Ava Stern’s Reviews > The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories > Status Update

“No, at first the knights assert that they deify women (deify, but still look at her as an instrument of enjoyment). Now they assert that they respect woman. Some yield a seat to her, pick up a handkerchief; others acknowledge her right to occupy all posts, to participate in the government, and so on. They do all that, but the view of her is still the same. She is an instrument of enjoyment.” Kreutzer sonata

“The dreadful, terrible act of his dying, he saw, was reduced by all those around him to the level of an accidental unpleasantness, partly an indecency (something like dealing with a man who comes into a drawing room spreading a bad smell), in the name of that very “decency” he had served all his life.” Feel like this is the thesis of Ivan ilyich