What is the work of one day by Ivan Denisovich about? "Analysis of the work

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” Solzhenitsyn

"One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, issues and other issues are discussed in this article.

The story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a story about how a man from the people relates himself to a forcibly imposed reality and its ideas. It shows in a condensed form that camp life, which will be described in detail in other, major works of Solzhenitsyn - in the novel “The Gulag Archipelago” and “In the First Circle”. The story itself was written while working on the novel “In the First Circle”, in 1959.

The work represents a complete opposition to the regime. This is a cell of a large organism, a terrible and unforgiving organism of a large state, so cruel to its inhabitants.

In the story there are special measures of space and time. Camp is a special time that is almost motionless. The days in the camp roll by, but the deadline does not. A day is a unit of measurement. The days are like two drops of water, all the same monotony, thoughtless mechanicalness. Solzhenitsyn tries to fit the entire camp life into one day, and therefore he uses the smallest details in order to recreate the entire picture of life in the camp. In this regard, they often talk about a high degree of detail in Solzhenitsyn’s works, and especially in short prose - stories. Behind each fact lies a whole layer of camp reality. Each moment of the story is perceived as a frame of a cinematic film, taken separately and examined in detail, under a magnifying glass. “At five o’clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barracks.” Ivan Denisovich overslept. I always got up when I woke up, but today I didn’t get up. He felt that he was sick. They take everyone out, line them up, everyone goes to the dining room. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov’s number is Sh-5ch. Everyone tries to be the first to enter the dining room: the thickest pour is poured first. After eating, they are lined up again and searched.

The abundance of details, as it seems at first glance, should burden the narrative. After all, there is almost no visual action in the story. But this, nevertheless, does not happen. The reader is not burdened by the narrative; on the contrary, his attention is riveted to the text, he intensely follows the course of events, real and occurring in the soul of one of the characters. Solzhenitsyn does not need to resort to any special techniques to achieve this effect. It's all about the material of the image itself. Heroes are not fictional characters, but real people. And these people are placed in conditions where they have to solve problems on which their lives and fate most directly depend. To a modern person, these tasks seem insignificant, and that is why the story leaves an even more eerie feeling. As V.V. Agenosov writes, “every little thing for the hero is literally a matter of life and death, a matter of survival or dying. Therefore, Shukhov (and with him every reader) sincerely rejoices at every particle found, every extra crumb of bread.”

There is one more time in the story - metaphysical, which is also present in other works of the writer. At this time there are other values. Here the center of the world is transferred to the consciousness of the prisoner.

In this regard, the topic of metaphysical understanding of a person in captivity is very important. Young Alyoshka teaches the no longer young Ivan Denisovich. By this time, all the Baptists were imprisoned, but not all the Orthodox. Solzhenitsyn introduces the topic of religious understanding of man. He is even grateful to prison for turning him towards spiritual life. But Solzhenitsyn more than once noticed that with this thought, millions of voices appeared in his mind, saying: “That’s why you say that because you survived.” These are the voices of those who laid down their lives in the Gulag, who did not live to see the moment of liberation, who did not see the sky without the ugly prison net. The bitterness of loss comes through in the story.

The category of time is also associated with individual words in the text of the story itself. For example, these are the first and last lines. At the very end of the story, he says that Ivan Denisovich’s day was a very successful day. But then he mournfully notes that “there were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his term from bell to bell.”

The space in the story is also interestingly presented. The reader does not know where the space of the camp begins and ends; it seems as if it has filled all of Russia. All those who found themselves behind the wall of the Gulag, somewhere far away, in an unattainable distant city, in a village.

The very space of the camp turns out to be hostile for prisoners. They are afraid of open areas and strive to cross them as quickly as possible, to hide from the eyes of the guards. Animal instincts awaken in a person. Such a description completely contradicts the canons of Russian classics of the 19th century. The heroes of that literature feel comfortable and at ease only in freedom; they love space and distance, which are associated with the breadth of their soul and character. Solzhenitsyn's heroes flee from space. They feel much safer in cramped cells, in stuffy barracks, where they can at least allow themselves to breathe more freely.

