Abdullah Elqadri Things Fall apart History 102 4 December 2014 One Day in the Life of Ivan One Day in the Life of the Ivan is novel written by Alexander Solzhenitsy. This novel focused on a Russian solider by the name of Ivan who was wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to serve his time in a Siberian labor camp. The novel shows Ivan’s struggles and how he was unfairly treated. The novel was set around the time of World War 2. Throughout the novel evidence of communism was very strong. One of Ivan’s thoughts reflected how communism was truly part of novel. Communism was so strong that Human beings were not really free to even think for themselves. (43) There is a lot of historical background to this novel. The reference to forced-labor camps; the Soviet Union created the first camps in 1918. Under the rule of Stalin, these camps increased during the 1920s and were for the criminals and once it was taken over by the secret police it became known as “Gulag” which is also the name of the prison that Ivan was sent to and miss treated. (36) …show more content…
One of the ways Ivan’s dignity was stripped was being called by another name. Striping someone’s name strips their identity and taking it away destroys their personality. (12) Other ways he struggled was the treatment of the camps. The living conditions were barley tolerable, there were no sheets for their mattresses, prisoners eat a small amount of break per meal and guards force prisoners to undress for body searches during the cold. The treatment was cruel and made the prisoners physically weak. However, Ivan was not the one to take this lightly and did not easily submit. One of the things he did was take off his hat before eating, which shows signs of a civilized man. He never stooped to the camp guard’s level.