Some will argue that this book is about one’s own self-interests, I on the other hand disagree. This is a story of the protagonist’s struggle for survival and the determination under inhumane conditions. Ivan Denisovich Shukov as well as the other prisoners must adapt to brutal conditions in the prison. The zeks had lost all control of their own lives. The zeks depended on one another to complete the tasks and to share in their survival of the camp.
Shukov is a prisoner in Soviet Gulag. He was wrongly accused of betraying the Soviet Union during World War II. Some of the other prisoners were taken from their families, homes, and lives, they were stripped of their dignity and banished to the harsh labor camps where they were to spend the rest of their days. Living conditions in the camps are nearly intolerable. Zeks were forced to work in freezing cold temperatures, they were only allotted a certain amount of food and inadequate clothing. Zeks were identified by their numbers. The elimination of names to numbers represents the bureaucratic destruction of individual personalities.
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Pavlo raised his head. “Didn’t land in the hole, then, Ivan Denisovich?” (pg. 25). Pavlo calling Shukov by his name is a small act of resistance. Pavlo is polite and kind to the zeks but he isn’t afraid to command the men working under him. Shukov remembers that his numbers are fading and he should get them retouched. Faded numbers could lead to harsh punishments. “The way his brush moved as he painted a number on a cap made you think of a priest anointing a man’s forehead with holy oil.” (pg. 30) In a sense this painter is helping to save the zeks by repainting their numbers on them so that they will not get into