At the time this article was published, Halperin was teaching at San Francisco Stage College. In the following excerpt, he examines the narrative structure of "The Death of Ivan Ilych" and discusses Ivan's emotional transformation in the story.

[The] question may occur—why does the novel open with minor characters on-stage? To begin with, this structural arrangement is in accord with the protagonist's ultimate discovery that the apparent end of human consciousness, death, is in reality the beginning of life. But, more important, if we first witness the actions of some people whose interests and values are very much like those that the dead man subscribed to, the typical values of average men in a quantitatively oriented society, we may more fully grasp the nature of Ivan Ilych's failure as a man. And this is the salient function of Part II—to adumbrate his history...