Week 1: vii (introduction) xviii; xix-(foreward) xxii; pp. 3-22
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Week #1 - Connection Captain
To being with, the novel 'One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, starts off at a Siberian labor camp whom Ivan has been captive and kept in for 10 long lasting years. Through out those unpleasant years, Ivan Denisovich explains and describes how the struggles were which he has been through, for example the dreadful cold days with that, hardly any clothes to warm him or lack of food given to him. With that, one morning Ivan overslept due to his ill feeling and was punished for it with a latrine duty.
A connection which I've noticed while reading the little much, was how and when Ivan was slightly waking up in the morning at five o'clock, waking up for another day at the cold breeze outside. Although he overslept, as mentioned before, due to his ill feeling, Ivan saw this as 'normal'. As in a 'normal' routine every morning for him. As the author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn described Ivans thoughts, 'he had wished morning would never come, but the morning came as usual.' Personally, I don't believe this should be considered as a 'normal' morning routine at all. Unfortunately, today this dreadful morning routine has been considered to some people a regular or ordinary routine around the globe. Waking up to a world where you are abused and harmed.
This relates to an article which talks about a particular twelve year old, Alejandra whom is woken up at four in the morning by her father, Don Jose. Young Alejandra does not go to school, instead for living, the article explains how 'Alejandra collects curiles, small molluscs in the mangrove swamps on the island of Espiritu Santo in Usulutan, El Salvador.' In the early hurry mornings to get to work, Alejandra does not have time to even eat her own breakfast. Due to that is to get all she needs for her dreadful 14 hours at work in the mud.
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Berni,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the connection you made with Shukhov and Alejandra and I agree with the links you associated with and between the two of them. However, I believe that it isn't the most accurate connection you could've made, since I personally think that the Siberian labour camp our protagonist resides has a stronger connection to the Nazi concentration camps from WWII.
Berni,
ReplyDeleteI thought your connection that you made was really good. It made me think of connections that I can make with the book. Both Shukhov and Alejandra seem like they have hard lives. I think that it is crazy though, that Alejandra's father makes her wake up at four in the morning, even when she is only twelve years old! Don't you think that is crazy? Overall I really enjoyed your post, good job.
Berni,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved the way you connected Ivan's life with this twelve-year-old girl Alejandra. I very much liked the fact that this life that we are reading about right now has something in common with other people. For instance, while Alejandra's dad wakes her up in the early mornings to get to work, Alejandra doesn't have enough time to eat her breakfast. Besides that, I can compare this to the life of Anne Frank. It's not her whole life that I want to connect to Ivan's life, but its the fact that there was once in Anne Frank's life where she was missing clothes, food, shelter, etc. Specifically, it reminded my how people treated Ivan in the camp, and how the Nazi's treated Jewish people in camps. To summarize, I think that her life almost one time related to his.
Berni,
ReplyDeleteI thought your post showed great connections between different articles/Current Events and One Day in the Life. You post shows great depth and has helped me push my thinking forward. I see how I would be able to connect with the 12 year old' girl, where she couldn't educate herself, since she was always working.