Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 9 - How Should We Live So as to Die Well?

  • Clifford Williams, Trinity International University, Illinois
  • Book:
    Religion and the Meaning of Life
    Published online:
    23 March 2020
    Print publication:
    09 April 2020, pp 153-173

  • Summary

    In chapter 9 I use Ivan Ilyich’s life, as told by Leo Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, to answer the question of the chapter, how should we live so as to die well? One answer is to be open to knowing our inner lives, to what is good, and to God. Another is to develop character traits opposite to those of Ivan Ilyich, which were delight in the power to crush his inferiors, pleasure in trivialities, and excessive self-regard. The chapter also describes the moral agony that Ivan Ilyich experienced as a result of his dying, his resistance to examining his life, and the openness he needed to have to be aware of his inner life. The chapter ends with a conversation between an imagined, transformed Ivan as he lay dying and a friend of his.