Realism in the Death of Ivan Ilych

Realism in The Death of Ivan Ilych
In the novella,The Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy shows characteristics of realism and selfishness through his characters. Leo Tolstoy used characters like Ivan Ilyich to show how society pressures people into marrying for the wrong reasons and the way they should live their life.
When Ivan's wife, Praskovya, tells him that she is pregnant ivan marries her out of obligation because that is what society has told him to do. ”The preparations for marriage and the beginning of married life, with its conjugal caresses, the new furniture, new crockery, and new linen, were very pleasant until his wife became pregnant – so that Ivan Ilych had begun to think that marriage would not impair the easy, agreeable, gay and always decorous character of his life, approved of by society and regarded by himself as natural, but would even improve it. But from the first months of his wife's pregnancy, something new, unpleasant, depressing, and unseemly, and from which there was no way of escape, unexpectedly showed itself.”(Tolstoy 34).Ivan thought that the marriage and children to follow where supposed to make him happy, but he was not prepared to for the challenges of living with Praskovya and a family.”Things went particularly well at first, before everything was finally arranged and while something had still to be done: this thing bought, that thing ordered, another thing moved, and something else adjusted. Though there were some disputes between husband and wife, they were both so well satisfied and had so much to do that it all passed off without any serious quarrels. When nothing was left to arrange it became rather dull and something seemed to be lacking, but they were then making acquaintances, forming habits, and life was growing fuller.”(Tolstoy 50).In this quote Tolstoy shows that Praskovya and Ivan are both materialistic and unhappy unless they are busy buying more for their house.” During an interval in a trial in the law courts,...