A lot of books have a fairly typical history author writes book, book gets published,

people read it, author says "hooray!" One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is not
one of those books. In fact, this book's history is kind of nuts.

See, One Day was a hugely bold and controversial book that was published in 1962 in
Soviet Russia. This book is a work of fiction, but it is also a kind of journalistic tell-all
about a serious topic: the gulag system. What on earth is a gulag? Well, "gulag" is the
name of a type of prison that existed in Soviet Russia. Gulags were forced labor camps
where millions of people were sent for "crimes" like practicing a certain religion,
having contact with foreigners, and speaking out against the government. Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn was writing about the gulag system under Joseph Stalin, the dictator who
ruled the Soviet Union from 1924 (following the death of Vladimir Lenin, the guy who
led the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, which brought the communists to power) until
his death in 1952. During Stalin's reign of terror, millions of people were killed and
millions were arrested and shipped off to gulags. Gulags were often in locations that
weren't exactly vacation hot-spots, like Siberia. Conditions there were awful and
inmates were used as slave labor. The people who survived the camps were often sent
into forced exile afterwards.

Solzhenitsyn had first-hand experience of the gulag system. He was arrested for
writing a derogatory comment about Stalin in a letter. Private mail didn't really exist in
Stalinist Russia. Solzhenitsyn was arrested in 1945 and was released from prison in
1953, when he was sent into forced exile in Kazakhstan. In 1956 he was finally
allowed back into Russia.

Actually, a lot of prisoners were released after Stalin's death in 1952. The arguably
less ruthless Nikita Khrushchev took over the Soviet Union and kicked off what is
known as the "Thaw," a period during which people could start debating issues and
even be somewhat critical of Stalin.

It was during the Thaw that Solzhenitsyn could finally publish his work. One Day in the
Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in a literary journal called Novy Mir (which
means New World) in 1962. Khrushchev himself read and approved of the novella
before it was published. Khrushchev was all about sticking it to Stalin in order to shore
up his own political power, but when it came right down to it, Khrushchev wasn't all
that much of a reformer. He was still running an oppressive state and the Thaw was
starting to end by the close of Khrushchev's reign. Khrushchev was thrown out of
office by Leonid Brezhnev, a pro-Stalin guy, in 1964.

