On the surface, the main characters in those two stories are quite different, as their death approaches however, they become more and more alike. Tolstoy’s Ivan Illich is an educated man who lives his live obeiding by all the written and unwritten rules. He likes the status quo and his happiness comes from conforming to what is publicly thought of as the right way to live. He acts as a decent person because it makes him happy when others say he is a decent man. Even his decision to marry was based on following the rules rather then the love for one another. According to Tolstoy, “Ivan Illich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible. He had been a member of the Court of Justice and died at the age of forty-five.” The Yukon man, in London’s “To Build a Fire” is a simple individual who finds himself in an unfamiliar territory. He is walking back to the camp after a trek in to the wilderness to examine the possibilities for logging. Unfamiliar with the area, the m

Both of the stories, “Death of Ivan Illich” and “To Build the Fire” place a man in his final moments of life and show his responses to the circumstances leading to death. Though the characters in each story are very different people, the final act of life, the death, makes them so much alike. The simplicity of the Yukon man reveals that it takes more then just a brut strength to survive some situations. His personality and the human in him, take over the simple instincts to survive. Instead of running on, in continuos attempt to survive, he lets go and decides to die with dignity.

“ A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mare matter of freezing his fingers or toes, or of loosing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him.”

With all of his inexperience and simplicity, his personal dignity is larger than life.

Throughout his life and during the last days Ivan Illich lived as though he was in the box. He would not dare step outside of its boundries even though he has set those boundries. The final struggle of his life is what finally allows him to break free and take a look at his own life and draw those final conclusions.

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