ABSTRACT
Like a tuning fork, such paradoxes express truth when two seemingly opposite positions are in tension with one another. Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych chronicles the gradual decline of Ivan Ilych, a judge in nineteenth-century Russia. This back-and-forth dynamic recurs in different sections of the novella, where Tolstoy repeatedly juxtaposes divine providence with human agency, anger with horror/despair, or action with submission, so as to show how neither pole can fully capture how Ilych grapples with his moribund body. Lewis was in agony over the idea that he had finally been given the gift of love and marriage, and been utterly invigorated by it, only to be left stranded as a lonely widower upon her death. Combining the metaphor of the sword with that of the teacher, Lewis imbues Davidman's death with meaning, seeing it as heralding the next stage in their journeys of faith.
