What flaws in that society and environment does Tolstoy reveal
Instructions: What flaws in that society and environment does Tolstoy reveal in the story? What is the “greed” that these people exhibit? Also, what moral judgment does Tolstoy seem to pass on that society?
What flaws in that society and environment does Tolstoy reveal in the story?
Directions:
Joseph Campbell explains that a dragon figure represents our own greed. He says, “Psychologically, the dragon is one’s binding of oneself to one’s ego,
and you’re captured in your own dragon cage. ‘Killing the dragon’ is getting rid
of your own fears.
The real dragon is in you; it’s your ego holding you in, focusing on ‘what I want, what I believe, what I can do, what I think I love, and what I regard as the aim of my life.’
It might be too small, that which pins you down, if it’s only that which the environment tells you to do, then it certainly is pinning you down.
The environment, then, is your dragon as it is reflected within yourself.”
In “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Leo Tolstoy presents readers with a protagonist who has literally risen to the peak of his life
and then suffers a complete fall from that peak into the depths of the human heart to try to answer the question, “Did I live a good life, in the end?”
“The Death of Ivan Ilyich” was Leo Tolstoy’s novella through which he provided
readers with his commentary on the moral and social issues that he saw in the world around him.
Look first at the environment in which Ivan Ilyich lives, including the people and places that make up that environment.
What flaws in that society and environment does Tolstoy reveal in the story?
Lastly, what is the “greed” that these people exhibit? What moral judgment does Tolstoy seem to pass on that society?