What does the candle symbolize in this excerpt from Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich?
"When I am not what will there be? There will be nothing. Then where shall I be when I am no more? Can this be dying? No, I don't want
to!" He jumped up and tried to light the candle, felt for it with trembling hands, dropped candle and candlestick on the floor, and fell
back on his pillow.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Ivan Ilyich's shallow lifestyle
Ivan Ilyich's troubled conscience
Ivan Ilyich's murky past
Ivan Ilyich's approaching death

Leo Tolstoy was the greatest Russian writer and author of all time. It is considered that he's having secret a unique way of writing. In his work, "The death of Ivan Ilyich" he used the image of dark and light. He referred the candle to symbolize his imminent death of Ivan in the story.

Ivan was sick for a long and his life is approaching death as soon as possible. In this line, he explained about the view of life and death. In the darkness, there was huge pain due to the illness. So he tried to light the candle as it extinguishes so as his life.

Thus he can be really free from the pain and he tried to light the candle up. He failed and kept on falling into the darkness again. Also, there is the true essence of light in the candlelight. That is there is a light after death since his life in the physical world has ended. That, in turn, leads a path towards the Spiritual world.