Ivan Ilych

“Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible,” means that he lived a very simple, pleasant and happy life but yet by the end of chapter 2 he was so miserable. He was good at his work and had very little sympathy for people, he saw them only as a case and nothing else. Formality was more important to him than any kind of human feeling. Ivan explains he married because that was the right thing to do and that was also socially wanted. He admits that he did not love her and only married her because of the status. His home was was beginning to fall apart but he ignored it as always. He absorbs himself in official work, isolating   himself from the demands of a family. Ivan became obsessed with materialistic things and his focus was always on impressing society, not on the well being of his family. He is almost like a robot, doing things to impress his superiors and what is socially acceptable. By the end of chapter two it is evident that Ivan is beginning to close himself off from everything--perhaps even life itself.