In One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich written by Solzhenitsyn in 1962, life in a Gulag prison under harsh times of Stalinism has been explored stylistically as a prison novel. The conventions of what is constituted as traits of a “prison genre” is deviated from prison films such as “escape plan” and “escape from Alcatraz”, where they contain similarities of involving the protagonist’s perseverance to escape, the horrid depiction of food, and typically have a routined system in place. Whilst Solzhenitsyn conform to these conventions through the visual imagery of food in the prison, and depiction of Ivan’s routined systematic way of thinking, the novel also deviates away from the genre through the lack of Ivan’s perseverance to escape. This …show more content…
This is done to project the dehumanisation of the prisoners whereby the cruel material conditions are able to spotlight the struggle in the Gulag. In the novel, living in such precarious conditions, necessity such as food is something in which is always in the prisoner’s mind, especially Ivan. Throughout the book, Ivan spends time thinking about food, pondering about when, and how to eat it. Typically, in a prison genre work, food is depicted to be distasteful, and atrocious. Similarly, in One day, food is not given the most appetising visualisation as Ivan describes dinner to be “Fish that was more bone than flesh, as it had been boiled off and had disintegrated” 10. Here Implicitly, although Ivan gives a vile description of food, it is elevated to be very valuable as he “savoured every bite”, finishing his ration without hesitant. The fact that Ivan enjoys the food deviates away from the norms of a prison genre as the characters in prison films often reject the meals handed to them. This is done purposely to project the hardships of living in a gulag-prison whereby prisoners are in a state of survival only caring about the idea of food and not the quality of it. Moreover, through Ivan’s fixation of meals, food becomes a symbol for companionship, …show more content…
This is seen from his perspective saying that “you live with your feet in the mud and there's no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you're going to get out”. Through this, Solzhenitsyn symbolises life in prison with “mud”, which has properties in which resist movements and drowns your feet, similar to life in prison having difficulty to get out of the system and having no time to think for himself. This not only shows his accepting mindset but also shows the lack of perseverance to want to escape. In a prison genre, the story oftentimes shows the protagonist prevailing and achieving the goal which is to be free. In One day on the contrary, Ivan and the prisoners all have little to no drive and ability to fight, projecting the weakness in hierarchy against the authoritative figures. When explored in context, during the Stalinist-era, the system was filled with arbitrary rules which meant that any form of rebellion would lead to execution. With this in mind, the prisoners in the novel understand that with the action of revolting, comes along a high chance of being killed. Hence the portrayal of Ivan’s survivalist mindset is purposely done to show the weakness
This paper is about the book 'Behind a Convict's Eyes' by K.C. Cerceral. This book was written by a young man who enters prison on a life sentence and describes the world around him. Life in prison is a subculture of its own, this subculture has its own society, language and cast system. The book describes incidents that have happen in prison to inmates. With this paper I will attempt to explain the way of life in a prison from an inmate's view.
The prisoners are treated inhumanely. Solzhenitsyn emphasizes this dehumanization by constantly comparing the prisoners to animals. For example, when trying to line the prisoners up, one of the guards shouts that they are “just like a bunch of sheep” (28). At one point, the author compares the prisoners to Shukhov’s old horse who worked himself to death (86). Even during meals, the prisoners are forced to scavenge and fight over scraps of food like animals.
Solzhenitsyn uses many techniques and skills in his book to portray an accurate representation of “anyman.” The first of these is Shukov’s meager means of endurance. In the book there are many prisoners and workers in the camp and they are all connected by one thing: the need for survival. Of course, there is no one way to survive and as the people in the camp live out their days in prison they must each figure out how they will endure.
In describing the setting, the general locale is the prison in the coldest part of Russia- Siberia, geographically but socially depicting the social circumstances in the prison, but draws analogies to the general social, political and economic circumstances of Russia during the Stalinist era (form 1917 revolution up to 1955). The symbolic significance of the novel and the film (genres) reflects experiences, values and attitudes of the Russian society. The genres reflect the origins of the Russian social disorders and massive counts of political misgivings which watered down real communism in Russia. We are constantly reminded of the social and cultural heritage and originality of Russian ethnic groups through those different levels of meanings
Bardach, Janusz, and Kathleen Gleeson. Man Is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1998. Print.
Solzhenitsyn believed that it was nearly impossible to have truly free thoughts under the prison camp conditions described in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, or in any situation where there is an authoritarian ruler. In a pris...
Most prisoners that are in prison now are more than likely to be free one day where some will spend the rest of their living life there. When they enter into the prison system, they lose more than just being able to wear what they want. They even lose more than just their civil liberties. Gresham Sykes was the first to outline these major deprivations that prisoners go through in his book The Society of Captives. His five major pains, which he calls “pains of imprisonment”, were loss of liberty, loss of autonomy, loss of security, deprivation of heterosexual relationships, and deprivation of goods and services. Matthew Robinson adds onto Sykes’ five pains with three more of his own. His additional pains are loss of voting rights, loss of dignity,
The novel focuses on one man, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, as he tries to survive another day in the Soviet Union with dignity and compassion. The action takes place at a prison camp in Russia in the northeastern region called Ekibastuz. The location is pounded by snow, ice and winds of appalling and shocking force during winter and lasted for many weeks. The camp is very isolated as it consists double rows of barbed wire fencing around the entire area, making sure it is fully concealed and private, so that no prisoners can escape. The conditions of the camp are very harsh. It is a union where camp prisoners have to earn their food by working hard in their inadequate clothing during the extremely cold weather. Living conditions are almost unbearable; heavy mattresses do not include sheets, as an alternative it is stuffed with sawdust, prisoners only eat two hundred grams of bread per meal and guards would force prisoners to remove their clothing for body searches at temperatures of forty below zero. The building walls are covered in dull and monotonous white paint and it was untidy and unpleasant. “It’s constant chaos, constant crowds and constant confusion” shows that ceilings are most likely coated with frost and men at the tables are packed as tight and it was always crowded. Rats would diddle around the food store, because of the incredibly unhygienic and filthy environment the camp is and it was so insanitary that some men would die from horrible diseases. “Men trying to barge their way through with full trays” suggests that the living conditions are very harsh indeed and mealtimes would be chaotic, as every famished men would be rushing to receive food. However, not only did the place cause the prisoners to suffer and lose their...