After Brezhnev came to power, Solzhenitsyn's works were pretty much banned, and a
black-market rose up where people read his work in secret. Solzhenitsyn was arrested
and deported from Russia in 1974 and his works, including One Day, weren't openly
available again until 1989, when the Soviet Union began to crumble. The Soviet Union
finally collapsed in 1991.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was an international sensation when it was first
published and it has remained influential since it was first published. It was the first
literary work to openly discuss the oppressive policies of Stalin and the gulag system,
and it did a lot to inspire future dissidents, or people who opposed the Soviet
government. In 1970, Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical
force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature"
(source).
A Prison Novel
Most worthwhile pieces of literature operate on multiple levels of meaning. One of
these is the literal level that is, a level on which one requires only an understanding
of the basic denotation of the terms and concepts employed by the author. Expressed
simply, on this level the author communicates with the reader in a "realistic," non-
symbolic fashion. The reader has to transfer very few terms and concepts to a non-
literal, symbolic or allegorical level.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is literally a prison story, and thus, it takes its
place in a long list of similar works which deal with conditions in prisons, labor camps,
concentration camps, mental hospitals, or POW camps. As such, it deals with many of
the same problems that works like The Survivor by Terrence des Pres, Pierre
Boulle's The Bridge on the River Kwai, Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and
Gentlemen, Henri Charriere's Papillon, and many German, French, and British POW
novels attempt to come to grips with.
Like all of these works, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich deals with the struggle
for survival under inhumane conditions. What must a man or a woman do to get out of
such a camp alive? Is survival the only and most important goal, or are there limits to
what a person can and should do to stay alive? Is religious faith necessary or vital for
survival? All of these are questions which this work attempts to answer on a literal
level.
Solzhenitsyn, who has first-hand experience of the camp conditions which he
describes in this story, relates the actual experiences of millions of his compatriots,
and his Russian readers could not help but ponder the real possibility of their being
confronted with Ivan Denisovich's situation.
Like the authors of other prison novels, Solzhenitsyn concludes that it is the duty of a
human being not to resign and give up the struggle for survival. However, it is wrong
to concentrate on what one must do to survive. It is better to establish a personal
code of behavior which dictates what one will not do just to preserve one's physical
existence.
Existence without dignity is worthless in fact, loss of human dignity will also
diminish the will and the capacity to survive. Compromises are certainly necessary,
but there is a vast moral gap between Ivan and Fetyukov: Fetyukov will do anything
for a little more food, and he is properly referred to as a scavenging animal; Ivan, in
contrast, will swindle and bully, at times, but basically, he relies on his resourcefulness
to achieve the same goal. He does not lick bowls, he does not give or take bribes, and
he is deferential when necessary, but he never crawls. With some improvement in his
habits of personal hygiene, he will probably, eventually, become what might be
termed "the ideal prisoner," represented by Y-81, the meticulous old camp inmate
whom Ivan admires.
Survival is a task which needs Ivan's constant, simple-minded attention. Abstractions,
esoteric discussions on religion or on art are irrelevant and counter-productive. Caesar
Markovich can survive only as long as his packages arrive. The Captain, if he survives
solitary confinement, will have to give up his unrealistic ideas about communism and
his overbearing manner if he wants to live. Alyosha the Baptist is, by the very nature
of his faith, more interested in an afterlife than he is in physical survival during this
lifetime. Clearly, Fetyukov and most of the informers will not live long.
Only Ivan combines all the qualities necessary to survive: he works for himself and for
his comrades, but not for the authorities; he does not rely on outside help, but on his
own skill and craftiness; he is used to obeying sensible orders and circumventing
absurd ones; he has faith, but it is a faith designed to help him cope with the realities
of this life, not one which exhausts itself in dogmatic theological debate. Ivan believes
in the strength and the dignity of the simple Russian worker and peasant without
being a doctrinaire Communist. He is, with some lapses, a compassionate human
being who looks at his fellow prisoners with sympathy and understanding. Most of
them appreciate this attitude and treat him with the same respect.
A Social Commentary
The population of Ivan's prison camp contains a cross section of Russian society. There
are prisoners representing virtually every professional, social, and ethnic group in the
Soviet Union: we find artists, intellectuals, criminals, peasants, former government
officials, officers, Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, and gypsies (Caesar Markovich), just
to name a few. If one looks, therefore, beyond the literal level of the novel, it becomes
clear that Solzhenitsyn not only wanted to give a realistic description of life in a
Siberian prison camp, but that he also wanted the reader to understand that the camp
on an allegorical level was a representation of Stalinist Soviet Russia.
In an interview, Solzhenitsyn once stated that he had been interested in a statement
made by Leo Tolstoy, who said that a novel could deal with either centuries of
European history, or with one day in a man's life. (This statement by Tolstoy may have
also been the reason why Solzhenitsyn changed the title of this work from S-
854 to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.) During his own prison term, the author
made up his mind to describe one day of prison life, one day in the life of Ivan
Denisovich Shukhov, whose fate Solzhenitsyn once called "the greatest tragedy in
Russian drama."
Read on this level, the novel becomes a scathing indictment of the Soviet system
during the Stalin era. Solzhenitsyn would now certainly extend this indictment to the
Soviet system as a whole. There are chronic food shortages, except for a privileged
few who can bribe advantages out of corrupt officials. There is vandalism and
