Futility of Life in Death by Ivan Ilyich Count Leo Tolstoy is considered the greatest Russian novelist and one of its most important moral philosophers. more influential. As such, he is also one of the most complex people for literary historians to deal with. His early works sought to replace romanticized glory with realistic views. A good example of this is how he often described battle as an unglamorous act carried out by ordinary men. After his marriage, however, Tolstoy began to reexamine his attitudes 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-seated dissatisfaction with himself and a long, 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 formulates a doctrine of life based on universal love, forgiveness and simplicity (Valente 127). Simplicity and the moral importance of leading a simple life became for Tolstoy 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 abandoned much of his earlier work, considering it too complex and morally unedifying. Nevertheless, because of Tolstoy's sincere commitment to seeing literary art as a means of drawing the reader's attention to important truths, he returned to imaginative literature and wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich to emphasize the message that the simple life is better. life led him into all kinds of contradictions - sometimes he believed in fighting, middle of paper...... (quoted in Jahn 20). It then becomes clear that Ivan Ilyich is led to reevaluate his past life; that the ending is not just an artificial means of closure, but a miraculous conversion of the dying Ivan Ilyich and his important discovery concerning the moral consequences of a simple and honest life. Works Cited Gifford, Henry. Tolstoy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. Jahn, Gary R. The Death of Ivan Ilich: An Interpretation. New York: Twayne, 1992. Rowe, William W. Leo Tolstoy. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Shepherd, David. "Conversion, reversion and subversion in Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Il'ich." The Slavic and East European Review 71.3 (1993): 401-16. Valente, Luis Ferando. “Variations on the Kenotic Hero: Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich and Guimaraes Rosa’s AugustoMatraga.” Symposium 45.2 (1991): 126-38.