Well, I finished, and I don't now think there is much significance. That opening scene with the fellow lawyers/judges talking about Ivan's death struck me as echoing the Apostle's getting together after Christ's death. Peter seemed to recall Peter the Apostle. While I found several allusions to Christ (it almost felt that Ivan was going through the stations of the cross through the story) throughout, I can't put together a coherent argument for it.
Oh he wavers in his earlier works. His later works are almost exclusively spiritual. I would consider this work spiritual. The movememnt of the story is for Ivan to go from a selfish individual (and notice how almost everyone in the story is selfish) to spiritually enlightened. Here is that great ending:Ok, back to why did you feel that there was a link to peter, and does it matter? Why does the name peter associated with Christ matter? Tolstoy was deeply spritual, but he wavers between his faith and his spirituality (see War & Peace)
.And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave his was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. "How good and how simple!" he thought. "And the pain?" he asked himself. "What has become of it? Where are you, pain?"
He turned his attention to it.
"Yes, here it is. Well, what of it? Let the pain be."
"And death...where is it?"
He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death.
In place of death there was light.
"So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy!"
To him all this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that instant did not change. For those present his agony continued for another two hours. Something rattled in his throat, his emaciated body twitched, then the gasping and rattle became less and less frequent.
"It is finished!" said someone near him.
He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.
"Death is finished," he said to himself. "It is no more!"
He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died
I would have given my right arm to have written that. Marvelous! I stand in awe.
I think I disagree here, although I agree in the sense that I think the older Tolstoy believes that life is a preparation for death.Personally, I believe that what Tolstoy is trying to convey is more about life than death.
No. Selfishness is never satisfied. It leads to more selfishness.Do you think ivan illych was satisfied with his life?