Which themes are portrayed in this excerpt from Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich?

Praskovya Fedorovna came of a good family, was not bad looking, and had some little property. Ivan Ilyich might have aspired to a more brilliant match, but even this was good. He had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have an equal income. She was well connected, and was a sweet, pretty, and thoroughly correct young woman. To say that Ivan Ilyich married because he fell in love with Praskovya Fedorovna and found that she sympathized with his views of life would be as incorrect as to say that he married because his social circle approved of the match. He was swayed by both these considerations: the marriage gave him personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates.

So Ivan Ilyich got married.

You can choose more then one answer

1. conforming to social conventions

2. criticism of a middle class lifestyle

3. the destructive impact of loneliness

4. struggling to face reality

5. the necessity of companionship

The excerpt talks about how Ivan Ilyich needed to marry to conform to the social conventions that dictated how women and men should be in a marriage and this also shows that the excerpt criticizes a middle-class lifestyle, where marriages were not made between people who loved each other, but as a form of social ascension which did not always bring happiness to those involved.

Finally, the excerpt shows the need for company that Ivan Ilyich had, and because of this he was happy that his wife besides meeting the standards that society determined was also a company that he was very pleased.

This can be proved by the passage: "the marriage gave him personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates."