Both, Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (a-leck-sand-ur soul-zen-it-schen) and Starvation Camp Near Jaslo, written by Wistawa Szymborska (vis-wava shim-bor-ska), share the same underlying theme. They both communicate the idea of the mental, physical and emotional struggles which occurred to prisoners who were sentenced to camps during World War Two. Starvation Camp New Jaslo is an allusion to the starvation camps that the Nazi’s created during World War Two. This poem manages to instil a strong sense of sympathy within the reader. This emotion is conveyed via literary devices such as; rhetorical questions, repetition and symbolism. The poem itself has an atmosphere of morbid curiosity mixed with commiseration, …show more content…
The starvation camp situated near Jaslo hits home with Szymborska as this is where she grew up. Gone was the pristine and serene field she knew, now a deceiving meadow stood in its place, trying to hide the horrors of the past. Line 15, ‘and the meadow is silent as a false witness’ uses the literary device ‘contrast’. The use of this is to compare the meadow as being rural and beautiful, to the things that truly happened there. Personification of the meadow is also present, in saying that the meadow was bribed to keep quite as so no one knows the true story as to what happened on the seemingly tranquil meadow. The words, "a thousand and one is still only a thousand," have an eerie ring of truth to them. When it comes to news and history reports, death counts are always rounded down. The literary device used is …show more content…
The novel is based around a labour camp called HQ, where Shukov and his comrades in gang 104 are sentenced to suffer. Not much is known about Shukov, except for the fact that he is a hardworking, poor and simple man born from a peasant. He was likely uneducated and illiterate as shown by the fact that he does not know what a poem is, when he visits the local medic Alyoshka, and finds him writing a poem. He isn’t a very affectionate person, as demonstrated by the fact that he has not seen his wife or daughters in years. Solzhenitsyn (soul-zen-it-schen) makes this undistinguished man the hero of his novel in order to represent the uneducated peasant mainstream of Soviet society. In camp HQ, the soviets try everything within their power to try and dehumanize the prisoners of war. Examples of this are calling prisoners by a number in a system, rather than by their name. For example, Shukov is referred to as ‘Shcha-854’ by the guards. Mental affects in regards to prisoners would be the fact that they are in these camps would make them feel as if they are worthless and meaningless. As their quality of life slowly decreased, their depression and hopes of a release from this world (suicide) will become more and more apparent. While the book depicts mildly jubilant prisons, over time the despair and desolate outlook of the labour camp
My initial response to the poem was a deep sense of empathy. This indicated to me the way the man’s body was treated after he had passed. I felt sorry for him as the poet created the strong feeling that he had a lonely life. It told us how his body became a part of the land and how he added something to the land around him after he died.
There are unexpected aspects of life in the camp depicted in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlement” by Tadeusz Borowski. The prisoners were able to make very obvious improvements to their lived in the camp, without reaction by the SS officers; the market was even made with the support of the camp. The prisoners actually hoped for a transport of prisoners, so as to gain some supplies. The true nature of the camp is never forgotten, even in better moments at the camp.
With time, tragedies become statistics. The lives lost culminate to numbers, percentages, and paragraphs in textbooks,and though a recognition of its occurrence becomes universal, an understanding of its severity dies with those who lived it. “Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941” is a literary medium by which the nature of tragedy is transmitted. Set in the post-battle Leningrad, the poem encapsulates the desolation not of war and its aftermath. Paramount in this translation is figurative language. Olds’ use of simile and metaphor in “Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941” allows the reader to understand the incomprehensible horrors of war and, through contrast, the value of life.
The book I chose to do my book report on is "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". The book is about the most forceful indictments of political oppression in the Stalin era Soviet Union. It is a captiving story about the life in a Siberian labor camp, related to the point of view of Ivan Denisovich, a prisoner. It takes place in a span of one day, "from dawn till dusk" (pg. 111) . This book also describes his struggles and emotional stress that he must going through.
World War I and II brought the worst of times for some people; loved ones were lost, families were separated, homes were destroyed, and innocent lives were taken during this time. There are many ways to deal with these hardships; Jewish poet, Avrom Sutzkever, used his hard times as inspiration for his writing and as a way to deal with the war and survive it (INSERT CITATION). This part of history also resulted in other great works of art as a way to deal with what the war brought, during and after the war was over. Avrom Sutzkever wrote his poem “Frozen Jews,” using such dark and depressing imagery, connotation, and diction because of his historical and biographical background.
depressing. It appears that this poem was the reaction of the death of a loved one.
