And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Ivan Illych’s life is an illusion created by naively following high society principles. He believes that this type of lifestyle, void of rationality and good moral code, will ultimately lead him to happiness and fulfillment. His refusal to do anything but those activities deemed “proper” by the aristocrats is reflective of his obsession with upper class standing. Ivan does not enjoy Praskovya’s companionship or her selfish personality, yet he marries her because every financially secure man weds. He refuses to take any job with a salary less than five thousand rubles and even then, the money is never enough for his wife and children; furthermore, he himself demands more money. With a well-paying job, he devotes his leisure time to decorating a new house with gaudy draperies, accessories, and furniture, all middle-class items feigning as high society necessities.

In Ivan’s perspective, becoming a member of the upper class goes hand in hand with finding meaning in life. His obsession with his plan fuels Ivan to distance himself from anything that threatens to ruin his comfortable lifestyle and his road to material success and societal elevation. He pushes away any conflicts at home, choosing to concentrate on his career. Instead of treating his family with compassion and love, he behaves as if his family is another official case, simplifying complicated relationships to shallow, unsatisfying friendships. Ivan may believe that he has “made it” since he now plays bridge with other aristocratic wannabes, but his world is filled with facades, deception, and dishonesty. In reality, in order to protect himself, he can relate to no one else because everyone else is thinking exactly what he is: how can I use my strategically advantageous relationships to further my social esteem.

Ivan is a unique character, in the sense that he is struck by a mysterious un-curable disease, but he is more a representative figure; he is just one case of all the selfish characters infatuated with the aristocratic lifestyle. Unfortunately, Ivan’s demise is the first and he never had the chance to reverse his condition and start a new life (strictly physical because Ivan does experience some type of spiritual rebirth) after seeing another fall to the same fate. The role of Peter Ivanovich shows not only what kind of person Ivan really was but also how these aristocratic wannabes are all magnetized to each other. Really, Ivan can only befriend people similar to him because those people are the only ones who can deal with his “bourgeois sensibility.” They are all chasing happiness by following beliefs supposedly set forth by the upper class. However, at this point, the empathy stops. Ivan shows that a life isolated from compassion and love can only end in an inner conflict. As he battles his strange illness, he learns that while he thought his life was all that he expected, he was actually living a lie. He imagined he was going uphill when he was going downhill. Finally, Ivan experiences pure joy when he makes an empathetic connection: he feels sorry for his son and wife and asks for forgiveness. He realizes that the formal barriers keeping out the true meaning of life were built by no one else but himself. And when the “walls fall away,” he truly finds fulfillment in life. (547)