Studies in Short Fiction, March 22nd, 1995
Gary R. Jahn divides his overview of The Death Of Ivan Ilich into a section on the literary and historical context and a longer one devoted to a reading. Jahn begins by stressing the importance of A Confession, written about 1879, in which Tolstoy recounts the awful depression that overcame him when faced with the futility of life and his obliteration by death. Tolstoy's sole source of faith lay in the peasantry, and he clung to the peasants' irrational knowledge as the only defense against his despair: "Faith still remained for me as irrational as it was before, but I could not but admit th...
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