Literary Analysis - Bernardita

Literary Analysis - Bernardita

Throughout the novel, 'One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, there are a variety of different themes which are presented in certain ways but the one slight theme which is pretty easy to be found is, the theme of surviving. Through the character of Shukhov, Solzhenitsyn demostrates and shows how humanity can survive even in the harshest and  worst times. In the Stalin labor camp which Ivan was kept for ten long years, was a figure of 'attack to its prisoners' and 'physical and spiritual dignity' as SparkNotes states. From way the beginning the reader can sense how the living conditions there were just pure dreadful and almost intolerable. The outrageous and terrible temperature would lead so low, so cold and with that, barely the prisoners had any clothes to protect nor warm them, even their mattresses have no sheets and plus, there was lack of food.

Another theme which has been discovered through out the novel is the one massive treasure which was highly stolen from the prisoners at the Stalin's labor camp and that would be the slight and precious time wasted, ten or twenty five years of their lives. Everyone is this world of ours deserves at least a little bit of freedom, but the prisoners didn't have much despite the early mornings before their morning roll call or during their meals, which is highly precious and valuable to them. Those slight minutes of freedom, as mentioned before, are highly precious to every single prisoner in there. But it isn't just that it just happens in the Stalin labor camp but also around over globe. People's time have been wasted for nothing and taken for granted. Despite that, in the moment of them having to work or work extra is considered time stolen from them.