Tolstoy and Chekhov

Death is the only true inevitability in a person's life. Once born, the only thing that is guaranteed is that one day that life will be extinguished. People live their whole lives with a death sentence hanging over their heads. For some people, death is terrifying and they rail against it and do whatever they can to avoid it. Others see death as a kind release, excusing them from the world of men, where they toil. Each person reacts differently to their own impending death and to the deaths of their loved ones. There is no single right or wrong way to react to someone's death or to react around someone who is in the process of dying. In both Anton Chekhov's "Rothschild's Fiddle" and Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," the authors explore the ways that a man may deal with the death of those...
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