Mo Shoeb
Gerasim plays the most important role in the novella, “The Death of Ivan Ilych”. He is Ivan’s sick nurse and the butler’s assistant who tends to Ivan during the suffering of his last phase of life. While the self-interest of Praskovya and Lisa hindered their attention in tending to Ivan, Gerasim comforted and rather fortified Ivan’s perspectives of life and more importantly, death.
The significance of Gerasim is not that he took care of Ivan Ilych in his deathbed, his relationship with Ivan facilitated Ivan’s path towards spiritual health. Throughout his life, Ivan’s actions are determined by the opinions and outlooks of the aristocratic view of his social superiors. All the friends he chooses are based on their status and position in society. He married Praskovya because it seemed as the right decision to make. Tolstoy describes his decision on page 133, “At first Ivan Ilych had no definite intention of marrying, but when the girl fell in love with him he said to himself: ‘Really, why shouldn’t I marry?’” and further on “the marriage gave him personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing to do by the most highly placed of his associates.” (133) Ivan’s life lacks individuality and real freedom. Rather than using reason to guide his life, he absorbs his beliefs from aristocrats.
Ivan’s illness and vision of his death gave him a feeling of isolation. Gerasim’s compassion and sympathy for human beings ameliorated Ivan’s sense of alienation. When Gerasim supports Ivan’s legs on page 153, it provides a symbol of bridging the spiritual gap between Ivan and the world. This is the beginning Gerasim’s true effect on Ivan and his spiritual development.
Gerasim is the only one who is able to temporarily alleviate Ivan’s suffering because he diminishes these characteristics of his life and helps Ivan confront death with courage. Unlike all the other characters in the story, Gerasim interacts with people in an authentic and genuine fashion, and not with self-regard and interest in position or government pension. Ivan embraces the ideas of Gerasim and finally realizes that his desire to travel in the path of aristocrats actually deprived him of life, as Tolstoy describes Ivan’s feelings shortly after hearing the voice of his soul for the first time, “It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that’s really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it’s all over and there’s only death.” (161)
Since Gerasim is capable of being content with his social position and material possessions, he is able to develop an immeasurable effect on Ivan’s view of aristocratic acceptance and the valor and strength of confronting death. The new view of life that Gerasim provides, aids Ivan in temporarily alleviating his suffering.