One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel by esteemed author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that concerns the gruelling conditions which Soviet prisoners in the gulags had to endure. In this extract, Solzhenitsyn employs imagery, themes, and a combination of both to communicate the daily adversities of being a prisoner in the gulags as a means of shocking the audience.
Imagery is arguably the most effective tool utilized by Solzhenitsyn to deliver his authorial purpose. Furthermore, graphic visual imagery is utilized in the extract, intended to take the audience by surprise “… and how the Germans had punished him by tying up his wrists behind his back, hanging him up them, and flogging him.” (page