A Comparative Analysis of the Novels We by E. Zamyatin and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by A. Solzhenitsyn

A Comparative Analysis of the Novels We by E. Zamyatin and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by A. Solzhenitsyn

Throughout time Russian writers have focused on the workings of the

human soul and the interaction between the individual and society.

Russia’s greatest writers were usually critical of the regimes they

lived under and thus often revealed their ideals very subtly through

their works. At the same time the most renowned Russian writers

believed in and incorporated into their works the power and the

initial goodness of the soul (an example of this is Raskolnikov in

Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky: even one of the bleakest

characters ever created in Russian literature eventually found the

light). All this fully applies to two outstanding Soviet authors A.

Solzhenitsyn and E. Zamyatin. Their respective novels One day in the

Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) and We (1920) were labeled anti-soviet

and caused the authors to become outcasts, but by reading deeper into

the text we come to the realization that these novels were not written

for anti-soviet purposes but rather to focus on the theme of the

indestructibility of human nature among others.

The authors achieve this through various methods, which become obvious

after a careful reading. One of the more apparent techniques used is

the setting. In Solzhenitsyn’s novel the portrayal of the harsh labor

camp with inhuman conditions, creates a seemingly uninhabitable

environment. Zamyatin in his novel uses as a setting a common ideal of

‘the perfect society’, a utopia. However we gradually realize that

this society is far from perfect, in fact it is the exact opposite, a

dystopia. Both settings are unrealistic to the modern reader and are

something most people can merely visualize and not even come close to

understanding or feeling, let alone relate to. By setting the novels

in a prison and a prison-like utopia, which in itself is an oxymoron,

the authors create two environments meant to subdue human nature. By

having the characters not only survive but also overcome their

environments the authors managed to vividly show the unyieldingness