Giulia Di Bella - Line Illuminator

Giulia Di Bella
04/20/2015
Week #2
Pages 33-68

One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Line #1

"Halt!" shouted a sentry. Like a flock of sheep. "Form fives." p.35 

"Sheep and Pastor." Flocks of Sheep and Pastor. Raykliu Files, 8 Dec. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

          In this quote from the book, on thing is definitely evidable to notice, and that is, how they treated the prisoners. The way I see it, they treat the prisoners literally, exactly like flocks of sheep. Indifferent, "dumb", and just living to follow orders. The escorts wouldn't care if the prisoners were cold, hot, tired, or even sick, if they continued to follow their orders, then anything would be fine. If not, they would go to the extremes just to got the flock back on track. I believe it was definitely rude how guards would treat prisoners only because of the orders they were provided with. Referring to the "Milgram Experiment" (video linked for better understanding), I would surely not be able to do anything against my will just because I was "given orders". Now I know they the teachers were completely unaware of the real situation (fake experiment), but still, this is basic human laws: Don't do something to someone else if you wouldn't like it if someone did it to you. Simple. And I don't personally understand it how anyone, the majority of us, would be capable of doing this. (Link for better understanding of what the Milgrim Expiriment is.) 

 "Milgram Experiment." Milgram Experiment. GEO China, 5 Oct. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. 

This experiment really relates to what these guards are doing to the prisoners from this book. Of course they are just following orders, however this quote implicitly reflects on how they are just taking it to the next level. In means that they are not even treating them as "humans" anymore. They're treating them as sheep. Good-for-nothing animals that only serve for the benefits of the human race, that are extremely dumb. Just follow orders and obey they even in their extremes. Sheep. That's how these people treat them, and I believe this was an extremely important quote from these few pages because they bring the whole significance of the prisoners-and-guards relation, in only one sentence. And that's why I thought it would be great to bring it up.

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Line #2

I chose the paragraph on page 38 to illuminate upon because I thought it also brought up some significance in terms of the prisoners and their lives. They were not free at all, and this quote makes my statement true and supportive. This quote explicitly says that: prisoners were not free either in their thoughts, nor in their lives. This quoting is so strong because, if you think about it, not being free, is horrible, however not being free of your own thoughts is... just tragical! How can a person life without being able to at least think by herself or do what she/he feels like? They have to rely on the power source of their environment to be able to think and do, which is terrible. It's important to bring this up, because it's not only one person or a group of people who are being affected, it's a whole bunch of them; more than you can ever imagine. But what's the problem with that right? Not being free it not such a big deal, right? Of course it is. Being free is like everyone's secret personal identity. It's like a power that all living creature should posses that makes them be who they really are. The aspect that determines who they are as a person, their actions, and so on... Free to their unique and different thoughts and ideas. Free to their own opinions. In this book, all prisoners are equal, which banes and type of change of freedom from anyone there. As I mentioned earlier, one thing is not being able to be free from your actions, but one complete other facet is just not being free to your own thoughts. Think about it. These guards had to heavily brainwash all these prisoners to get them to be able to obey them and do what they want. Imagine not even being able to openly think about things, anything, in your own head, without anyone even knowing. These prisoners just became so used to following their new orders, that they don't even have the freedom anymore to properly think on their own, and I guess that this quote really touched me for the fact that I wouldn't be able, myself, to not think on my own. To not be free. So I try to wonder how and what was it like for these miserable prisoners to be living in such bad conditions like these. That's basically why I chose this quote to reflect about. 

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IN ADDITION

 

Image from book token by me

 I would really like to take the time to comment upon this simile from page 40, of the book. I would just quickly like to say how I loved this sentence and thought it was really profound. It was astonishing and meaningful for me, because it was true, and I really enjoyed reading this part of the passage. So I just wanted to link it to my post, for viewers like you, to get a little taste of the book.