Between Shades Of Gray Character Analysis

Imagine one’s life being halted within a moment, within a single hard knock on their front door. Imagine people from a whole other nation coming into one’s homeland and forcing thousands of civilians to leave. And if they try to fight back, they are met with harsh physical abuse, maybe even death. This fate was what awaited the Lithuanians and those from the other two Baltic states. A life of force, labor and physical and emotional pain is what these deportees anticipated. Lithuanian mass deportations ruined the lives of many innocent people. As the Soviets rolled in, their lives were invaded and turned upside down. As exemplified in Between Shades of Gray, real life accounts and numerous other historical records, deportees faced horrible conditions

These people were forced to leave their homes, loved ones, and everything they held valuable and were then treated like objects. Their worth and value as human beings were diminished in the eyes of the Soviets, and this was reflected in their treatment. A prime example of how little the value of a human life, in this case-- a child’s life, was to Soviet officers is depicted in Between Shades of Gray. When Lina, her mother and her brother arrive at the train station which is packed with many other families like theirs, her brother Jonas is randomly grabbed by an NKVD officer and is being dragged away. Her mother, Elena, stops the officer and persuades him to let Jonas go by giving him money, her jewelry, and a gold watch which was a family heirloom. After this happened, from Lina’s point of view it is quoted, “Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch,” (Sepetys, 27). This piece from the text accentuates the drastic reality of how these people were regarded by the Soviet officers and how little their lives meant to them at this point. According to the novel, Jonas was being dragged away for no apparent cause. The only way his mother could reason with the officer was by giving him money and jewelry. These valuable yet simple materialistic items were the only reason they were able to get him back. Jonas had no say in what he was doing or where he was going; a random officer who he had no relation to just grabbed him and kept going. Without these little advantages, Elena would have lost her son for what could have been forever, and Lina almost lost her brother. Another example of how deportees were treated like objects was an experience that Lina faced during an encounter with an NKVD officer. When their group is finally taken to a bathhouse, females and males are