One of the most perfect works by the author of War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilych is one of Leo Tolstoy's most celebrated pieces of late fiction. Dealing with the tyranny of the bourgeois niceties, the weakness in the human heart, living without meaning and death. Ivan Ilych Golovin has spent his life chasing after wealth and status to the deliration while ignoring his family. After a minor accident Ivan isn't going to recover and it is clear that he is going to die. Contemplating his life Ivan Ilych realizes that he has lived an empty existence as he finds himself totally alone.