The Uselessness of Life in the Death of Ivan Ilyich Count Leo Tolstoy is considered the greatest Russian novelist and one of the most influential moral philosophers. As such, he is also one of the most complex individuals literary historians must grapple with. His early works sought to replace romanticized glory with realistic visions. A good example of this is how he often depicted battle as an unglamorous act performed by ordinary men. After marriage, however, Tolstoy began to reexamine his attitude toward life, particularly his moral, social, and educational beliefs (Shepherd 401). Many commentators agree that Tolstoy's early studies of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau encouraged his rebellious attitude. This new, deep dissatisfaction with himself and a long and frustrated search for meaning in life, however, led to the crisis described by Tolstoy in his Confession and Memoirs of a Madman. In these works he formulated a doctrine to live by based on universal love, forgiveness and simplicity (Valens 127). Simplicity and the moral importance of leading a simple life, for Tolstoy, became the only true way to live a spiritually fulfilled life. After arriving at his doctrine of universal love and simplicity, Tolstoy initially refrained from writing fiction. He even gave up much of his previous work because it was too complex and not morally edifying. However, because of Tolstoy's sincere commitment to viewing literary art as a means of bringing important truths to the reader's attention, he returned to imaginative literature and wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich to emphasize the message that the simple life is the improve. life brought him into all kinds of contradictions--sometimes he believed in fighting, s...... middle of paper...... (qtd, in Jahn 20). It then becomes clear that Ivan Ilyich is led to a reevaluation of his past life; that the ending is not just a contrived means of concluding, but a miraculous conversion of the dying Ivan Ilyich and his important discovery regarding the moral consequences of living a simple and honest life. Works Cited Gifford, Henry. Tolstoy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. Jahn, Gary R. The Death of Ivan Ilyich: An Interpretation. New York: Twayne, 1992. Rowe, William W. Leo Tolstoy. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Shepherd, David. "Conversion, Reversion and Subversion in Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich". The Slavonic and East European Review 71.3 (1993): 401-16. Valente, Luis Ferando. "Variations on the Kenotic Hero: Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych and Guimaraes Rosa's AugustoMatraga." Symposium 45.2 (1991): 126-38.