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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Death, narrative integrity, and the radical challenge of self-understanding
— a reading of Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych | | Author(s) | Mark Freeman |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 17, part 4, July 1997 |
| Pages | pp 373-398 |
| Keywords | Death ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Fiction ; Theory. |
| Annotation | Much contemporary theory suggests that, unlike works of biography or autobiography, human life itself comprises disconnected moments and is devoid of literary form. In their efforts at self-understanding, people may seek to bind these moments together as narratives; but these may be little more than fictions or myths, impositions of form and order on the flux of experience. This essay suggests that Tolstoy's 'Death of Ivan Ilych' is a powerful refutation of this view: Tolstoy's story demonstrates the consequences of a life lived from moment to moment, without any sense of the whole. Only in the face of death could Ilych gain the requisite distance to behold the true meaning of his dismal life; if his life had been well-lived, it would have possessed narrative integrity. This article seeks to identify ways in which the study of ageing might contribute to our identifying the good and virtuous life. |
| Accession Number | CPA-971006001 A |
| Classmark | CW: DB: HKF: 4D |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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