Inevitable Death

Leo Tolstoy, in his short story Three Deaths, explores how different lifestyles can lead to different reactions when faced with death. Although everyone at some point has to cope with the thought of death, whether it be themselves or loved ones who are dying, people may express their attitudes toward passing away in ways unique to their socioeconomical situations. Tolstoy illustrates and compares the deaths of a wealthy woman, a working man, and a tree by depicting the differences of the reactions of the dying and the people and atmosphere around them.

                The rich woman is immediately introduced in comparison to her maid, who “breathed of health”. The word choice that obviously emphasizes the maid’s robust physical features is through the filter of the sick woman, which is significant because it gives a tone of bitterness and accusation from the “invalid” to the healthy people around her. This is seen again when the carriage passes the church and the maid makes the sign of the cross. Directly after this gesture, the lady asks the maid “why did you cross yourself?,” implying she thought the maid might have made the cross sign to bless her as people bless the dead. The woman’s husband tries to support his wife and hide the fact that she is going to die soon from her, although his desperation to keep her happy is revealed when he talks to the doctor, confessing that his wife has “made her plans for living abroad” in order to cure her illness, even though she would have to leave behind her children. The denial of the woman about her own blatantly imminent death and her willingness to leave behind her family to stay alive show desperation and represent the need to remain in control, as it can be presumed she was during her healthy days when she had money and political power.

                The poor man, who has a similar terminal illness as the rich woman, has a very different reaction to his impending doom. When his nephew approaches him, as he lays in his death bed, about wearing his new boots, the dying man complies. He has accepted his death perhaps before it was even confirmed by a doctor, asking his nephew only to buy him a stone when he is dead. The nephew replies to his uncle’s request by first thanking him for the boots and then agreeing to get a stone. This was significant because both the uncle and his nephew did not question or try to avoid death or the idea of dying like the rich woman did. However, the pain of death of the uncle brings on people who loved him is not totally overlooked. Nastya, his niece, has a dream that her uncle is young and able to work once again, and wakes up alarmed and screaming, telling herself that her uncle “can’t be dead”. The denial of death still is present as it was with the rich woman, but it is subconsciously inserted in the feelings of people whom death impacts in a dream.

                The last of the three deaths illustrated by Tostoy was of a tree, cut down by a logger. The tree could not talk, and it had no family to mourn its death, but the notion of denial and the impact of loss were still present in the diction of the chapter. When the logger begins to cut down the tree, the sound is described as “strange”, as if the removal of the tree is extremely unexpected, which gives readers a feeling of unease and anxiety, similar to the family members of the dying people and the dying people themselves in the previous two deaths. The tree is also described as “ancient” and “immovable”, which sets a mood for the shock of the actual falling of the tree. The tree is then personified as resisting death, and having “fear” as it begins to fall, fighting gravity for a few moments and “straightening itself”, but eventually the tree fell. The trees around the fallen tree, perhaps representing family and friends, “shook for an instant”, which is symbolic for the postmortem shock of the living. But, eventually, the surrounding trees, “more joyous than ever” extended their branches “over the new space that had been made in their midst.”

                By giving readers three distinct yet eerily similar illustrations of death and its effects, Tolstoy forces the contemplation of passing away and different ways in which it can be coped with. In his final chapter, however, he clearly depicts the idea that death, while it may seem inevitable, is unavoidable and necessary for others to prosper.