Compare and Contrast Essay Sample: God Helps the Child by Toni Morrison vs. The Death Of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

As most people know, whenever someone is sick it is either of old age or natural causes. However, in the book God Helps the Child by Toni Morrison and The Death Of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy is a little different. Both stories are similar in a way and different. Both stories go in dept of an unknown sickness that each character has. Through their sickness, they each go on a journey that grows their character development. Bride and Ilyich sickness started with a problem. Bride’s problem was that Booker thought that Bride wasn’t the woman he thought she was. Ilyich problem was his marriage and work. Whether it is reflecting on their materially successful life or missing the point of life, Bride and Ivan Ilyich have come to terms with their illness and managed to tell a story with it.  

In God Helps The Child Bride sickness is her ageing backwards or returning to the young girl she once was. Unlike Ilyich in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, she came to accept her sickness and instead of lashing out she started her journey of finding her ex-boyfriend. To us readers Bride’s sickness was like a curse. Her losing hair, her “altered earlobes” (Morrison 82) and many other mortifications to her body, she began changing back to the little black girl she once was. When she first found out her body was changing, it was after Booker left her. After first it was the pubic hair then it progressed on too many other things such as losing her breast, her shrinking, and her menstrual stopping. According to God Helps The Child, “Completely flat, with only the nipples to prove it was not her back” (Morrison 92). Bride's body began changing as her journey to look for Booker began.  

In contrast to Bride sickness, Ilyich sickness was more of an internal thing that represents life and death, and the acceptance that death was the only option. Ilyich was a very successful lawyer and a member of the Court of Justice. He married a pretty girl named Praskovya Fyodorvna who was from a well-off family with money. Many friends and family would describe Ilyich as the pitch perfect son or as they would say it the “le phenix de la famille” (Tolstoy 689). From his impenetrable reputation Ilyich received his first promotion which allowed his family to move to a new city. There they had children and problems started to occur. Their marriage began to change. They started arguing daily and Ilyich felt like it all started with his wife. He states that she felt “jealous” of him and wanted “attention to herself from him” (Tolstoy 692). Ilyich began getting sick after he hit his side while fixing some curtains. At first, he did not think it was anything but then it began getting serious. He consulted with many doctors and to no avail, there was not a stated conclusion about his sickness. With the stress from his wife and change in mood, his health worsened.  

Ilyich was the type of man to search high and low to get a definite answer to his question, which was “Was his condition dangerous or not” (Tolstoy 700)? He visited celebrity doctors, his friend who knows a doctor and even the internet, but he could not find an answer. Ilyich concluded that death was the only option. Death is a reified concept which only happens to him and through his suffering he looks back on the pleasant memories, but he has only one which was childhood. The hypocrisy of marriage and a jolly happy life is nonexistent to the current Ivan Ilyich. Ilyich stated, “Marriage … so casually entered, and disillusionment, and the smell that came from his wife’s mouth, and sensuality, hypocrisy” (Tolstoy716)!  Ilyich has a mirror trope which represents his way of a materialistic life.  

When one thinks of a materially successful life, you would think of a rich, happy family, great social circle, and above all a happy life. On the contrary, most successful lives have faults that come with it. Both Bride and Ilyich go through a sickness which contrasts with their life they had. Both were successful in their life. With Bride’s cosmetic Business You Go Girl and Ilyich's life of being a successful person in the Court of Justice, each one had a dream life; however, every successful life comes with their own set of problems. With sickness in the body overtaking Bride and Ilyich they both start to reconsider the true meaning of a material successful life. 

Ilyich's illness and Bride’s “shrinking in the body” reflect that their materially successful life was a fairytale compared to a normal material successful life without any illnesses or sickness. Going through a spiritual and emotional journey to find out the reason behind the reason as to why they got sick or why they are the way they are, Bride and Ilyich realized that the point of life is not the happiness they had when they were successful but rather it is when they were happy with a certain person or a childhood memory. According to The Death of Ivan Ilyich, “There in childhood was something so truly pleasant with which he could live, if it returned” (Tolstoy 716). The bride’s happiness was Booker, but she had to realize that as she went through obstacles and went back to his hometown to find him.  

A materially successful life is one thing a person can dream of, but they don’t factor in the faults that come with it. Bride’s sickness and Ilyich illness is one of the few. Along with sickness comes with the acceptance of reality and the life lessons that are learned along with it. With Bride’s failed relationship being the start of her body changing, and Ilyich happiness being the start of his illness, both characters have a reified experience that only happens to them. Both stories have different endings, however, they both managed to reflect on their materially successful life. In a way they have found the point of life by reminiscing about the time when they were happy before they got sick.