In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn uses small details and Shukhov’s mealtime rituals to demonstrate his small, personal bids for independence. When Shukov sits down for breakfast, one of the first things he does is remove his hat, for “he could never bring himself to eat with his hat on” (14). Nobody is telling Shukov what to do in this moment. By removing his hat to satisfy his own desire, he is gaining control of one small aspect of his morning routine and bringing himself incrementally closer to independence. Shukhov's spoon is another example of his desire to make his own decisions. The spoon is clearly one of Shukov’s few prized possessions. This is likely due to its origins. As Shukov sits down for breakfast, he pulls …show more content…
Throughput the book, the way Shukhov cares for the spoon shows it’s value to him. The significance of the spoon in this passage is that it belongs to Shukov without question. Shukhov protects the spoon and trusts that as long as he has something of his own, he can maintain his own humanity. This silent rebellion against the totalitarian system in the gulag is what reassures Shukhov throughout not only this passage, but also the rest of the book. The final example of Shukhov’s breakfast independence is the speed at which he eats. He eats slowly and with a determined focus, making sure to savor these brief moments of personal time, as “apart from sleep, the only time a prisoner lives for himself is ten minutes in the morning at breakfast, five minutes over dinner, and five at summer” (14). Similar to in his morning routine, Shukov seize any opportunity for his own time. In the gulag, he is forced to adhere to an unimaginably strict schedule, save for his ninety minutes in the morning and 20 minutes during mealtimes. For the 10 minutes Shukov sits finishing his breakfast, there is nobody standing over his shoulder telling him what to
To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic novel written by Harper Lee. The novel is set in the depths of the Great Depression. A lawyer named Atticus Finch is called to defend a black man named Tom Robinson. The story is told from one of Atticus’s children, the mature Scout’s point of view. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, the Finch Family faces many struggles and difficulties. In To Kill a Mockingbird, theme plays an important role during the course of the novel. Theme is a central idea in a work of literature that contains more than one word. It is usually based off an author’s opinion about a subject. The theme innocence should be protected is found in conflicts, characters, and symbols.
Clive Barker, the author of The Thief of Always, writes a fantasy about Harvey(the main character) taken into into a place full of illusions. Soon he finds out that there was this horrible Hood that had taken his precious time and almost has eaten his soul. So, Harvey then tries to destroy this evil Hood who ends up to be the oh so perfect house. Hood is evil and different ways he is evil. There are many things that makes someone or something truly evil. Hood is ultimately evil. These are the things that make him who or what he is. Evil is significant to most stories because that is the major conflict. The antagonist, Hood, does a really good job of being the bad guy. Usually it’s a person who is has some kind of kindness inside,
This novel and film commentary analysis or interpretation will be first summarised and then critiqued. The summary will be divided into twenty- four episodes. While summarising it is well to remember that the film was made out of the book.
“Often fear of one evil leads us into a worse”(Despreaux). Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux is saying that fear consumes oneself and often times results in a worse fate. William Golding shares a similar viewpoint in his novel Lord of the Flies. A group of boys devastatingly land on a deserted island. Ralph and his friend Piggy form a group. Slowly, they become increasingly fearful. Then a boy named Jack rebels and forms his own tribe with a few boys such as Roger and Bill. Many things such as their environment, personalities and their own minds contribute to their change. Eventually, many of the boys revert to their inherently evil nature and become savage and only two boys remain civilized. The boys deal with many trials, including each other, and true colors show. In the end they are being rescued, but too much is lost. Their innocence is forever lost along with the lives Simon, a peaceful boy, and an intelligent boy, Piggy. Throughout the novel, Golding uses symbolism and characterization to show that savagery and evil are a direct effect of fear.
Since Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka was young, his desires were clear and he made sure he reached them. Shponka was always a neat child: “His exercise book was always immaculate, with ruled margin and not a mark anywhere. He would always sit very quietly, his arms folded, his eyes riveted on his teacher. He never hung bits of paper on the back of the boy in front, never made carvings in the desks, and never played at shoving other boys off the benches just before the teacher came in.”(161-162). We can see in the previous quote that he was neat and preoccupied as he was seen by his teacher; he tried to keep the image of an angel. This angel image did not last due to the pancake incident. Shponka was pressured by his classmates to allow them to copy his work in exchange for a pancake. He was caught eating it by his teacher and became upset because of the fact that he lost his angel image. We can compare this to the incident in Gogol’s short story the “Nose”; the main character here loses his nose and instead of a nose he has a flat area: ”Flat just like a freshly cooked pancake”(56). This lose entailed a loss of his masculinity because he was paranoid about his outer appearance. In this case Shponka also loses an image he wanted to keep. Since he is so dutiful and loves to show this off his choice of profession was logical.
Dostoyevsky's writing in this book is such that the characters and setting around the main subject, Raskolnikov, are used with powerful consequences. The setting is both symbolic and has a power that affects all whom reside there, most notably Raskolnikov. An effective Structure is also used to show changes to the plot's direction and Raskolnikov's character. To add to this, the author's word choice and imagery are often extremely descriptive, and enhance the impact at every stage of Raskolnikov's changing fortunes and character. All of these features aid in the portrayal of Raskolnikov's downfall and subsequent rise.
