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The novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, shows the influence of Realism on its author. Leo Tolstoy. The illusion of reality, the main theme of the novella, is an aspect of Realism that Tolstoy effectively used in this novella. Other attitudes of Realism that were ....

Middle of Essay
.... Ivan's friends, too, became Tolstoy's target for illusion of reality. When they went to Ivan's funeral, they thought that they “ should” or “have to” go and comfort the widow. Their real reasoning behind everything was to see who would take Ivan's position at work. Another example of illusion of reality is when Ivan is lying down in excruciating pain and his wife, daughter, and son-in-law enter. Ivan sits and watches as they ignore the pain he is enduring to argue about something as petty as opera glasses. This seemed true to life because people cannot address a situation as big as death, so they talk around it. Ivan is dumbfounded by th ....