Political prisoners and criminals alike were subject to brutal conditions in the Soviet gulags at Kolyma in the 20th century. In Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, the stories of many different prisoners are told and much is revealed about how humans react under these pressures, both naturally and socially. Being in an extreme environment not only takes a toll on one’s physical well-being, but on one’s mental and emotional state as well. The stories show that humans can be reduced to a fragile, animalistic state while in the Kolyma work camps because the extreme conditions force many men to focus solely on self-preservation.
Food is essential to basic life. It provides people with the energy to think, speak, walk, talk, and breathe. In preparation for the Jews deportation from the ghettos of Transylvania, “the (Jewish) women were busy cooking eggs, roasting meat, and baking cakes”(Wiesel, 13). The Jewish families realized how crucial food was to their lives even before they were faced with the daily condition of famine and death in the concentration camps. The need for food was increased dramatically with the introduction of the famine-like conditions of the camps. Wiesel admitted that, although he was incredibly hungry, he had refused to eat the plate of thick soup they served to the prisoners on the first day of camp because of his nature of being a “spoiled child”. But his attitude changed rapidly as he began to realize that his life span was going to be cut short if he continued to refuse to eat the food they served him. “By the third day, I (Elie Wiesel) was eating any kind of soup hungrily” (Wiesel, 40). His desire to live superseded his social characteristic of being “pampered”. Remarque also uses his characters to show to how a balanced diet promotes a person’s good health. Paul Bäumer uses food to encourage Franz Kemmerich, his sick friend, “eat decently and you’ll soon be well again…Eating is the main thing” (Remarque, 30). Paul Bäumer feels that good food can heal all afflictions. The bread supply of the soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front was severely threatened when the rats became more and more numerous.
Dostoevsky's 1865 novel Crime and Punishment is the story of an expelled university student's murder of an old pawnbroker and her sister. The idealistic ex-student, Raskolnikov, is ultimately unable to live up to his own nihilistic theory of what makes a "Great Man" and, overcome by fits of morality, betrays himself to the police. Exiled to Siberia, suffering redeems the unfortunate young dreamer. Crime and Punishment is similar in many ways to Balzac's Pere Goriot, especially in respect to questions of morality. In Balzac, the master-criminal Vautrin lives by an amoral code similar to Raskolnikov's theory of Great Men--unrestrained by conscience, Vautrin holds that laws are for the weak, and those clever enough to realize this may overstep any boundaries they wish and dominate the rest of mankind. But where Balzac's characters act on this idea without repercussion, Raskolnikov makes a transgression and then begins immediately to question it. The result is a psychological inner battle between rationality and sentimental moralism which is as much a contest between Empiricism and Romanticism as it is a contest between good and evil, or God and the Devil.
"Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom." Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. .
Being one of the greatest Russian writers of 20th century, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn had a unique talent that he used to truthfully depict the realities of life of ordinary people living in Soviet era. Unlike many other writers, instead of writing about “bright future of communism”, he chose to write about everyday hardships that common people had to endure in Soviet realm. In “Matryona’s Home”, the story focuses on life of an old peasant woman living in an impoverished collectivized village after World War 2 . In the light of Soviet’s propaganda of creating a new Soviet Nation, the reader can observe that Matryona’s personality and way of life drastically contradicted the desired archetype of New Soviet Man. Like most of the people in her village,
...e been illustrated in many events that assure his own personal morals to live a life worthy of his own actions. ¡°Somehow, even through countless years of prison life, he has maintained a sense of dignity.¡± Shukov demonstrated his integrity by attaining trust among the prisoners, a trust gained only from his previous engagements of sincere and honest deeds. Ivan¡¯s optimistic attitude motivated the others around him to perform the given tasks with a can do attitude. To a man, ones aspect of life can aspire a man to perform a great deed with a positive attitude, which Ivan had accomplished within the power plant. Ivan Denisovich¡¯s heart found sympathy for those who had suffered without a just cause for survival allowing him to remain sane throughout his sentence. His sanity was part of his meaning in life as his main goal was to live a life the best he could, and to maintain that life it was necessary for him to remain sane. Therefore the meaning in life through he eyes of Ivan Denisovich was to live a life of honesty and integrity with an optimistic attitude, allowing himself to sustain his own stature within his society while serving out his sentence as a prisoner of Communism.
Raskolnikov's article, "On Crime," is vital to the understanding of his beliefs. This article also has a profound effect on Crime and Punishment as a whole, the subject matter being one of the main themes of the novel. The idea of the "extraordinary man" is referred to literally throughout the book, but also notable is the subconscious effect the idea has on Raskolnikov. Sometimes Raskolnikov is not even aware of this influence. It is important to note originality, or the ability to "utter a new word," as a defining characteristic of the extraordinary man. Therefore, we must take into account the presence of similar ideas, those of Pisarev, Nietzsche, and nihilism, as these might bring to light the possibility that Raskolnikov is not original, a possibility that haunts him throughout the novel.