The Death of Ivan Ilyich is Nothing if Not Nihilistic
In opposition to what I’ve seen as the common consensus, I believe The Death of Ivan Ilyich is wholly nihilistic, and attempts to describe it in any other way reveal more about the reader's subjectivity than about Tolstoy's writing.
Embodying the popular consensus of Ivan Ilyich is the following quote by the columnist Juan Sota. Wrapping up his article on The Death of Ivan Ilyich, he concludes with "This last act, a free act of love, truly redeems Ivan's life and makes him lose his fear of death." The last act of 'love' which Sota refers to is Ivan's dismissal of his son and wife from his presence, to spare them the pain of standing vigil to his agonizingly slow death. This humanization of Ivan fundamentally misrepresents his character. Ivan was never someone enamored with life; he occupies his time with idle pleasures and intellectual discussions, while simultaneously not being particularly engrossed in either. For example, Ivan begins to spend large swaths of time completely preoccupied with his job as a judge only after he becomes disillusioned with his home life and irate with his wife.
Emblematic of this pervasive disinterest he has felt throughout his adult life, Ivan looks to his childhood for solace as he lies dying. In looking towards his childhood, he seeks an answer to the existential question plaguing him: "If life had not been what it should have been, then what would have been right?" And although he does think of his happiness as a child, and remarks on the stark contrast between then and now, that alone does not constitute an answer. For it is immediately after he asks himself this question that he begins to feel intense pity for his family. By not finding an answer to this question internally, and instead abstracting his emotions away from himself, he inadvertently resolves his ceaseless questioning. The answer is that there is none; in the end, he could not ascertain anything about the meaning of his existence besides the suffering it brought upon others. Following this internal struggle, Ivan completely loses his fear of death. Tolstoy states that "he sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. 'Where is it? What death?' There was no fear because there was no death." Death is defined only by its relationship to life; if there is no life, then there cannot be death, and thus, there is nothing for Ivan to fear.
Nihilism is the belief that all life is meaningless. Nietzsche's response to this belief is that one has to create their own value system; ie, humans are capable of becoming gods unto themselves. In failing to find value in either his actions or the actions of others, Ivan failed at creating meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. To say that Ivan was redeemed at the end, that he discovered what 'truly matters', could not be further from the truth. In fact, he discovered the antithesis of this idea: that life is ultimately meaningless, and that he failed to create meaning. To resolve the antimony that innately exists at this point - that he's alive, yet life is meaningless- Ivan resolves to end his ceaseless suffering - and thus, his life - as soon as he's physically able to.