bureaucratic inefficiency, leading to waste and sabotage. To dispel any doubt that all
this applies only to camp life, Solzhenitsyn introduces Ivan's thoughts about the
collective farm from which he comes ('Daydreams of Home and of the Kolkhoz"),
which is barely functioning. The men there have bribed the officials to relieve them
from farm work so they can paint the profitable, sleazy carpets. In addition, there is
also the constant spying and informing activities which are typical of Soviet society,
and Solzhenitsyn deplores them most of all, for they create distrust among people
who should cooperate against the authorities rather than against themselves. A
prisoner, he says, is another prisoner's worst enemy, not the authorities. It is
interesting to note that, in spite of serving ten- or twenty-five-year sentences, all of
the prisoners seem to be serving life terms. Nobody is ever released from the larger
Soviet prison; when one term ends, another one is added on.
It was probably an accident that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published
exactly one hundred years after Letters from the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky's
famous account of his own experiences in prison under the Czar. But certainly, many
Russian readers would immediately recognize the connection between the two works
and realize the irony inherent in the comparison: prisons under the hated Czars were,
by far, more humane than those under Stalin, and far fewer people were imprisoned in
them.
What can be done to overcome these wretched social conditions? It is clear that
Solzhenitsyn sees as little possibility for a successful, violent overthrow of the Soviet
regime as he does for an armed revolt in Ivan's camp. The real hope is that the
corrupt, inefficient system will destroy itself from within, and that Russia will return to
a system which is founded on the qualities which Ivan represents: hard work without
too much reliance on technology.
Here, Solzhenitsyn follows Dostoevsky's anti-Western, anti-technological attitude. He
calls for (1) a revival of the old Russian folk traditions, (2) a simple, mystic faith
without the dogmatic bureaucracy of any established church, (3) cooperation between
the multitudes of ethnic and social groups in Russia who are now divided and, thus,
"their own worst enemies," and (4) an attitude of non-cooperation and non-violent
undermining of the bureaucracy and the authorities.
Even if it appears that conditions will not change soon (another prison term may be
added on), the actions of the Russian people should be designed to survive with
dignity and pride, not with groveling and crawling. It should be noted that
Solzhenitsyn does not expect any leadership from intellectuals, churchmen, or artists
in this struggle. Their love for abstractions and endless discussion is shown as not
producing practical results.
An Existential Commentary
Beyond the literal and the social level, we can detect in this work a theme which
aligns it closely to many works of modern fiction. Its theme is the fate of modern man
who must make sense of a universe whose operations he does not understand. Thus,
the level of meaning which addresses the questions "How is one to survive in a prison
camp?" and "How is one to survive in the Soviet Union, which is like a prison camp?" is
extended to this question: "According to what principles should one live in a
seemingly absurd universe, controlled by forces which one can't understand and over
which one has no control?"
Ivan's fate closely resembles that of Josef K. in Franz Kafka's The Trial. Josef K. is
arrested one morning without knowing why, and he attempts to find out the reasons.
In his search, he encounters a cruel court bureaucracy which operates according to
incomprehensible rules; lawyers and priests cannot provide him with reasonable
answers for his fate, and so he finally concludes that he must be guilty. Accordingly,
he willingly submits to his execution.
Ivan is also arrested and sent to prison camps for absurd reasons, and so are most of
his fellow inmates. He does not understand the legalities of his case. He is, after all,
only a simple worker, and he never encounters the highest authorities who might
provide him with an answer. He meets only cruel, minor officials of the system, who
only obey orders but do not give explanations. The intellectuals around him do not
seem to have the right answers, and the religious people, like Alyosha the Baptist, are
very similar to the comforters who try to explain to job the reason why he must suffer
so cruelly. Their arguments are dogmatic; they are not logical or practical.
A man who finds himself in such a situation has several options. One is despair, a
passive acceptance of whatever fate has in store for him. This, as Camus indicates
in The Myth of Sisyphus, is unacceptable behavior for an intelligent human being. An
extension of that option is suicide, an alternative that is not even mentioned in One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
Another alternative is to search for a system of thought which will provide an
explanation for such a basic existential question as "Why is all this happening to me?"
These could be philosophical, religious, or political systems of thought, most of them
having spokesmen who seemingly are able to give answers. Unfortunately, they all
require that a person accepts at least one basic point of dogma on faith that is, one
must not ask for proof. And that is unacceptable to many practical, logical people like
Ivan. Therefore, Ivan must ultimately reject Alyosha the Baptist's interpretation of the
universe.
Despite the fact that Ivan does believe in God, albeit a pantheistic pagan god, his
answer to the existential question of modern man is fundamentally that of jean-Paul
Sartre and other Existentialists. He decides to adopt a personal code of behavior
similar to that of Hemingway's so-called "code heroes," whose highest satisfaction is
derived from demonstrating "grace under pressure." Rather than adopting other
people's behavioral codes (for example, the Ten Commandments), Ivan establishes his
own set of morals, which are designed to help him survive with dignity. Since nobody
can give him a logical explanation for his fate, he abandons all attempts at finding
such an explanation and structures his life by the premise that there is, in fact, none.
This allows him to concentrate on gaining satisfaction from following the standards he
has set for himself. He does not have to please anyone about practical matters. This is
graphically demonstrated by Ivan, particularly in his sense of self-reliance and in his
"grace under pressure" behavior. He is a prototype of what Sartre calls a man "living
in good faith," as well as a prototype for the common Russian, in whom Solzhenitsyn
puts his hope for a better future.

