The Value of Life
Assimilating key ideas and concepts from differing works of literature allows for one to gain a greater perspective regarding their own life. The great works Testament of Youth and The Death of Ivan Ilych leave one to ponder society’s varying views on the value of life, a subject which has always received great contemplation from the philosophizing of Socrates to modern scholarly debates. Testament explores this subject through the auto-biographical eyes of a young woman who experienced the First World War whereas Ivan Ilych is one of Tolstoy’s commentaries on the apparent emptiness and status quo-oriented outlook on the society of his time. Interestingly enough, both invariably result in the same conclusion regarding the topic at hand. This can be witnessed through the exploration of the genuineness of agape love. This would be the standard by which one could measure the value of life as it is presented in these stories. To do so one must take into account the distinct forms of pleasure the characters derived from their lives, and make note of the colossal difference between leading a fake life as opposed to an authentic life.
A life of pleasure means something different for all parties involved. The Utilitarians believed that the value of one’s life is calculated by the capability of devoting one’s time to pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. In doing so they created a scale whereby some pleasures were greater than others. In the story of The Death of Ivan Ilych one realizes that he has accumulated all the material pleasures society has to offer, including the beautiful house, the successful job; in essence, all the trimmings. His life was like a cake in which he had all the ingredients for creating pleasure and yet the taste was not quite right. One gets this impression by the way in which he never feels satisfied or happy, as his final thoughts reveal, “This is wrong, it is not as it should be. All you have lived for and still live for is falsehood and deception, hiding life and death from you (61).” The material satisfaction was gone and all Ivan was left with was emptiness. The end of the book ushers in his great epiphany where he comes to the realization of the true measure of the value of life. It resides in the only truly pleasurable prospect, love. This is the only human capability which is an end in itself, thereby shaping a life that is worth living. It provides the incentive necessary to wake up every morning to a day that is not mundane and treacherous, but rather full of feeling and satisfaction. Ivan has this vision as death encroaches upon him whereby he witnesses the light which revealed to him that “though his life had not been what it should have been, this could still be rectified. He asked himself, ‘What is the right thing?’ and grew still, listening. Then he felt that someone was kissing his hand. He opened his eyes, looked at his son, and felt sorry for him (62).” Ivan luckily would get a chance at rebirth, to begin life anew heeding those most important lessons he learned concerning where the real source of pleasure begins. Vera Brittain in Testament would come to the same realization, for her only escape from the long exhaustive day of continuous nursing would be to think of her dear Roland out in the trenches fighting. The love between them kept her going. “What a poor, empty thing life would be now if he weren’t right in it…filling the whole horizon, giving purpose and justification to the abandonment of loveliness and learning, the substitution of forlorn hours of pain-tormented monotony (226).” She maintained continuous hope that a letter would arrive, or perhaps news would come of a possibility that they could be joined together soon. Unlike Ivan she had not enraptured herself with material possessions, but actually shunned them. Rather than residing within the comfort of Oxford University’s halls, she chose to be in the workforce, in the less than perfect conditions of the nursing quarters. Through this dreary lifestyle she received a feeling of contentedness with the knowledge that she was contributing something that was used to benefit other people. She may have only been a VAD, but rank was of no concern because the welfare and protection of those she loved was all that mattered. Ivan’s job, on the other hand, was mostly self-serving. The title he had acquired was there only to serve as status. While Ivan’s life was vacuous, for he had become detached from nature and spirituality, Vera held on to these things in the early part of her life, as did the other characters, such as Edward, Victor and Roland. They all did not desire to fight in the war, but it was satisfying to them that they were doing it for a cause - the love of their country.
By understanding where the true pleasure comes from, it is important to make note of the fact that there exist two distinct forms of love, eros and agape. Here they are defined by the great philosopher Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics. “Eros is love which is wholly claim, wholly the desire to control…it is the love in which the one who loves and the object of love are one and the same, so that from first to last it is self-love (187).” On the other hand, he states that “Agape means self-giving; not the losing of oneself in the other…but identification with his interests in utter independence of the question of his attractiveness, of what he has to offer, of the reciprocity of the relationship, or repayment in the form of a similar self-giving (188).” Therefore, with agape the love is true and directed to others, whereas with eros it is purely love for self-fulfillment. This is where one understands the representation of two different ways of life, the fake one ruled by eros and the authentic one guided by agape love.
