Gerasim In Tolstoy's The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

In Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, the protagonist, Ivan Ilyich, suffers from an unfortunate fall from a ladder which ends up being a death sentence. Gradually, Ivan comes to realize that he is going to die, but he cannot quite wrap his mind around it. No one else around him, including his wife, Praskovya Fedorovna, seems to understand or care about what Ivan is going through. They all go on with life as usual and try to pretend that his illness is just a passing thing. The only person to exude care is Gerasim, one of Ivan’s servants. He is the only one to acknowledge Ivan’s impending death and shows genuine compassion. Over the course of weeks, Ivan’s body deteriorates but his increasingly rejects to accept his demise. It is only in his final moments that Ivan realizes the suffering he places on his family. Ivan understands that the only way to end their suffering, and his own, is by dying. He finally comes to terms with his finitude and welcomes death with open arms. No individual is completely

The others refuse to admit that they will die, and cannot deal with Ivan's death because it makes them nervous about their own. Therefore, Gerasim has no reason to avoid Ivan’s death because he has no reason to fear or hide from his own. “Coming to terms with the inevitability of our own death is just the thing to make our existence authentic” (Irwin 21). Seeing that Gerasim has already achieved an understanding of his death, he has reached authenticity. Ivan was finally able to reach this state of understanding before passing surrounded by family. However, had it not been for Gerasim’s intervention, would Ivan have reached authenticity before death? Considering the fact that everyone else in Ivan’s life was unsupportive and heavily influenced by the ¬they-self mentality, I believe that he would have lived out his days in inauthenticity without Gerasim’s