simply, and with a good nature that touched Ivan Ilyich.
Health, strength, and vitality in other people were offensive to him,
but Gerasim's strength and vitality did not mortify but soothed him.
Only Gerasim recognized it and pitied him. And so Ivan Ilyich felt at
ease only with him. He felt comforted when Gerasim supported his
legs (sometimes all night long) and refused to go to bed, saying:
“Don't you worry, Ivan Ilyich. I'll get sleep enough later on,” or when
he suddenly became familiar and exclaimed: “If you weren't sick it
would be another matter, but as it is, why should I grudge a little
trouble?” Gerasim alone did not lie; everything showed that he alone
understood the facts of the case and did not consider it necessary to
disguise them, but simply felt sorry for his emaciated and enfeebled
master. Once when Ivan Ilyich was sending him away he even said
straight out: “We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little
trouble?”—expressing the fact that he did not think his work
burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped
someone would do the same for him when his time came.

This falsity around him and within him did more than anything else