Ivan Ilyich

Career bureaucrat who lived correctly and pleasantly; falls ill from a trifling injury; the doctors and family lie politely as he dies; only the peasant Gerasim is honest with him; at the very end realizes his correct life was wrong and dies in light. Failure mode: A pleasant correct life that was not the right life. Restoration path: Be honest in the dying; let the lowly servant tell the truth the family will not. Markers: correct pleasant career; trivial accident becomes fatal; everyone polite lies; only the lowly servant honest; light in the last moment — Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Literature)