One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Essays

Shukhov could not dwell on his past even if he wanted to due his situation in the camps. Little by little he forgot what life was outside of it. With spending 8 years in the labor camps, Shukhov had little to remind him what home looked like. “As time went by, he had less and less to remind him of the village of Temgenyovo and his cottage home. Life in the camp kept him on the go from getting-up time to lights-out. No time for brooding on the past” and “Since he’d been in the camps Shukhov had thought many a time of the food

Ivan Denisovich is a prisoner of a labor camp in 1951, organized by Joseph Stalin and located in Siberia. He is a former carpenter and is serving a ten year sentence for treason. Ivan is a poor and uneducated peasant yet usually a decent prisoner. Except for one morning when he wakes up feeling under the weather, he sleeps past the wakeup call thinking a kinder guard is on duty. He is found and threatened to be punished with three days in a solitary confinement cell better known as the “hole”. Ivan’s real punishment is to wash the office floor of the headquarters and rushes to eat where he meets Fetyukov. Fetyukov is a colleague of Shukhoy and he saved him from harsh punishment. He then goes to the infirmary to be examined by Kolya who tells him he is not ill enough to get out of work.

Shortly after finding himself quite content working at the brickyard, Yakov is hit with the familiar feeling of unluckiness, when he is convicted of murder, in which he then confessed to being a Jew, but only by birth.

This written description of Shukhov’s morning meal exhibits Shukhov's daily grapple with self-respect, regardless of the ignominy of the camp experience. Shukhov has no voice in which he can state what he desires for breakfast each morning. As the quote says, “He stirred up the cold gruel and took a quick look to see what was in his bowl”, he doesn’t even know what is in his morning meal. This makes it look like the elements in the meal have more of an knowledge of what their fate will become more than he does. Shukhov continues and he stirs the meal knowing this action will determine what his future holds.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich demonstrates the brutalities of communism as symbolized by the brotherhood of men inside a forced labor prison camp in Siberia. The underlining theme of a Soviet backed camp system reflects both communism's contributing influence to the novellas internal monologue and setting. Not understanding the novella's present system of

Shukhov always craves to get extra meals to have enough energy for his work from Pavlo, who can give extra meals to someone. For these reasons, he uses different kinds of deception and does actions that show favors to Pavlo. For example, Shukhov stands across Pavlo after he finishes the first bowl because “Pavlo would see he’d finished and give him a second bowl” (p. 64). Also, Shukhov deceives the cook that he counted the number of bowls wrong and gets a chance to have an extra meal. In the camp that prisoners get in trouble easily with unjust reasons, he could get in trouble with his cunning and trickery. However, he still strives to get more rations in any way by using his personal power of boldness and astuteness.

The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so

Furthermore, Shukhov is recognized for his hard work ethic and respected unlike Fetyukov is when “Fetyukov walked through the barracks. He was sobbing… his mouth was smeared with blood. So he’d been beaten again -over the bowls’’ (150). A person like Fetyukov is a perfect example of a prisoner who had lost their pride and dignity in the gulag unlike Shukhov, he keeps his personal pride and dignity in tact which plays an important role in helping him survive the gulag

Pavel, one of the crew, manages to free himself from the wreckage are seeks help from the Sergeant and Commander. He is met with disinterest and lack of compassion. When demanding a reason for their inactivity the commander states “that is not my duty” . This statement suggests that the commander’s duty to the institution subordinates the morality and compassion for individuals whose lives are in peril. This is a twofold critique of the state. Firstly, this addresses the reality of an absolute state, where due to its size and scope of influence, it is impossible for the state to interact with the individual in a meaningful way. Rather, there is general positions that are put in place to deal with the most pressing issues that will affect the stability of the state. Therefore, in order for the state to run efficiently humanity and subjectivity is removed as to deal with issues of greater importance. Additionally, this interaction between the commander and Pavel undermines the idea of the fathering Tsar that cares for all of his children and continues the critique of the limits of autocracy. Radishchev writes, “Is it possible…that such inhumanity should occur in our

The harder he worked and the more favors he did for his fellow prisoners, the more food he got. An extra serving here and there can make the difference between life and death. Shukhov took advantage of that. “But Shukhov wasn’t made that way- eight years in a camp couldn’t change his nature. He worried about anything he could make use of, about every scrap of work he could do- nothing must be wasted without good reason” (Solzhenitsyn 105). I think Shukhov kept himself occupied by doing all of those odd jobs. He viewed repairing shoes, tailoring, and saving a spot in line as an opportunity to earn food, not as a job. He enjoyed working with his hands he was good at it and it gave him a sense of accomplishment, but what kept him going was the

He scrounges for anything he can get regardless of the repercussions. Although under harsh and inadequate conditions, Shukhov follows the social rules of eating with his cap off no matter how cold or hungry he

In addition to this, in the mindset of the day, if someone was suspected of anti-Bolshevik activities, they were automatically guilty. The investigator would look for anything he could find that could possibly make the person guilty at all. Sometimes the investigator would take up a random piece of literature, say it was bad, and have the suspect shipped off, even if the “incriminating” evidence was something as benign as the children’s story Goodnight Moon. The investigator would not be the one to tell the suspect what he was even accused of; he would just take the “evidence” and people would soon kidnap the suspect and toss him in a cattle car to Siberia, which was cramped with a mass of other convicts. When the prisoners reached the Gulag, an official there would take everyone’s valuables and toss the convicts into cramped cells. The interrogation could start at any time. For some the interrogations were that day, and for others it never came and their lives were lived out in the dirty cells. When and if the interrogator got a confession out of someone, a prison sentence was read out and the convict was sent off to the actual Gulag.

The thing people are usually most curious about is Russian prison culture and it is often badly misunderstood. People who are convicted typically do not serve time in prison. A sentence is characterised by its length and the ‘regime of incarceration’, which can be ‘common’, ‘strict’ or ‘special’. If yours is ‘common’, you will be sent to a colony referred to as a “zone” where you get to live in a barracks-style dormitory, move relatively freely, work and participate in common activities with amateur dramatics being especially popular. This is by no means an easy life, but you get to see the sky and breathe fresh air; as a consequence, people in pre-trial detention confessing to crimes they didn’t commit in order to speed up their trial and get out of a prison and into a “zone” quickly is a serious problem. A “strict” sentence will land you in a high security zone or a “krytaya”, meaning “covered”, ie a prison where you don’t get to see the sky. These remand prisons are not pleasant places to be and convicts end up there when their crimes exhibit particular brutality or for violent crimes they’ve committed

When Nikita Khrushchev seized control over the Soviet Union he kicked off what is known as the “Thaw” began. This period in time when citizens were forced into labor camps where millions of people were sent for crimes against the country that included practicing certain religions, having communications with foreign persons, and talking out contrary to the government. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was a controversial short novel published in 1962 that was fiction, but based in reality about the “gulag” (Solzhenitsyn PG#) prison system that Joseph Stalin, the dictator who ruled the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1952. During Stalin's rule of fear, millions were arrested and shipped off to gulags. One Day in the Life of Ivan

Ambiguous Recounting of Time and Space in Raskolnikov’s Room by Rohan Brebion #0005030011 Instructor: Jamie Blount School: Southside High School May, 2016 Crime and Punishment Reflective Statement The oral presentations allow me see Fyodor’s Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment from a different perspective and see the connections to the author’s personal experiences. I was able to explore various topics including descriptions of Russia during the 1860s, nature of crime, and author’s style. Despairing poverty characterized the time period in Russia.