The main character of the story is a man from the people - Ivan Denisovich, a peasant, a front-line soldier. And this was done deliberately. Solzhenitsyn believed that it is people from the people who ultimately make history, move the country forward, and bear the guarantee of true morality. Through the fate of one person - Ivan Denisovich - the author shows the fate of millions who were innocently arrested and convicted. Shukhov lived in the village, which he remembers fondly here in the camp. At the front, he, like thousands of others, fought with full dedication, not sparing himself. After being wounded, he went back to the front. Then German captivity, from where he miraculously managed to escape. And this is why he is now in the camp. He was accused of espionage. And what exactly the task the Germans gave him, neither Ivan Denisovich himself nor the investigator knew: “What task - neither Shukhov himself, nor the investigator could come up with. So they just left it as a task.” At the time of the story, Shukhov had been in the camps for about eight years. But this is one of the few who did not lose their dignity in the grueling conditions of the camp. In many ways, his habits as a peasant, an honest worker, a peasant help him. He does not allow himself to humiliate himself in front of other people, lick plates, or inform on others. His age-old habit of respecting bread is visible even now: he stores bread in a clean rag, takes off his hat before eating. He knows the value of work, loves it, and is not lazy. He is sure: “he who knows two things with his hands can also handle ten.” In his hands the matter is resolved, the frost is forgotten. He treats his tools with care and carefully monitors the laying of the wall, even in this forced work. Ivan Denisovich's Day is a day of hard work. Ivan Denisovich knew how to do carpentry and could work as a mechanic. Even in forced labor, he showed diligence and built a beautiful, even wall. And those who did not know how to do anything carried sand in wheelbarrows.

Solzhenitsyn's hero has largely become the subject of malicious accusations among critics. According to them, this integral national character should be almost ideal. Solzhenitsyn portrays an ordinary person. So, Ivan Denisovich professes camp wisdom and laws: “Groan and rot. But if you resist, you will break.” This was received negatively by critics. Particular bewilderment was caused by the actions of Ivan Denisovich, when, for example, he took away a tray from a weak prisoner and deceived the cook. It is important to note here that he does this not for personal benefit, but for his entire team.

There is another phrase in the text that caused a wave of discontent and extreme surprise among critics: “I didn’t know whether he wanted it or not.” This thought was misinterpreted as Shukhov’s loss of firmness and inner core. However, this phrase echoes the idea that prison awakens spiritual life. Ivan Denisovich already has life values. Prison or freedom will not change them, he will not give it up. And there is no captivity, no prison that could enslave a soul, deprive it of freedom, self-expression, life.

Ivan Denisovich’s value system is especially visible when comparing him with other characters imbued with camp laws.

Thus, in the story Solzhenitsyn recreates the main features of that era when the people were doomed to incredible torment and hardship. The history of this phenomenon does not actually begin in 1937, when the so-called violations of the norms of state and party life began, but much earlier, from the very beginning of the existence of the totalitarian regime in Russia. Thus, the story presents a cluster of the fate of millions of Soviet people who were forced to pay for honest and devoted service through years of humiliation, torment, and camps.

Plan

Memoirs of Ivan Denisovich about how and why he ended up in a concentration camp. Memories of German captivity, of the war.
The main character's memories of the village, of the peaceful pre-war era.
Description of camp life.
A successful day in the camp life of Ivan Denisovich.

The story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a story about how a man from the people relates himself to the forcibly imposed reality and its ideas. It shows in a condensed form that camp life, which will be described in detail in other, major works of Solzhenitsyn - in the novel “The Gulag Archipelago” and “In the First Circle.” The story itself was written while working on the novel “In the First Circle”, in 1959.

The work represents a complete opposition to the regime. This is a cell of a large organism, a terrible and unforgiving organism of a large state, so cruel to its inhabitants.

In the story there are special measures of space and time. Camp is a special time that is almost motionless. The days in the camp roll by, but the deadline does not. A day is a unit of measurement. The days are like two drops of water, all the same monotony, thoughtless mechanicalness. Solzhenitsyn tries to fit the entire camp life into one day, and therefore he uses the smallest details in order to recreate the entire picture of life in the camp. In this regard, they often talk about a high degree of detail in Solzhenitsyn’s works, and especially in short prose - stories. Behind each fact lies a whole layer of camp reality. Each moment of the story is perceived as a frame of a cinematic film, taken separately and examined in detail, under a magnifying glass. "At five o'clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barracks." Ivan Denisovich overslept. I always got up when I woke up, but today I didn’t get up. He felt that he was sick. They take everyone out, line them up, everyone goes to the dining room. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov's number is Sh-5ch. Everyone tries to be the first to enter the dining room: the thickest pour is poured first. After eating, they are lined up again and searched.

