Comparing One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Shawshank Redemption

One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Shawshank Redemption

A parent chooses the punishment to correct the child for his or her wrong. The child though is the person that decides whether the punishment will convict and transform him. The child has the power to choose how the punishment will affect them. In both the novel One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the movie The Shawshank Redemption (1994), punishment is given to a person who did not deserve it. Both Ivan Denisovich Shuhkov and Andy Dufresne are found guilty of a crime they did not commit. The prison tries to punish Shuhkov and Dufresne. However, Shuhkov and Dufresne were able to surmount the prison's attempts. Through their mind they were able to weather the guards' futile attempts at breaking them down.

In the Russian GULAG (Chief Administration of Correctional Labor Camps), Shuhkov was treated in comparison to an animal. He was fed little and worked hard. The GULAG system did not want the prisoner to have a higher thinking, or purpose. Shuhkov tells the reader, "Yes 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" (Solz 55). A few prisoners were able to overcome the labor camp's control; Shuhkov and Aloysha the Baptist were two. Shuhkov, a concrete thinker used tangible items to survive the harshness of the GULAG. Aloysha the Baptist, on the other hand, is an abstract thinker. He used his religion to reduce the bitterness of camp. Shuhkov knows little of science or textbook education. For example in his discussion with Buinovsky about the moon, Shuhkov shows he knows very little about astrology, but he knows how to use every resource possible. He says, "'God crumbles up the moon into stars'"(Solz 90). In this passage Shuhkov shows his nature to not waste anything. Shuhkov used everyday to the fullest. All that was thought about was that day, no past and no future. He was supposed to be being punished for military actions. The only thing being punished was his body. His mind was his key to survival of the punishment.