Tolstoy and Chekhov Death Is the Only

Tolstoy and Chekhov

Death is the only true inevitability in a person's life. Once born, the only thing that is guaranteed is that one day that life will be extinguished. People live their whole lives with a death sentence hanging over their heads. For some people, death is terrifying and they rail against it and do whatever they can to avoid it. Others see death as a kind release, excusing them from the world of men, where they toil. Each person reacts differently to their own impending death and to the deaths of their loved ones. There is no single right or wrong way to react to someone's death or to react around someone who is in the process of dying. In both Anton Chekhov's "Rothschild's Fiddle" and Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," the authors explore the ways that a man may deal with the death of those around him and his own mortality. In both cases, there are men who think only of gain; of the continuation and strengthening of their financial and social statuses. When the men discover their immortality, they are both afraid and, in both cases, the closer they get to death, the more alive that they feel and the less afraid they become.

The Chekhov story is told from the perspective of a coffin maker named Yakov Matveyitch. This man earns his living because of the loss of life that others face. He does not become emotional over the deaths, even if they are his friends. Each corpse is merely more money in his pocket. The only loss that Yakov feels is when he does not get to build a coffin or he does not make money playing his violin. His only feelings of grief come from reminiscing about financial opportunities that he was unable to cash in on. Even the loss of his wife to influenza only gives him momentary emotional grief. More than anything, he equates her death with a loss in that he must pay for her coffin. The only emotion Yakov ever shows is anger. "Yakov was never in a good temper, as he was continually having to put up with terrible losses" (Chekhov 1). His greed has made his wife Marfa so miserable in her own lifetime that she believes she cannot rest as death approaches because he will yell at her for costing him something.

Yakov is a man consumed by hatred. He has hatred for the village people around him because they do not die with enough frequency for him to make a profit. Yakov has hatred for the Jewish people who live in his community, represented by his prejudicial behaviors against the eponymous Rothschild. Chekhov writes: "For no apparent reason, Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for the Jews, and especially for Rothschild" (1). The Jews represent all the people around Yakov who disrespect him or have something that he feels he is entitled to. Yakov only gets to make money by playing his violin with the village orchestra when a Jewish musician is not available. Thus he hates them because their good health costs him money both by denying him a place in the orchestra and by denying him a body to encase in a custom made coffin.

Marfa, when death approaches her, is overcome with a sense of joy and happiness. "And she gazed at the ceiling and moved her lips, and her expression was one of happiness, as though she saw death as her deliverer and were whispering to him" (Chekhov 1). Yakov makes this realization that he has been a cruel husband to his wife, but does not do much in the way to either ease her suffering or to let her know that he cares for her. After she dies, he prosaically prepares her for burial, cutting corners to minimize his financial loss. Only when Yakov becomes aware of his own mortality does he begin to think of the world as an entity beyond himself. He is able to feel emotions for the first time in a long time, if ever he had feelings at all. Yakov weeps and plays the violin with true emotion. The man is even able to recall having a daughter that died, something that Marfa mentioned on her deathbed but of which Yakov had no memory. In facing his death, Yakov feels. He feels pain and sadness and loss but at least he feels something. Upon the moment when he must realize that he is a human being, he finally accepts his humanity.

The story of "The Death of Ivan Ilych" written by Leo Tolstoy has a similar point to make as the Chekhov story but provides a protagonist who is potentially more likeable. At first, the reader does not care for Ivan Ilych. Here is another greedy man who has spent his entire life trying to acquire financial gain, even at the expense of his familial relationships. In fact, the relationships that Ivan has with his family members are as strained as Yakov and his wife. Ilych goes so far as to inform the reader that he hates both his wife and his daughter and that the only affection he has at all is for his son and for a young, poor servant boy.

Ivan Ilych spends much of the story in the process of dying. He has injured himself and is to die from his injury, thus he is fighting bitterly the unseen force that will eventually take his life. At first, Ivan is angry at death for feeling like it is allowed to take his life. This is matched at his despair that although he had never really allowed himself to consider it before, he is going to die, no matter what he has done and no matter what he might do with the little time he has left. Tolstoy writes:

Left alone Ivan Ilych groaned not so much with pain, terrible though that was, as from mental anguish. Always and for ever the same, always these endless days and nights. If only it would come quicker! If only what would come quicker? Death, darkness?...No, no! anything rather than death! (15).

Ivan Ilych is not only terrified of his impending death, he is also terrified that he knows it is inevitable but that the moment of his finality can come at any moment, just like it can and will for everyone. Ilych reasons that he is and has been a good person. Therefore, he does not deserve to die. This shows the reader that underlying his knowledge of his own mortality, Ivan was not willing to believe himself capable of dying even though human biology says he must.