Один день из жизни Ивана Денисовича

“The theme of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the problem of survival with dignity and honor and integrity.”  Argue for or against this statement using citations from the text to back up your argument.  Is “survival with dignity, honor and integrity” possible? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     Abstract

     In the mid 50s a new stage began in the development of the USSR. Nikita Khrushchev having successfully criticized Stalin's personality cult, became the head of the country and a new period of so-called "warming" started.

     In the development of culture contradictory trends manifested themselves. The renewal process caused a revival of cultural life. A real shock for millions of Soviet citizens was the publication of a small in scale but strong in humanistic sound story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" of Solzhenitsyn. It clearly showed that the very "simple Soviet man" by whose name all the Stalinists sworn suffered from Stalinism most of all. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     The main character of Solzhenitsyn’s story is Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, the ordinary prisoner of Stalin's camps. In this story the author on behalf of his hero tells on just one day out of three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days of term of Ivan Denisovich. But that day will be enough to understand what conditions prevailed in the camp, which law existed, learn about the lives of prisoners to get terrified by all this. 

     Camp is a special world that exists separately, in parallel to that of other people. Here there are other laws that differ from our usual ones; everyone here survives in its own way. Life in the camp is shown not from the outside, but from inside by the person who knows about it firsthand, from his personal experience. That is why the story is startling in its realism.

     The question is whether it is possible to survive in these terrible conditions, to survive not only as a being, but as a personality. The main character with all his life proves that it is possible.

     "Thank you, Lord, another day is gone! " - concludes his story, Ivan Denisovich, - "A day passed, unalloyed, almost happy. " On this day, Shukhov was really lucky: a team was not driven to Sotsgorodok to pull wire in the cold without heat, passed through the cooler, got off with just washing the floors in the guard room, received an extra portion of dinner meals, the work was familiar to him – he had to put the wall in the TPP, he worked lively, passed the jail shakedown safely and carried the saw to the camp, earned some money in the evening at Caesar's and bought two glasses of Latvian home-grown tobacco, and, which was most important, he did not get sick, he coped the cold.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, was sentenced to ten years on trumped-up case: he was accused that he had returned from captivity with the secret German job assignment, and what exactly this job was – nobody could fabulate. As a man he cannot help causing respect: in spite of all the conditions he managed to keep kindness and friendly attitude to people, he has not got bloody-minded, has not lost humanity. Shukhov is willing to share the latest with a good man, even just to please him. Ivan Denisovich gives cookies to Alyosha-Baptists to pamper and support him, because he "caters to all, and can not earn. " And how well Ivan Denisovich treats Gopchik! For him Gopchik is almost as a native son. I feel deep respect to this man, unlike, for example, to the jackal Fetyukov, a former high chief, accustomed to command, who does not even hesitate to get butts out of the spittoon. This is a real jackal, who lives at the expense of other’s leftovers. To lick someone else's plates, to look into someone’s mouth in anticipation that he would get something - for him it is quite common. He causes only disgust, even convicts refuse to work with him. In the camp he had not left even a drop of male pride, he openly wept when he was beaten for licking plates. Indeed, everyone chooses a lifeline for himself, but the most undignified way is the way of an informer Panteleev living through squealing to other prisoners. These people are hated in the camp, and the fact that the three were killed, did not surprise anybody. Death here is common, and life turns into nothing. It scares the most. Unlike them, Ivan Denisovich "was not a jackal, even after eight years of general work - and more and more he stated firm. " He is not begging, not degrading. He tries to earn only through his work: sewing slippers, bringing boots to the foreman, taking place at premises - for this he receives honestly earned money. Shukhov retains the notion of pride and honor, so he will never descend to the level of Fetyukov, because he earns money, but not tries to serve. Like any farmer, Shukhov is surprisingly economic: he can not just pass a piece of hacksaw, knowing that from it he can make a knife and make extra money.

     What the author describes is not life but survival. Every day survival, constant tension, not to make something that is not under the statute, not to anger any boss, think about each step. Is he a man? .. This question the reader asks to himself, opening the first pages of the novel and as if diving into a nightmarish, hopeless and endless sleep. It seems that all the interests of the prisoner Sch-854 revolve around the simplest body's needs: how to get an extra portion of gruel, how not to let cold under the shirt when the temperature is twenty-seven degrees below, how to save the last scraps of energy in a body weakened with chronic hunger and exhausting work - in short, how to survive in the camp hell. It seems that all events are convincing the reader that all human remains behind a barbed wire fence. Prisoners in camp going to work represent a solid mass of gray padded jackets. Their names are lost. The only thing that confirms the identity is camp number. Human life is devalued.

     And yet behind all non-human realities of camp life the human features can be seen. “Russian character" is lost nowhere. Maybe it is smart with practical mind. But its soul, which seemed, was to harden, become stale, does not succumb to "rust. " Prisoner Sch-854 did not lose his individuality, his human features. He is able to feel compassion and pity. Ivan Denisovich is not unique. It is real, and what is more, a typical character. Ability to feel the suffering of people make prisoners closer, they turn into a kind of family. Inextricable mutual responsibility binds them. Betrayal of one can cost many lives.

     There is a paradoxical situation. Deprived of their liberty, driven behind barbed wire, converted like a flock of sheep prisoners constitute state within a state. Their world has its unshakable laws. They are harsh, but fair. There are no doubts that the prisoners managed to maintain the laws of human existence. Their relationships are certainly devoid of sentimentality. They are honest and, in their own way, humane. Theses laws help them to survive “with dignity, honor and integrity”.

     Despite the terrible details of camp life, which constitute the existential background, the story of Solzhenitsyn is optimistic by its spirit. It proves that in the last degree of humiliation it is possible to be a man. 

     References

One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. [Translated from the Russian by Ralph Parker] With an introd. by Marvin L. Kalb. Foreword by Alexander Tvardovsky. [1st ed.] New York, Dutton, 1963.