The abundance of details, as it seems at first glance, should burden the narrative. After all, there is almost no visual action in the story. But this, nevertheless, does not happen. The reader is not burdened by the narrative; on the contrary, his attention is riveted to the text, he intensely follows the course of events, real and occurring in the soul of one of the characters. Solzhenitsyn does not need to resort to any special techniques to achieve this effect. It's all about the image material itself. Heroes are not fictional characters, but real people. And these people are placed in conditions where they have to solve problems on which their lives and fate most directly depend. To a modern person, these tasks seem insignificant, and that is why the story leaves an even more eerie feeling. As V.V. Agenosov writes, “every little thing for the hero is literally a matter of life and death, a matter of survival or dying. Therefore, Shukhov (and with him every reader) sincerely rejoices at every particle found, every extra crumb of bread.”

There is one more time in the story - metaphysical, which is also present in other works of the writer. At this time there are different values. Here the center of the world is transferred to the consciousness of the prisoner.

The main character of the story is a man from the people - Ivan Denisovich, a peasant, a front-line soldier. And this was done deliberately. Solzhenitsyn believed that it is people from the people who ultimately make history, move the country forward, and bear the guarantee of true morality. Through the fate of one person - Ivan Denisovich - the author of the Brief contains the fate of millions who were innocently arrested and convicted. Shukhov lived in the village, which he fondly remembers here in the camp. At the front, he, like thousands of others, fought with full dedication, not sparing himself. After being wounded, he went back to the front. Then German captivity, from where he miraculously managed to escape. And this is why he is now in the camp. He was accused of espionage. And what exactly the task the Germans gave him, neither Ivan Denisovich himself nor the investigator knew: “What task - neither Shukhov himself, nor the investigator could come up with. They left it just like that - a task.” At the time of the story, Shukhov had been in the camps for about eight years. But this is one of the few who did not lose their dignity in the grueling conditions of the camp. In many ways, his habits as a peasant, an honest worker, a peasant help him. He does not allow himself to humiliate himself in front of other people, lick plates, or inform on others. His age-old habit of respecting bread is visible even now: he stores the bread in a clean rag and takes off his hat before eating. He knows the value of work, loves it, and is not lazy. He is sure: “he who knows two things with his hands can also handle ten.” In his hands the matter is resolved, the frost is forgotten. He treats his tools with care and carefully monitors the laying of the wall, even in this forced work. Ivan Denisovich's Day is a day of hard work. Ivan Denisovich knew how to do carpentry and could work as a mechanic. Even in forced labor, he showed diligence and built a beautiful, even wall. And those who did not know how to do anything carried sand in wheelbarrows.

Solzhenitsyn's hero has largely become the subject of malicious accusations among critics. According to them, this integral national character should be almost ideal. Solzhenitsyn portrays an ordinary person. So, Ivan Denisovich professes camp wisdom and laws: “Griek and rot. But if you resist, you’ll break.” This was received negatively by critics. Particular bewilderment was caused by the actions of Ivan Denisovich when, for example, he took away a tray from a weak prisoner and deceived the cook. It is important to note here that he does this not for personal benefit, but for his entire team.

There is another phrase in the text that caused a wave of discontent and extreme surprise among critics: “I didn’t know whether he wanted it or not.” This thought was misinterpreted as Shukhov’s loss of firmness and inner core. However, this phrase echoes the idea that prison awakens spiritual life. Ivan Denisovich already has life values. Prison or freedom will not change them, he will not give it up. And there is no such captivity, no such prison that could enslave the soul, deprive it of freedom, self-expression, life.

Ivan Denisovich’s value system is especially visible when comparing him with other characters imbued with camp laws.

