Question number one:
Is Ivan in a prison?
I think that he is. Mainly because, he has inmates, he has a time to wake up. And last, there are punishments.
An example of a punishment was when the warden informs him that Shukhov—identified officially as prisoner “Shcha-854”—will be punished for not getting up at the proper time. He says that Shukhov’s sentence will be three days in the hole.
Question 2:
If he is in a prison, what did he do to get there?
I have no idea of how he got there. There are many options, slavery, robbery, ect...
Question 3: Why doesn't Ivan (warden) throw people into the hole? Has something happened to him when he was younger?
Well, Children are sponges, after all we all know this. And there’s a small but intriguing body of evidence suggesting that beyond a child’s disposition, a parent’s stress level can affect a child’s very makeup, including his or her risk of mood disorders, addiction, and even disorders like ADHD and autism.
So maybe something tragic happened when Ivan was younger. Just like we studied in humanities class. For example: Someone almost died because of an airplane. The person will get scared of airplanes and will never ride them again. So that leads me to think of Ivan's past, when he was young. Like really young. Did he loose his father? Was he treated well? How connected was Ivan to his family?
Hey Stefano,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post. Although the answers were quite broad, I thought that they covered the questions fairly. My answer to question one is that yes, he is in a prison. Back then, in the USSR, prisons were not just penitentiaries, but they were also labor camps. That meant that the prisoners sent there had to do hard labor to pay for their "sins" against the government. Question two; it says on the blurb that he was convicted of treason against the government, and was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp like the one that he is in right now. Question three; I also agree with you. People don’t just decide to do something out of the blue. They need to have a history of events that led them to do what they do. For example, many murderers have had an abusive childhood, so violence is all they knew while growing up. People who almost drowned become afraid of water because they think that they might drown again. Overall, I think that you did a good post, but I think that the answers could’ve been deeper.
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov yes is a prisoner. He has been sentenced to ten years of hard labor and has spent the past eight years in a number of prison labor camps. While reading this book I felt that Ivan is a poor and uneducated man. I have a feeling he comes from a low class because when he sees the poem Kolya is copying out, for example, he does not recognize the strange way of writing each line directly beneath the preceding one. He is amazed by men such as Tsezar who have lived in Moscow, which to Shukhov is an exotic, faraway land. Nor is he a gifted or sensitive emotional soul: he shows almost no affection for his long-forgotten wife and daughters, no romantic nostalgia for his lost home, and no dreams of a better life elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIvan is most definitely in a prison not only for the reasons you gave but because the events that are talked about in the book are very similar to the events talked about in Unbroken. In Unbroken the main character is forced to be work in a forced labor camp and the placed described in our book is very similar to that of the prison described in Unbroken. To add to that we know he is in a prison because the book state "this is not a normal prison." This clearly means that they are in a prison. My question is whether or not Ivan will become an inmate at the prison or will he remain a warden? I predict that he will become an inmate but he will be sent on faulty charges. I have no real evidence for this prediction due to the minimal amount of information that has been given in the novel. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI can not answer your second question due to the minimal amount of information given in the text
I really liked your post, but I think that you should talk more on question 2 to deeper our understanding of the book. I agree with all your responds to your questions, but you should talk more on question 2. Over all, I think that you did a great job.
ReplyDelete