The significance of Tolstoy’s work was in making this distinction between the artificial and genuine life. The artificial characters are best represented not only by Ivan, Peter, and his wife Praskovya, but by the whole society in general. These were people invested in shallow relationships, as one can witness that the death of Ivan does not really affect them greatly. He was a coworker, husband, father, and yet he was no real loss, “Each one thought or felt, ‘Well he’s dead but I’m alive!’ But the more intimate of Ivan Ilych’s acquaintances, his so-called friends, could not help thinking also that they would now have to fulfill the very tiresome demands of propriety by attending the funeral service and paying a visit of condolence to the widow (16).” The self-interest of these people even goes as far as the scenes with the widow Praskovya seeking more money from her late husband’s pension, as well as the characters of Peter Ivanovich and Fedor Vasilievich desiring to play bridge immediately following the funeral. They are incapable of feeling any pity or compassion, and the only love they can attain is that of eros. They love money, quick pleasures and material possessions, but not one another. This kind of life can only make one feel alone and not of great value. At the time of death Ivan feels this and realizes how unfulfilled and isolated he had been all along. This is very different from the World War I society of Vera Brittain. Each new slaughter was horrifying to her and her fellow companions. At one point she was even treating German soldiers, and in doing so she realized that the war was nobody’s fault. The Germans were just like them and also deserved her care. Although this society was portrayed as proving they were capable of loving one another, there was the essence of a fake life for the men in the trenches. The constant slaughtering and barbarism they witnessed daily disillusioned their minds, and changed them from loving creatures to being hardened emotionally. Roland oftentimes would write letters to Vera of sentiments he really did not mean.
I was later to realize through my own mental surrender-that only a process of complete adaptation, blotting out tastes and talents and even memories, made life sufferable for someone face to face with war at its worst. I was not to discover for another year how completely the War possessed one’s personality the moment that one crossed the sea, making England and all the uninitiated marooned within its narrow shores seem remote and insignificant (217).
The war killed the natural spirit of so many people that it became hard to love when there was so much death all around, for to get attached emotionally to anything seemed dangerous after that point. Mothers lost their sons, wives lost their husbands, and basically a whole generation of young men was wiped out. It is apparent that the consequences of the age in which these stories were written greatly affected them. The materialism created the superficial characters in Ivan and the horrid effects of war infiltrating the minds of those in Testament. Due to these factors, the people were not building deep bonds with one another, which is the mark of an authentic life of love.
As witnessed throughout time, the ability to give of yourself completely to another without looking for any reciprocity, as well as having pity and compassion for your fellow beings marks the qualities necessary for the right way of life. In Ivan Ilych there is one character that best represents this way of life, Gerasim the young servant attendant. He was empathetic towards Ivan’s plight the whole story through, he showed this care by holding his legs up for him so as to ease his discomfort and he would also converse with him while seeking nothing in return. He cared for him simply because he knew that one day he too would be in the same position. Gerasim stated “‘We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?’-expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do the same for him when his time came (49).” This bond between them broke down the isolation that had been prevalent in the story up until that time and made room for an interesting attachment between the two men. He could lessen Ivan’s physical discomfort by simply sharing it with him. Gerasim, unlike Ivan’s colleagues, did not desire to receive something such as a position or money. Instead he was selflessly interested in him for his personality, to understand who he was as an actual human being. This includes caring about his thoughts, feelings, and his whole being, which is a sincere manifestation of agape love. It followed Kant’s philosophy on treating people not as means to an end but as ends in themselves. In Testament one would witness many of these bonds, a touching scene is the one in which Victor returns after being injured and Vera Brittain decided she would care for him out of her own free will because he had been there for her all those times she had been in despair. “No one could realize better than I our responsibility towards him-not only because of our love for him, but because of his love for us, and the love felt for him by the one we loved and lost (347).” In this story they take responsibility for one another in sickness and in health, they do not complain, as Ivan’s widow had after his death, fretting over how she had suffered for three days due to Ivan’s shrieking in pain. She clearly had no empathy for his ordeals, she did not even stand by him through the slow process but went out to a play one evening instead. On the other hand, in Testament, Vera’s brother Edward, although far away from his family during the war, continued to write and express his love for them, “And you know that I love you, that I would do anything in the world in my power if you should ask it, and that I am your servant as well as your brother (361).” Vera maintained her close bond with him despite the distance, but the bond that affected her most was between her and Roland which sustained her for so long. Through examining their connection, one realizes how this love also inspired her to achieve things she may never have dreamed she was even capable of. “my one desire being to emulate Roland’s endurance, I seized with avidity upon all unpleasant tasks of which they were only too glad to be relieved (166).” Her hard work and dedication in aspiring to be like the one she loved gave her the power to put up with the life of a V.A.D. and the tragedies of war. She loved him so much in fact that she forgave him when he would write hurtful things to her as she realized that war can change one’s mindset but nothing could overcome the selfless love she provided.
The people that forged the bonds of love would go on to be successful, Vera Brittain a well-known feminist who would write that powerful, emotional novel. Ivan on the other hand would die due to a very trivial and unnecessary cause, falling while attempting to hang drapes in his home. This accident would not have occurred if he had not been so concerned with impressing people in a ridiculously materialistic society. At the time he lacked the overwhelming knowledge that the most important action is to leave lasting impressions of love on people’s souls. It is interesting how two radically different pieces reached the same conclusion that agape love is the only measure of life. Without it, we exist in a trivial and unfulfilling capacity but with it genuineness abounds and we are filled with compassion and care creating satisfaction that seems impossible to articulate. Perhaps it is best stated in the bible, “And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2).” This is a lesson we now do not have to wait until our dying day to uncover.
To sum this up I included the video "The Riddle" by Five for Fighting. I really like this song and it does have to do with the meaning of life. The song basically says in 3-4 minutes what it probably took me hours to write (who can remember.).
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