Throughout the novel of The Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy conveys his thematic focus through his unique use of diction. Tolstoy examines several factors that have altered Ivan Ilych’s lifestyle. The only way to enhance our understanding of these factors is to observe how Tolstoy portrays Ivan’s evolving comprehension of what death means to him. Evidently, such portrayal can be thoroughly observed and understood by carefully analyzing Tolstoy’s use of diction. Furthermore, there are several themes that Tolstoy focuses on primarily, which are often associated with the depiction of the human existence as a conflict between different sides of the spectrum and Ivan’s tendency to alienate himself from the world.
The contrast Shalamov’s proposes allows us to place ourselves within the train of thought of a prisoner—allowing us to distinguish between the perceptions and thoughts of different positions within the system. While a person with the position of running the Gulag may depict the life of a prisoner as nothing more than animal-like—our narrator allows us to delve further into the treatment of prisoners. The mindset of a prisoner is one of the most significant components when attempting to understand the Gulag so that the culture, prison, and specific mentality is more accurately
Tolstoy’s ability to interweave the environment with themes of materialism and death makes The Death of Ivan Ilych stand out as a piece that criticizes societal values. In his article “Tolstoy and the Moran Instructions of Death,” Dennis Sansom focuses on the influence of fighting chaos in Ivan’s eventual acceptance of his own death. Socrates wrote, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and Ivan’s life mirrored this until the end (qtd. in Sansom 417) .
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich demonstrates the many cruel and unnecessary ways they treated their prisoners. Granted, they were prisoners, many did something worthy of landing themselves in the Gulags, so they deserved some type of punishment, but to this extent? Some of the things needed for survival were barely or not at all provided by the gulags and the conditions were inhumane. This is what the author was getting at. I say ‘many’ as opposed to all because some of the prisoners were merely accused and not proven, like the main character, Ivan Denisovich.
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is a book written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the main protagonist of this book is named Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, in which the novel is based around. Shukhov is an ordinary prisoner in the Gulag at the Soviet Union alongside many others, while in the Gulag, he tries his best to avoid trouble at all costs, and this is shown in this quote “Shukhov never overslept reveille. He always got up at once, for the next ninety minutes, until they assembled for work, belonged to him, not the authorities, and any old-timer could earn a bit.” Shukhov had very limited time for himself, had very limited food, and very limited resources for survival. While in the Gulag, Shukhov’s gang was called ‘gang 104’, Tyurin being its foreman.
From the biting frost of the weather to a rare stub of cigarette, ‘One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a short novel about a prisoner named Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, who is one of millions heartlessly imprisoned for countless years in a Stalinist labor camp located in Siberia sometime in the 1950’s. Though he is somewhat uneducated, he is hardworking a working-class and his daily struggle represents that of the average Russian citizen, along with the other inmates in the camp. In ‘One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’, Solzenitsyn uses the two minor characters, Alyosha and Fetiukov to show the significance of how two characters with contrasting personalities influence Shukhov’s life, not forgetting the fact they have different perspective of the camp, despite the fact that they are all the same prisoners who share a similar everyday routine.
Through his writing, Solzhenitsyn is able to bring to life a somewhat ordinary main character, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, who is a poor, uneducated man meant to depict the average Russian. The plot follows him throughout his day in the camp, from waking up in the morning with a fever, to his daily work routine, to his final prayer at the end of the day. By following him throughout his daily routine you can see how living in the camp has affected him and how the struggles he has faced there have made him stronger and given him a new sense of identity in a place meant to dehumanize people.
He was always up at the call. That way he had an hour and a half all to himself before work parade - time for a man who knew his way around to earn a bit on the side.” (4) Altogether, Time is valuable in in the camps, so prisoners should use their time wisely like Ivan Denisovich. In conclusion, Shukhov learned to deal with life in the horrible gulags. In One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, we discovered that he deals with the destruction of human solidarity, created a ritualization for eating, and most important, he treats time as a precious
Society knows this all too well, the early morning wake-up call. Either by touch or by sound. Those call that makes one get their heads out of the clouds. The ball doesn’t stop there, something as simple as brushing of the teeth or preparing a peanut butter jelly sandwich in the morning for work are examples. These acts eventually became sub-conscience to a point where not completing them is unnatural, and uncomfortable.
There Is More Than One Type of Hero In “Notes from the Underground”, a fiction book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Underground Man is not like the traditional main character in most other fiction books. Often books have a tragic hero where he or she either saves the days or unfortunately is killed. But that is not the case for this book, the main character shows characteristics that do not fit along the lines of a tragic hero at all. This paper argues that the Underground Man is most definitely not the tragic hero, but instead an anti-hero.
There are several ways to interpret and analyze this short story and apply each of the four styles of criticism. Strong feminist themes appear throughout, but the other themes of mortality, the need for a sense of self and a yearning for freedom have their roles in examining the formalist aspect. Like any effective tragedy, this story is bitter- sweet and can bring a character to the greatest heights before fate takes it away and brings that person down to the lowest point. Chopin’s life and the culture around her had a definite influence on her writing, using the philosophies created by the naturalist movement to portray what would be the last hour of a young, frail woman’s life.
It portrays the 1917 Russian Revolution atmosphere with the replacement of Russia into Animal Farm. The characters also did not fail to resemble the real people involved in the revolution. Power leads to greed, used to take advantage and manipulate. A person with absolute power tends to choose greediness after a certain time period, despite having followed a wise person’s vision and
The story details Vladek’s life as he moves from wealth to poverty, falls in love with his first wife, Anja, raises a son, Richieu, and survives Auschwitz. The author depicts Jews as mice, the Polish as pigs, and the Nazis as cats, which serves as an metaphor of the dehumanizing events of the Holocaust (Art Spiegelman: Biography, Artist, Maus). Vladek’s will to live allows him to survive through the horrors of being helped captive in the concentration camps, which included being separated from his wife, nearly starving to death, watching his friends die, hearing about the deaths of family members, and other tragedies. Vladek in present-day is a very strange man, he does things like counting his pills and returning opened boxes of cereal to the grocery store expecting a refund. His traits frustrate Art and they clash often, even though that the habits that Art considers to be strange might have been the habits that kept Vladek alive.
Raskolnikov confronts reality and can never again legitimize his activities in light of political perspectives. The writer of Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky composed this book uncovering some of his own perspectives on legislative issues and consolidating them all through the story. Like Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky was captured by the administration and punished for his offense. He was rebuffed for his radical communist positions, just to later reject these thoughts. Through the story, the creator fuses a solid message of exactly how intense the legislature is and the solid impact of governmental issues.
Saint Petersburg, the setting of Crime and Punishment, plays a major role in the formation in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s acclaimed novel. Dostoyevsky’s novels focus on the theme of man as a subject of his environment. Dostoyevsky paints 1860s St. Petersburg as an overcrowded, filthy, and chaotic city. It is because of Saint Petersburg that Raskolnikov is able to foster in his immoral thoughts and satisfy his evil inclinations. It is only when Raskolnikov is removed from the disorderly city and taken to the remoteness of Siberia that he can once again be at peace.
