Mood and Foreshadowing in A. Solzhenitsyn??S One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Essay Example

the enemy in the forest to political crimes or traitors, and every one of them deals with their sentence in a different way.

The newest ones are usually full of life and showing off a strong personality, while those who had been in the camp for longer learn that they have to lower their voices and do whatever it takes, however they are told to do so. Some prisoners, such as Alyoshka, have God as a source of inspiration and rely strongly on religion, while others such as Shukhov not only are atheists but rely only on the laws of survival, where the brain is the number one survival tool, and most of what it takes to survive is avoiding problems.

The one thing prisoners in the camp can be sure is that they cannot be sure of anything. Each one of them knows that they can have more years added to their sentence if one of the guards is in a bad mood, and that they can be shot dead for stepping out of the line. Yet, they will do their best to behave and not do anything against the rules, hoping for the day when their sentence will be over; the day they will be released. Hope can be their ally, but as the author made clear, can also be their enemy.

Hope gives them expectations from things such as a better meal, a better night of sleep, to others such as the last day they are going to spend in the camp. On the other hand, taking a realistic approach, it is always more likely that the meal is going to be worse and they

will have fishes eyes if lucky, that the hours of sleep will not be enough, and that the last day they are going to spend in the camp will never come, unless they are not planning to stay alive. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is a man who lost hope long ago.

By his statement in the beginning of the novel, while cleaning the floor of the guard’s office, he makes it clear that he keeps resentment from when he was taken away from his wife, and that he misses the life he had before, as well as emphasis the fact that he has no further expectations of getting everything he lost back someday. He knows that, as a prisoner once said, when he is done with ten years he can easily be told: Here’s another ten for you. Shukhov came to learn in the camp that surviving is a victory every day, and the future is today. To him, this is what truly matters.