3. How is your work different from its beginning to its end? What changes in the situation and the character? The whole book takes place in one day, so it leaves very little room for change to happen to its characters. That one day for Ivan Denisovich Shukhov was one of the more lucky days that he ever sent in the camp. The camp authorities hadn;t put him in the cells; they hadn’t sent his squad to the settlement; he’d swiped a bowl of kasha at dinner; the squad leader had fixed the rates wel; he’d built a wall and enjoyed doing it; he’d smuggled that bit of hacksaw blade through; he’s earned a favour from Tsezar that evening; he’d bought that tobacco. And he hadn’t fallen ill. He’d got over it.” (Solzhenitsyn 167) If anything, he went to
…show more content…
The ending shows us that Shukhov’s definition of “happy” has become, which demonstrates how awful camp life is. This ending also emphasizes how Shukhov is a survivor. His life may be horrible but he still manages to look on the bright side of things. The final sentence of the novel really put the whole story in perspective. We learn that this is just one day out of the 3,653 days of Shukhov's prison sentence.
4. What are the central conflicts, both external and internal? Oppression and injustice often cause prisoners of war to be trapped, not only in a physical prison, but also in a mental prison. This mental prison often causes a mentality of constant of fear which causes more harm than physical torture world. One of the conflicts in the novel pertaining to this theme is one of the individual vs. society. When a prisoner is given a specific number of years sentence in that camp, it’s never actually that number of years. For example, “even those serving three-year sentences were kept for another five [...] [and] [...] when you're ten years are up they can say, ‘Here’s another ten for you.’” (Solzhenitsyn 54) The narrator explains that
The ending shows us that Shukhov’s definition of “happy” has become, which demonstrates how awful camp life is. This ending also emphasizes how Shukhov is a survivor. His life may be horrible but he still manages to look on the bright side of things. The final sentence of the novel really put the whole story in perspective. We learn that this is just one day out of the 3,653 days of Shukhov's prison sentence.
4. What are the central conflicts, both external and internal? Oppression and injustice often cause prisoners of war to be trapped, not only in a physical prison, but also in a mental prison. This mental prison often causes a mentality of constant of fear which causes more harm than physical torture world. One of the conflicts in the novel pertaining to this theme is one of the individual vs. society. When a prisoner is given a specific number of years sentence in that camp, it’s never actually that number of years. For example, “even those serving three-year sentences were kept for another five [...] [and] [...] when you're ten years are up they can say, ‘Here’s another ten for you.’” (Solzhenitsyn 54) The narrator explains that