To begin, The book WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin is a dystopian novel set in the future. Written by the main Character D-503 as a Journal. We learn in that D-503 is a mathematician with the task of building a spaceship called the Integral. The purpose for the Integral we learn is for the purpose of spreading their way of life to other planets. Their way of life which includes their belief system of equality for all, and limiting freedom drastically all for the purpose of the overall happiness of everyone in OneState. Violating any laws in OneState is punishable, most commonly with the death penalty. The death penalty is common in OneState where the Benefactor does the executions himself, held in ceremonial form in front of the public. Continuing further into the book we also see
Similar to Night, one must internalize human nature and take on the treatment as a creature as opposed to a person. They were controlled by the zeks, and it was up to the prisoners to survive how they could. Unfavorable, Fetiukov survived camp acting not like a human, but like a rat. Shukov describes him as, “the sort who when he was looking after someone else’s bowl took the potatoes from it” (Solzhenitsyn, 10). He relied on the pity of others to obtain food and tobacco throughout the novel, and he survives because he has willingly given up his personhood. The other prisoners, especially Shukov, saw him as having no dignity—something Shukov strived to hold onto. However, the treatment has stripped him of his personhood in his loss of compassion, similar to how Eliezer saw his father. Shukov expressed apathy towards the loss of his family. He said, “There was little sense in writing. Writing now was like dropping stones in some deep, bottomless pool. They drop; they sink—but there is no answer” (Solzhenitsyn, 18). He was no longer a person himself, but was cold and stoic like a rock. The reader does not have a comparison of what Shukov was like before being imprisoned like in Night, but it can assumed that the harsh conditions have caused Shukov to become more reserved and apathetic to his situation, as trauma often
Poverty and homelessness are often, intertwined with the idea of gross mentality. illness and innate evil. In urban areas all across the United States, just like that of Seattle. in Sherman Alexie’s New Yorker piece, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the downtrodden. are stereotyped as vicious addicts who would rob a child of its last penny if it meant a bottle of whiskey.
Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg is a large, uncaring city which fosters a western style of individualism. As Peter Lowe notes, “The city is crowded, but there is no communality in its crowds, no sense of being part of some greater ‘whole.’” Mrs. Raskolnikov initially notices a change in her son marked by his current state of desperate depression, but she fails to realize the full extent of these changes, even after he is convicted for the murder. The conditions and influences are also noticed by Raskolnikov’s mother who comments on the heat and the enclosed environment which is present throughout the city. When visiting Raskolnikov, she exclaims "I'm sure...
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
Author involves three kinds of narration techniques - as a prisoner, used method is called skaz, when wants to emphasize communication between Ivan and other zeks “So leave envy to those who always think the radish in the other fellow’s hand is bigger than ours. Shukhov knows life and never opens his belly to what doesn’t belong to him.” (p 124) ; as an educated narrator with specific details about ongoing “With the same rapid movements as before, Shukhov hung up his coat on a crossbeam and pulled what he wanted from the mattress: a pair of mittens, a second pair of old foot rags, a length of rope, and a piece of cloth with tapes at each end.” (p 22); and Ivan himself using third person and mainly recounting flashbacks and daydreams “You couldn’t write and describe t...
No one ever considers trying to escape from the camp, for the obvious reason that the intense weather would cause a quick death. The combination of the hard camp life and the forbidding weather creates the sense that the whole universe is against Shukhov and his fellow inmates—their lives are hindered by both humans and nature. This sense of oppression highlights the anguish of the human condition. The world is inhospitable, and yet it is the fate of humans to carry on, one day at a time. Another motif is The prisoners’ lives show how the Soviet regime makes private events public in order to exercise control over individuals. One important quote in Section 5 of the text shows how the Soviet government controls the prisoners” “Since then it’s been decreed that the sun is highest at one o’clock.”Who decreed that? ”The Soviet government.”(Solzhenitsyn,222) The inmates have no space to call their own, and their every move is monitored. At one point, the system decrees that a walk to the latrine cannot be made alone; even this has become a public event. The camp has replaced prisoners’ names, which represent their private identities, with letters and numbers. Prisoners are no longer private individuals, but rather symbols in a public system. The state’s elimination of privacy is not totally successful, however, one example where the claim is justified is what Shukov is named in prison, Shcha-854”( Solzhenitsyn ,Page
A soldier returning home from war should be a time of celebration and relief. However, not all soldiers feel like they can, or even want to come home again. In his story, Soldiers Home, Ernest Hemingway tells us the tale of a young soldier, Howard Krebs, who reluctantly returns home from World War I. On the surface, Krebs appears to be suffering from the results of a traumatic war time experience. However, this experience is not caused from something attributed to his time on the battlefield. Krebs struggles to stay true to himself and maintain his integrity, while trying to fit in again amongst the townspeople, as well as foster any type of romantic relationship. I believe war changed Krebs by showing him a new world beyond his small mid-western home town.
...Russian society and social norms. The greatest reminder of this is found in the fact that Lopahkin, the man who Ranevsky once spoke to condescendingly, is now the family’s last hope for survival. Ironically enough, Lopahkin is often glancing at his watch, a reminder that time is changing, and a message that he, himself, is a testament to.