The choice of a protagonist created a problem of narration for Solzhenitsyn. Ivan is

certainly not unintelligent, but his educational background is not suited for narrating a
lengthy story. On the other hand, it would not have been suitable to have a highly
educated narrator tell us about Ivan, because the educational and emotional distance
between the two would have been too great. First-person narration by Ivan and third-
person omniscient narration were therefore not possible. Solzhenitsyn uses a form of
narration in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which is an ingenious variation of a
traditional Russian narrative form, the skaz. This technique, employed widely in
Russian folk tales, establishes an anonymous narrator who is on the same educational
and social level as the protagonist and is able to transmit the main character's actions
and thoughts, using the third-person singular, and sometimes the first-person plural,
but giving the impression to the reader that the story is being told in first person by
the protagonist. Indeed, in One Day, the reader has the impression that Ivan is the
narrator, and only a closer look reveals that most of the story is told in third person.
The reader sees through Ivan's eyes, although Ivan is not the narrator.
In addition to the skaz narrator, Solzhenitsyn employs another narrator who could be
an educated fellow prisoner the persona of the author who is used only when the
story has to deal with concepts which are clearly beyond the intellectual and linguistic
grasp of both Ivan and the anonymous skaz narrator.
In yet other instances, this anonymous alter ego of Ivan's is present, but unable to
penetrate into Ivan's mind. In these cases, we are told Ivan's thoughts in the third
person, but in Ivan's own words; this perspective is mainly used for Ivan's daydreams.
We can thus discern three different narrative perspectives in One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich:
1. a prisoner (skaz) narrator who is on Ivan's intellectual level, but who has a
greater gift for narration; he uses mainly third person, but will fall into first-
person plural (we, us) when he wants to stress communality between Ivan, the
other prisoners, and himself.
2. an omniscient, educated narrator, who is more or less the mouthpiece for the
author's philosophical views.
3. Ivan himself, though using third person, mainly describing flashbacks and
daydreams.
Once the reader is aware of these differences in point-of-view, it becomes easy to
differentiate between the narrators.
"Some fellows always thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.
Let them envy other people if they wanted to, but Ivan knew what life was about."
This is clearly the skaz narrator speaking, characterized by the informal language and
the choice of words.
"With the same swift movements, Shukhov hung his overcoat on a crossbeam, and
from under the mattress he pulled out his mittens, a pair of thin foot-cloths, a bit of
rope, and a piece of rag with two tapes."
This is obviously the educated, omniscient third-person narrator.
"What was the point of telling them what gang you worked in and what your boss was
like? Now you had more in common with that Latvian Kilgas than with your own
family."
This is Ivan marching along to the worksite in the morning, thinking about the letter
which he will probably not write to his wife.
The most important function of this separation of points-of-view and the reason why
So1zhenitsyn did not want to present the events in first person, through Ivan's eyes, is
his intention of giving an "objective" picture of this day in Ivan's life, a goal that would
have been diminished by the use of the highly subjective first-person point-of-view.
Had Ivan told his own story, the reader might dismiss much of what is stated as
opinion, lack of insight, or outright bias. Solzhenitsyn's method allows us to see Ivan
objectively from the outside through the eyes of two anonymous fellow prisoners
one educated, the other on Ivan's peasant level but still sharing the inner thoughts
and feelings of the protagonist.
Setting
Our overarching setting is the gulag system in the Stalin-run Soviet Union. It's
important to make a distinction between the gulag system and the "outside world" of
the Soviet Union. The gulag prison system is a whole world unto itself. It's like a
hidden universe with its own rules and language and people and places.

Before we get into the gulag itself, it's worth noting the historical setting here: the
Stalinist Soviet Union in 1951. We didn't say Russia here because the Soviet Union
was composed of a lot of different countries, most of which Russia had invaded and
taken over. You can see this sort of international smorgasbord in the camp there are
lots of Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, and even a Moldavian running around. Through
backstories and flashbacks we hear about an outside world that is violent and
dangerous. Stalin's oppressive government practically arrested people for sneezing,
people were poor and struggling, and most of the prisoners had been involved in
violent wars, either World War II or some sort of national resistance movement, like
the Ukrainian one.