Living conditions for Nazi prisoners were over crowded. They had to sleep in unsanitary wooden and brick bunks with several others. Prisoners were given a curtain amount of time to use the facilities with no privacy. With little water they had to clean themselves the inmates lived in constant filth. The Nazi’s didn’t care how bad the weather was, the prisoners had to wait long hours during rolls call. Even the dead had to present during roll call. After roll call prisoners were marched to where they would be working at for the day. Some worked in factories, while others worked outside. Hours later they were marched to camp for another roll call.
Solzhenitsyn wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in such a fashion that the brutality of the Soviet labor camps is not emphasized. Instead of focusing on the brutality of the camps, Solzhenitsyn focused on one day in the life of a very ordinary prisoner. However, the fact that Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is such an ordinary man and is still able to find hope in the most menial of tasks is inspiring. Joseph Frank states that "Solzhenitsyn's fundamental theme is precisely the affirmation of character, the ability to survive in a nightmare world where mora... ...
...including overcrowded and dirty cells... Suspects detained by police pending investigations are thrown in cells with hardened criminals on remand, a development he called unfair” (“Caribbean Prison Conditions Deplorable”). The prisoners in these jails are being held in conditions that are unsuited for human life, and these inappropriate conditions do not help the prisoners right the wrongs they have committed. They ultimately leave the prisoners in a state of mind no one should be in, which brings them farther away from the society. Both groups, the corporation in the book and the government in the article, have received what they wanted from the conditions they have put their patients and prisoners in.
Irina Ratushinskaya has written many poems, most of which portray her will to survive and also the torture she went through in the camp. Two examples of her poetry that show this well are, 'I will Travel Through the land' and 'I will Live and Survive'. These two poems are different as they explain different aspects of being in a labour camp, however they both depict suffering and focus on some of the same themes. In 'I will Travel Trough the Land', Irina Ratushinskaya uses... ...
The Holocaust was a tragic event in history which instilled fear and sorrow in so many. This time can be seen as one without order, because the law at the time said the actions taken were just (epigraph translation). A poet was able, however, to take such a chaotic time in history in the poem The Book of Yolek, and create a more personal attachment (for the reader) to the topic. The poet Anthony Hecht has taken the Holocaust (more specifically the moving of Jewish orphans to a concentration camp) and made it simple and nostalgic, taking a more calm approach to the subject ("5th August 1942: Warsaw Orphans Leave for Treblinka"). By using the form of a Sestina (very precise form difficult to properly do), along with the images, rhetorical use of grammar, and the tone portrayed throughout the piece, Anthony Hecht demonstrates a peaceful outlook can be given to the most chaotic moments in human life (Strand et al. 20). However, he also demonstrates the need for emotional attachment when referring to an occurrence (in history) of the past.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was written within the time of Stalinism, and thus within the era of the Soviet Union’s gulag system. Therefore, Solzhenitsyn presents the lifestyle that a person may have experienced if they had been a part of the gulag system where dehumanization was the ultimate goal. The conservation of dignity, whether individual or communal, presents itself through the interactions within the community, the work on the compound, and the spiritual discipline of Ivan Denisovich. The accumulation of the above strategies warrants Ivan to not only retain his humanity but also to aid in the protection of human dignity of those around him.
Authors Elie Wiesel and Alexander Solzhenitsyn write about eerily similar topics in their respective works, Night and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. They both focus around the suffering and inhumanity of their situations, and use their works to raise awareness to those who had either previously been uneducated or just uninformed on the issues, and were instrumental to future conversations regarding such travesties. If one looks at the major topics/themes of these writings, they will see a clear statement about suffering, through the use of motifs such as dehumanization, the loss of hope, and food. Through the author’s description of these themes, it really gave readers a sense of the hell that they had to live through.
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
Throughout this semester, and the multiple readings covered, a number of different prison scenes have been encountered. In many cases the prisons function as a location that restricts certain kinds of movements and actions while enabling others. Overall, one underlying message of the prison encounters through the texts is that prison can help people reach some sort of realization. Some texts enable a realization of self, while other texts enable a realization of a society as a whole, but regardless some sort of realization is met. Some texts in particular that successfully do this are De Profundis, Moll Flanders, and “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”.