PLEASE PLEASE CAN SOMEONE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEED TO GET THIS CORRECT.

What can be inferred about Ivan Ilyich based on this excerpt from Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich?

He said nothing of this, but rose, placed the doctor's fee on the table, and remarked with a sigh: "We sick people probably often put inappropriate questions. But tell me, in general, is this complaint dangerous, or not?..."

The doctor looked at him sternly over his spectacles with one eye, as if to say: "Prisoner, if you will not keep to the questions put to you, I shall be obliged to have you removed from the court."

"I have already told you what I consider necessary and proper. The analysis may show something more." And the doctor bowed.

Ivan Ilyich went out slowly, seated himself disconsolately in his sledge, and drove home. All the way home he was going over what the doctor had said, trying to translate those complicated, obscure, scientific phrases into plain language and find in them an answer to the question: "Is my condition bad? Is it very bad? Or is there as yet nothing much wrong?" And it seemed to him that the meaning of what the doctor had said was that it was very bad. Everything in the streets seemed depressing. The cabmen, the houses, the passers-by, and the shops, were dismal. His ache, this dull gnawing ache that never ceased for a moment, seemed to have acquired a new and more serious significance from the doctor's dubious remarks. Ivan Ilyich now watched it with a new and oppressive feeling.

A.
He is extremely worried about his health.
B.
He sees doctors as being similar to judges.
C.
He is extremely concerned about his home.
D.
He sees the world in a depressing light.
E.
He is extremely distrustful of doctors.
Please be sure

To infer is very much a personal matter, shaped by what we believe and have experienced. These questions challenge us to be objective which is a very hard thing to do with any certainty so we must accept we do the best we can. So, I will tell you what I believe the answer to be with my own reasoning supporting my conclusions. If you don’t agree with my beliefs and perspectives you can still use the same sort of thought process and apply them to your own experiences and beliefs. Answer truthfully and you will have done your best.

We are asked what can be inferred about Ivan. Ivan is in the third person. Our storytelling friend the narrator is in the first person and he is describing doubt. Doubt, like fear, when it enters our hearts, can take small things and make them worse. I think your request of me to “be sure” has caused me to wonder whether that’s your request or the question setter trying to really get you to feel the uncertainty that Tolstoy is talking about. Either way it has helped land it with me and I take the responsibility seriously. Either way, a bit of doubt helps to keep us all honest and can be met by the honest person with faith and so you get to my synopsis.

I believe we can infer A. He arrives with one pain and instead of trusting the doctor who is trying to help him to recover and feel better he feels worse for the help. He is extremely worried because the containment the doctor offers to stop him worrying about things that aren’t relevant or helpful doesn’t work and in fact leaves him even more pain because now he starts to think he’s beyond help so I think extreme is an appropriate word in this case. It’s not something unique: I believe life sometimes involves being extremely worried. What it is that sparks that is going to be very personal but this story shows us Tolstoy knew this sort of thing happens. What begins as a narrow but imaginary fear when rational thought is applied just grows worse and he’s clearly extremely worried about his health and more.

I don’t think B is true and for a slightly subtle reason. It is the narrator, not Ivan, who makes the comparison between doctors and judges (a clever one I think, because in it he allows us also to imagine other authority figures such as teachers or examiners or question answerers, like me!).

Given me and my life, I can readily infer C. That’s because for me my home is my symbol of my heart and by hearth where I can be open and truthful with my kin and my home is where my heart is. It is also at an address somewhere in the U.K. but in psychological or symbolic terms if I worry about my tooth generically so much as to start to worry that everything that is a building and looks like my home and is around my home then if I am extremely worried about my health I will no doubt be extremely worried about another thing that really matters which is the safety and security of my home. Depending on what home means to you and your cultural context you may feel differently about this. But you can get to C from D too, if you read the next paragraph I’ve written:

I think if you allow the same logic as I use to conclude that I can infer C then by extension of the same argument or induction I can infer D too and arguably D is more plain than C because Tolstoy draws attention to a variety of things in his journey that he now sees in a depressive light and indeed the physical home is very much in the community of other homes that Ivan sees in a depressive light and so C can be inferred by this line of thinking too.

Finally E. Well, interestingly enough I don’t think this can be inferred and if anything I think the opposite is true. He is placing so much authority in the certainty of the doctors authority that he denies his own perspectives and rather than allow it to soothe it actually makes it much worse.

So we as readers can learn from this that no one can ever be absolutely sure of anything really and if you are still worried keep getting more opinions and be open minded to trust that the people giving them are reflecting aspects of life as they see it, but they can only comment based on what they believe and perceive.