It's also worth noting the year here before we get to the camp itself. Stalin died in
1952, so by setting the book in 1951, Solzhenitsyn may be giving his readers a hint
that times are changing and that many of the prisoners we read about may actually
survive to get out of the gulag. (Want to read more about Soviet politics in this period?
Check our "Intro" section).

And now for the camp itself. The camp here is unnamed and in an unspecified
location, though it's likely somewhere out in a place like Siberia. The camp is a dirty,
oppressive, and dangerous place. There's a ton of rules, mean guards, violence, and
harsh living conditions. People here are exhausted, weak, starving, and freezing.

Life in the camp is almost claustrophobic. Shukhov often thinks about how their
sentences are never-ending and how horribly long the days are. There's a sense that
the camp is hopelessly inescapable. Shukhov is also always surrounded by people.
There are hundreds of zeks and they are packed into huts and mess halls like
sardines.

The mess was its usual self - frosty air steaming in from the door, men at the tables
packed as tight as seeds in a sunflower, men wandering between tables, men trying
to barge their way through with full trays. (990)

It's constant chaos, constant crowds, and constant confusion. The moments when
Shukhov is alone are notable, and this is usually when he stops to consider his
environment and to give us some detailed descriptions.

A dim red sun had risen over the deserted compound: over pre-fab panels half buried
in snowdrifts [...] over the broken crank of an earthmoving machine, a jug, a heap of
scrap iron. There were drains, trenches, holes everywhere. (250)

Winter plays an extremely important role in the setting. It adds to the harsh world of
the camp and the ubiquitous (or present everywhere) snow and cold make the entire
universe of the camp seem endless. The detail of all the broken equipment, and
unfinished building projects also adds to this sense of endlessness. Whether he's
surrounded by frozen, desolate space or is crowded in with hundreds of other
prisoners, Shukhov experiences the sensation of being permanently trapped in the
camp.
Point of View
Limited Omniscient, some Second Person and First Person
We're not gonna lie: the narrative point of view in this book is weird. Really, really
weird. We actually have three different narrative techniques that work together here.
So let's break them down and see what we've got.

First, we have Shukhov himself as a narrator. Shukhov often narrates using the first
person. And we often hear his direct, inner thoughts, which are usually offset by the
lack of a subject. In other words, when we hear Shukhov's thoughts, the subject of his
sentences is often implied. If you are thinking about what you need to do today, you
probably don't think in complete sentences; your thought would be something like
"Need to buy some milk," with the "I" being implied. Here's an example of Shukhov
doing that:

Down into the mixing room. Can't just leave the trowel lying around. Might not be
brought out tomorrow. (690)

So we have first person, and implied subjects. Shukhov often speaks directly to the
audience using the second person "you." Though it is debatable as to whether or not
he's actually addressing anyone directly, like Ferris Bueller. When Shukhov uses "you"
it could sometimes be a way of psychologically distancing himself from his awful
situation, so that the bad stuff is happening to some sort of distant "you" and not to
him directly. And Shukhov also sometimes uses "you" when he's silently addressing
another person in his head.

On top of all of this, we also have a limited omniscient narrator who uses the third
person. This limited omniscient narrator is "limited" because we only have access to
Shukhov's inner thoughts, not the thoughts of all the characters. This narrator tells us
what Shukhov is doing and sometimes what Shukhov is thinking/feeling, even though
Shukhov often does this himself. What's truly weird about these narrative points of
view is that they switch back and forth constantly, even within the same paragraph.

If there was one thing Shukhov couldn't endure, it was these spectators. Trying to
wangle himself an engineer's job, the pig-faced bastard. Started showing me how to
lay blocks once. Laughed myself sick. Till you've built one house with your own hands,
you're no engineer. That's how I see it. (596)

So within one paragraph we have a narrator talking about Shukhov in the third
person; a sentence with an implied subject; a first person address from Shukhov; and
a second person address from Shukhov. Sheesh. In some ways the lack of a break
between different styles of sentences mirrors Shukhov's stream-of-consciousness
thought process, which means that his thoughts tend to jump around to different
things constantly
Tone
Emotionally Muted, Angry, Ironic
So say you're watching some TV and you turn the volume way down. You can kind of
hear what's going on, but it's mainly background noise now. That's sort of the
experience of reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The narrative often turns
the volume down on emotions, so to speak, so that the tone becomes sort of quiet
and muted in a way. This fits with the book's theme on futility, or the uselessness of
doing much. Life in the camp is one of putting up with lots of injustice and the
exhaustion that comes from that, which is reflected in the novella's overall tone.

