Final answer:
Ivan Ilyich's spiritual crisis is characterized by its unexpected arrival, his confrontation with personal mortality and spiritual destitution, and his struggle with the perceived meaninglessness of his life's work and sacrifices.
Step-by-step explanation:
The three components of the spiritual crisis that Ivan Ilyich experiences in the story can be surmised as follows:
- Unconscious onset: The crisis is not anticipated or recognized by Ivan Ilyich. It sneaks up on him subtly, akin to a small turn of the rudder changing a ship's course dramatically without immediate awareness, reflecting the often imperceptible nature of life-altering moments.
- Personal disintegration: As Ivan Ilyich faces physical decline, his crisis is accompanied by a sense of spiritual destitution, leading him to a confrontation with the concept of death and the consideration of mortality as the greatest evil, which exacerbates his existential dread.
- The search for meaning: The root cause of the spiritual crisis is the feeling that his sacrifices and life's work have been meaningless. This is complemented by the observation in literature that people need a set of spiritual beliefs to maintain enthusiasm and purpose in life, which implies that Ivan's crisis is partly due to the absence of such beliefs, leading to his profound disquiet.