Well. Now that I'm done riding off the high that is a better-than-even-I-expected senior speech, here we are back in the oft-forgotten world of English blogs. Actually, before I get ranting, I would like to note one thing. Having a good senior speech is like your second birthday of the year. Seriously, with everyone congratulating you, and the balloons, and the free food (Deepa's mother makes some wicked awesome chicken curry), and the accolades, who wouldn't feel as loved as you are on your birthday? It's really awesome.
So, "The Death of Ivan Iliych". What a downer. Now, I know Ivan can be compared to Christ, especially when this was written in Tolstoy's "Holy cow, Christianity!" phase. But I see Ivan as more of a Job guy. Ivan had a good life. Maybe Job was a nicer guy, but Ivan wasn't exactly a terrible enemy. Suddenly, he has all of this suffering going on in his life, and the only thing he really did wrong was have an unextraordinary life. That's what a lot of us have. I found the novella particularly sad when, towards the very end of his life, Ivan no longer hates his family, but feels sorry for them, because he found true joy and they'll always live their materialistic lives. But before he can share this joy, he dies. Perhaps he dies from his first true moment of unselfish love.
Other than writing my college essays, I am now spending a considerable amount of time teaching myself the mandolin, a strange gift I gave myself this Christmas. It's really a fun instrument. Plus, the mandolin has the same strings as the violin—in fact, it's like the violin, but without a bow. The notes are in pretty much the same place. I can play two songs right now: "You Are My Sunshine" and the Beatles's "All My Loving". This repretoire will expand once I get actual music books and mandolin lessons. My ultimate fantasy is being able to bring my mandolin to school and jam during my frees. We'll see.
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Lizzie--what we don't tell anyone ahead of time, because we want you all to experience it for yourself, is that once all the work and the worry are done and the speech is delivered, what follows is a genuine intellectual and emotional high of the kind everyone needs to experience a few times. You get to be the star of the campus for a day, and you take with you a sense of accomplishment that's worth even more than the congratulations. I like the second birthday analogy in particular.
I think Ivan also feels sorry for his family because he understands that he has wronged them, that he failed to be the kind of husband and father he should hve and could have been if he'd understood earlier what was really important, as you say, unselfish love.
Good luck with the mandolin. I think it's an instrument that fits you better than, say, another four-stringed instrument like a double stand-up bass. :-)
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