But in the overall tone there's also lots of stress and anxiety (and sadness and anger
and all the other things you'd expect people to feel in a prison camp). The emotion
doesn't whack you in the face though. Shukhov isn't running around delivering
anguished soliloquies or ranting and raving. The emotional outbursts we do get in the
narrative are either pretty short-lived or are almost perfunctory, or delivered without
any real sentiment behind them. Anger and violence seem to be how people deal with
each other in the camp, and feeling anger and despair over life in the camp is also a
normal state of affairs.

So what connects these deep emotions to the muted, exhausted tone often used in
the narrative? That would be irony. Irony is a sort of black humor, a way of saying
something that's funny but in a dry, dark sort of way. Irony can be a way to get a
serious point across, or to highlight a serious situation, without being overly serious
about it. So here's an example:

He's expected it, all right, but hearing it nevertheless cut him to the quick. Who
wouldn't be sorry for his precious Sunday rest? Of course, what they were saying in
the queue was true enough: your day off could be hell even in camp, they could
always think up something for you to do [...]

Nothing seemed to upset them more than a zek sleeping after breakfast. (932-933)

While this scene starts out with some emotion (Shukhov is upset that he won't get
Sunday off), it quickly switches over to a sarcastic list of how zeks usually get to "rest"
on Sundays and ends with an ironic statement. Irony crops up all over the novel, in the
narrator's tone, in Shukhov's thoughts and expressions, and often in the dialogue too.

During an angry scene at the mess hall, this exchange occurs, and Shukhov has a
thought to add:

"104, form up in fives," Pavlo shouted down at them. "And you make way there,
friends!"

The friends would be hanged first. (979-80)

Calling an angry mob "friends" is pretty funny in a dark sort of way. Sarcasm and irony
seem to be good coping mechanisms in the camp, so it makes sense that the overall
tone of the book reflects this, along with the emotional exhaustion and the periods of
intense anger/sadness/stress that characterize a zek's daily life.

Symbolism
Light
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Light imagery plays a major, recurring role in the book. We frequently get descriptions
of different kinds of light, most notably the glaring lights of the prison compound and
the natural light of the sun and the moon. Both sets of lights play different roles in the
life of the zek:

Two big searchlights from watchtowers in opposite corners crossed beams as they
swept the compound. Lights were burning around the periphery, and inside the camp,
dotted around in such numbers that they made the stars look dim. (36)

The lights of the camp are numerous, harsh, and controlling. They are there to reveal
zeks to the eyes of the guards, and the zeks are basically under constant surveillance
day or night. What's interesting here is that the lights are so bright that they even
"dim" the stars. In a way the prison camp lights interrupt normal patterns of day and
night. This fits in with another motif that crops up along with the light motif: time and
clocks.

Zeks aren't allowed to own clocks, and the guards tell time "for them." In a sense, the
prison uses lights to control not only the zeks but also day and night and time more
generally. The zeks can only tell time by natural light, the sun or the moon, which the
prison camp lights often drown out rather symbolically. Throughout the text, Shukhov
makes note of the position of the sun and the moon, since it's his only way to tell time
on his own. The frequent mentions of the sun and moon also help to emphasize how
insanely long a zek's day is. Shukhov gets up when it's still dark and he doesn't get to
leave the worksite until after the moon has risen.

Religion
We get some signs of religion and polite manners, generally when people are eating.
Signs of religion include prisoners who cross themselves before eating, like Pavlo, or
who stop to say prayers periodically, like Alyoshka. Polite manners basically amount to
removing a cap when eating, which is something that Shukhov and Tyurin are noted
for doing. These little gestures tell us a lot about a character and about what sort of
person they are. Through these gestures we can also see a contrast between the
types of conscientious people that Pavlo and Shukhov are and the sort of person that
Fetyukov the scrounger is.

