Ivan's materialistic worldview is evident throughout the book. His life is about achieving a high status in worldview. Ivan's only purpose in marrying his wife is to achieve a certain status and for much of the book he acts as if she is a nuisance in his life and ignores her, his son, and his daughter. His late-night bridge games held greater importance to him than returning home to enjoy his family. Towards the end he realizes that he has been living the wrong life and that when he dies no one will miss him or care, just like the way people reacted in the first chapter were unsympathetic towards his death. He sees that he lived an artificial life and that he should have spent more time with his family and that he should have been loving and that he should have created more meaning to his life, which Gerasim shows him as he takes care of him in his last life.