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One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich Summary

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Human Behavior in the Soviet Union One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is meant to be a looking glass into the lives of not only people in the gulags but also Soviet citizens as a whole. The setting of the story is Russia in the Stalinist era. This new era of Russian history came after the end of the Imperialist era in where Russian citizens revolted against the Tsar Nicholas II due to famine and a collapsed economy. During this time anyone who opposed the Soviet regime was either executed or sent to work camps known as gulags. This story centers around members of a particular work camp and their daily routine. Some prisoners become selfish and broken, while others persevere through their adversity. Solzhenitsyn wrote this story with the intent of showing that in order to withstand oppression and adversity people should abandon their hedonistic pleasures and focus more of their faith in god. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov represents the average person living in the Soviet Union.
Shukhov believes in god but is not very religious. During this time Joseph Stalin is the dictator of the Soviet Union who out of paranoia, killed millions and sent many to the gulags. …show more content…

During his imprisonment within the gulag, Alyoshka has no reliance on hedonistic pleasures and focuses more on his spiritualism. Moreover, he is selfless and incredibly resilient in the face of adversity. Even when living in the Soviet Union where religion is suppressed, and believers are persecuted he still maintained his faith. Furthermore, Alyoshka is meant to show how having faith in god can help a person through extreme adversity. What is the point in survival if one has to abandon their morals in order to simply spend another day in the gulag? Alyoshka is the polar opposite of Fetyukov in the sense that in a place where physical pleasures are rare he is able to look within himself and towards god and find all that he

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