Snow, Ice, Cold

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
The snow and the freezing temperatures are practically characters in and of
themselves here. Anytime Shukhov pauses to describe a scene, he mentions the snow
and how cold it is. In fact, the cold winter weather is the first thing we hear about after
Shukhov wakes up.

The ragged noise was muffled by ice two fingers thick on the windows and soon died
away. Too cold for the warder to go on hammering. (1)

The cold and the snow is a constant concern for the zeks, who struggle against
freezing to death all day, and the frequent mentions of the cold weather help to
hammer home the type of horrible conditions the zeks are facing. The snow also helps
to emphasize the desolate and inescapable environment the zeks inhabit. The cold
gets in everywhere and the snow seems to go on forever.

The column went [...] out onto the open steppe, walking into the wind and the
reddening sunrise. Not so much as a sapling to be seen out on the steppe, nothing but
bare white snow to the left or right. (221)

It's fitting that this book occurs in the winter where everything is dead and there's
nothing but snow in any direction. The snow here might symbolize the sort of endless
sameness of a zek's existence.
Food
Like snow and the cold, food is like another character in this book. And aside from
worrying about keeping warm, food is the primary concern of a zek. Shukhov spends
the bulk of the book thinking about food: planning what he's going to eat and when,
scheming to get more food, longing for good food, worrying about bad food, etc. This
total fixation on food really helps to emphasize the horrible conditions in the camps,
where zeks barely get enough food to survive. Food also helps to tell us a lot about
our different characters. The way characters eat, and what they eat, are all important
tools of characterization in the book.

Shukhovs Possessions
Shukhov definitely doesn't own much, but the few things he does own deserve special
mention. We hear a lot about Shukhov's spoon, which acts as a little memorial to his
time as a prisoner since Shukhov carved when and where he made it into the handle.
In a way the spoon serves the same function as Shukhov's practice of removing his
hat before meals: both gestures are a way for Shukhov to hold on to some sense of
self and his past in the camps, instead of just existing on a day to day basis as a
mindless robot. Shukhov works hard not to lose himself or his past in the camps.

Shukhov's other notable possessions also help to give us increased insight into his
character. He owns a needle and thread, and he plans to make a bread knife out of
the piece of steel he finds. He also has a trowel that he hides for safekeeping at the
worksite. All of these objects are signs of how industrious and hard-working Shukhov
is, as well as evidence of how well he plans ahead. He takes good care of his
possessions, and he uses them to help him survive.

Finally, we have the lost possession that Shukhov takes the time to mourn: his lost
shoes.

He'd taken such good care of his nice new shoes, he'd greased them to make them
soft [...] He'd never missed anything so much in all those eight years. The shoes were
all tossed on one big pile [....] (58)

Shukhov's shoes represent how cruel camp life can be everything is stripped away
from inmates in the prison, and prisoners can lose their belongings at any time. Since
Shukhov has almost nothing that is his own, his belongings become hugely important
to him, and are almost like friends. So losing something like his much-loved shoes is
really quite painful.

This may also be a somewhat subtle dig against the sort of communism practiced in
the Soviet Union. Private property was "bad" and the government went around seizing
people's belongings, much as Shukhov's beloved shoes are tossed into an impersonal
pile.

Throat Cutting
We hear about how some "stoolies," or prisoners who act as informants for the guards
and snitch on fellow prisoners, have gotten their throats cut. The throat cutting spree
has definitely shaken things up at the camp, and we can see a gradual shift beginning
in the balance of power. Shukhov comments on this in one scene:

Der turned pale and moved away from the ramp.

"Steady on, boys! Take it easy!" he said. [...]

Pavlo walked slowly down the plank with his shovel.

Real slow.

Oh, yes. Slitting a few throats had made a difference. Just three of them and you
wouldn't know it was the same camp. (616-620)

It's no mistake that the zeks seem to be fighting back and that things seem to be
changing in the camp. This book is set in 1951, one year before Stalin's death, which
would kick off a "thaw" where lots of prisoners were released from the gulags in the
late 1950s. In a way this throat cutting spree is a sign that change is on the horizon,
and it also acts a warning to people who enforce oppressive systems like the gulag.
(Want to read more about the history of Stalin's regime and the gulag? Check out our
"Intro" section.)