Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich depicts a typical day in the life of a seemingly average poor man entrapped for crimes he did not commit being worked to death in the gulag. In a system designed to kill and forget, Shukhov, the protagonist, manages to live and survive. One Day presents Shukhov in binary form throughout One Day, as a hidden holy fool whom we learn much from and a latter Shukhov which questions the first. Shukhov teaches through lessons of gratitude and resistance in his atypical survival, but devalues his fight through a focus on the external and the reader learns nothing at points. In a rigged death factory, Shukhov retains his morality and survives through a focus on the present community around him.
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While most long to reach the higher segments of the pyramid, Shukhov is content with ensuring that his basic needs are met and does not strive to reach the top. He is at ease with the present and all it has to offer for him in the specific time and place. This Shukhov is positive in his outlook because his …show more content…
He is attached to and relies on the values of the camp. Shukhov holds that “a convict’s thoughts are no freer than he is” (40). He believes it is futile to think of the improbabilities of life on the outside when life persists on the inside of the camp. There is no benefit in Shukhov’s view to let one’s mind drift to another time or place; “a man can live [t]here, just like anywhere else” (7). Shukhov, in this moment, is the teacher. No matter the circumstances, one must adapt and live. Shukhov, in living, fights the status quo of the camp, which enables him to survive. There is the rosy narrative of a person wrongly imprisoned with no hope, escaping or rebelling and his/her life changing forever. Solzhenitsyn opts to depict a more realistic, yet still radical, tale of resistance. Surviving and enduring in a death camp is resisting and radical in itself. Shukhov and all other prisoners are robbed of tomorrows, and anticipation, but Shukhov does not fall victim to yearning for things outside of his control. Solzhenitsyn demonstrates that the worst thing that can happen to a man is not to be beaten or suffer physical discomfort, however severe, but rather, the
While most long to reach the higher segments of the pyramid, Shukhov is content with ensuring that his basic needs are met and does not strive to reach the top. He is at ease with the present and all it has to offer for him in the specific time and place. This Shukhov is positive in his outlook because his …show more content…
He is attached to and relies on the values of the camp. Shukhov holds that “a convict’s thoughts are no freer than he is” (40). He believes it is futile to think of the improbabilities of life on the outside when life persists on the inside of the camp. There is no benefit in Shukhov’s view to let one’s mind drift to another time or place; “a man can live [t]here, just like anywhere else” (7). Shukhov, in this moment, is the teacher. No matter the circumstances, one must adapt and live. Shukhov, in living, fights the status quo of the camp, which enables him to survive. There is the rosy narrative of a person wrongly imprisoned with no hope, escaping or rebelling and his/her life changing forever. Solzhenitsyn opts to depict a more realistic, yet still radical, tale of resistance. Surviving and enduring in a death camp is resisting and radical in itself. Shukhov and all other prisoners are robbed of tomorrows, and anticipation, but Shukhov does not fall victim to yearning for things outside of his control. Solzhenitsyn demonstrates that the worst thing that can happen to a man is not to be beaten or suffer physical discomfort, however severe, but rather, the