EC #2 History

a. How does Ivan's quest for status, advancement, prestige, and generally the approval of others endanger his chance to live a more meaningful life?



Ivan's life is spent constantly striving to move up in his social class. He starts off in Russia living growing up as I would Imagine Russian youth typically does. His quest for status, prestige and approval of other really begins to affect him when he becomes successful in life. His wife seems to demand more than Ivan is able to handle and he therefore ignores her and his family. He masks this problem he has with his ambition and work. He works hard in order to become successful and although he succeeds and moves up eventually, his family at home is suffering and he seems to be caring less and less for them.
I think his primary reasoning for this is that in a mental state, his work and life outside of his immediate family is more clear cut and in a way, it is also easier. Although in the long run he may have to work more, it is simple. Usually at work the more work he inputs, the more he will get as his output. In family, things are never this straight forward. It is hard to establish a routine with family life as it is compared to work. He is unable to realize how it is impacting not only his family but himself. He is too deep into the thought of what others thing to notice what his family thinks. This is common in todays society. People are not worried about how they treat family because often their family will come back to them and will take it where as with others, people put off an image in order to impress. It is common among teen relationships where the male will treat the female poorly in front of friends in order to impress at the cost of another sometimes without even noticing. Ivan isn't concerned with his family because he is too busy with business and class.
Ivans life can be viewed as a metaphor or representation of our lives. For the majority of Ivans life he is living and doing very little thought about whether it is wrong or right. He is only able to criticize his life when he discovers he is dying. My grandparents often question the route or path taken in their life and what is has brought them to. Many of us, when we reach the end of our path are not completely satisfied because the society we live in does not allow us for more. Ivan just wants to make something out of his life and have a sense of meaning and this is, in his opinion, a good, smart way of doing it. He only realizes later in his life how out of order his values were.
Ivan lives a life looking up to a man he wishes and thinks he could be. He wants so badly to fill the role of a strong sucessful lawyer who is popular amongst his friends. He enjoys playing cards but also uses it as a way to avoid his life at home which is not quite so stable. He in a way hides his family from the outer world because he feels like they prevent him from filling this role he wants to be. He does in the end, fill out some of the role that he wanted to complete but he becomes terminally and realizes that his sucess was really useless .