Line Illuminator

One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 

Week 4
Pages: 106- 133
Author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Come on, boys, don’t let it get you down! It’s only a Power Station, but we’ll make it a home away from home.”

The reason I chose this quote is because this quote by the foreman of Gang 104, Tyurin shows us the change in Tyurin's characterisation in the novel. He is a fearsome taskmaster and after telling a story about his life, he relates to his men as thought they were his equals. Like the inmates, Tyrurin has been put in the prison camp unjustly. After the men discovers this, the men starts to warm up. They start to see him as an older brother instead of seeing him as the law enforcer. This quote also emohasizes an ironic idea of home. It shows that Tyurin does not refer to the outside world as the prisoner's real home. Tyurin mentions the camp as their real home because family homes have disappeared from everyone's memories after spending such a long time in the camp. 

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"His mind and his eyes were studying the wall, the façade of the Power Station, two cinder blocks thick, as it showed from under the ice. Whoever had been laying there before was either a bungler or a slacker. Shukhov would get to know every inch of that wall as if he owned it."

The author described Shukhov's approach to the wall of the Power Station and this quote was interesting to me because it showed Shukhov's passion and intensity. The protagonist Shukhov, is a hard worker unlike the others. Stereotypes of communism usually focuses on workers being lazy however, Shukhov is different. Threatening or actions of goads does not motivate him, his motivation comes from a deep reserve of energy and concentration within him. 

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