Thus, in the story Solzhenitsyn recreates the main features of that era when the people were doomed to incredible torment and hardship. The history of this phenomenon does not actually begin in 1937, when the so-called violations of the norms of state and party life began, but much earlier, from the very beginning of the existence of the totalitarian regime in Russia. Thus, the story presents a cluster of the fate of millions of Soviet people who were forced to pay for their honest and devoted service through years of humiliation, torture, and camps.

Plan

Memoirs of Ivan Denisovich about how and why he ended up in a concentration camp. Memories of German captivity, of the war. The main character's memories of the village, of the peaceful pre-war era. Description of camp life. A successful day in the camp life of Ivan Denisovich.

Analysis of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn for those who take the Unified State Exam in Russian language and literature.

1. The image of the world in the story.
2. Problems of the story.
3. System of characters in the story.

In the very title " One day of Ivan Denisovich“there is a certain feature characteristic of Solzhenitsyn’s artistic thinking: this is the condensation of time and space (one day, a camp). The day becomes the unit of measurement for the hero's camp life. The whole story is compositionally included within the framework of the day: the beginning coincides with the beginning of the day (“At five o’clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck ...”), the end coincides with the evening lights out. In the first sentence, the words “as always” indicate the unchanging constancy of camp life; in the final sentence, an unimaginable number of days is given that make up Ivan Denisovich’s term: “There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his term from bell to bell.

Because of leap years, three extra days were added...” And this respectful allocation into a special one, and besides, the last paragraph of only three days - such a small number compared to three thousand - defines the attitude towards the day as the concentration of a whole life.
What is the image of the world in “One Day...”? In what space and time do his heroes exist? Solzhenitsyn willingly uses the technique of antithesis, and the space and time of this world reveal their own peculiarity, or rather make themselves aware of themselves in contrast with another or other worlds. Thus, the main properties of the camp space - its fenced off, closedness and visibility (the sentry standing on the tower sees everything) - are contrasted with the openness and boundlessness of the natural space - the steppe. The most characteristic and necessary feature of the camp space is the fence; the story details the details of its construction: a solid fence, pointed pillars with lanterns, double gates, wire, near and far towers. When developing a new facility, notes Ivan Denisovich, “before doing anything there, you need to dig holes, put up poles and pull the barbed wire away from yourself - so as not to run away.” The structure of this phrase accurately reproduces the order and meaning of the image of space: first the world is described as closed, then as unfree, and the main emphasis falls on the second part (the dash is a sign of intonation emphasis). What appears before us is a seemingly clear opposition between the camp world with its set of inherent signs (closed, visible, unfree) and the external world with its signs of openness, infinity and - therefore - freedom, and they call the camp a “zone”, and the big world “will” " But in reality there is no such symmetry. “The wind whistles over the bare steppe - dry in summer, frosty in winter. For years, nothing grew in that steppe, and even more so between four barbed wires.” The steppe (in Russian culture, an image-symbol of will, reinforced by the equally traditional and equally meaningful image of the wind) turns out to be equated to the unfree, barbed space of the zone: there is no life here and there - “nothing has grown.” Moreover: the outside world is endowed with the properties of the camp: “From the stories of free drivers and excavator operators, Shukhov sees that the direct path for people was blocked<...>" And, on the contrary, the camp world suddenly acquires alien and paradoxical properties: “What is good in a convict camp is freedom from the belly” (italics by A. Solzhenitsyn - T.V.). We are talking here about freedom of speech - a right that ceases to be a socio-political abstraction and becomes a natural necessity for a person to say as he wants and what he wants, freely and without restriction: “And in the room they shout:

- The mustachioed old man will take pity on you! He won’t believe his own brother, let alone you mugs!”
Words unthinkable in the wild.

The confrontation between the big world and the camp world turns out to be imaginary.

What is the character system in the story? Antithesis, the main artistic principle in “One Day...”, also determines the system of oppositions in the human world. First of all, this is the most predictable and natural confrontation between prisoners and those who are assigned to manage their lives - from the head of the camp to the guards, guards and escorts (hierarchy is not very important - for prisoners, any of them is a “citizen boss”). The confrontation between these worlds, socio-political in nature, is strengthened by what is given at the natural-biological level. The constant comparisons of guards with wolves and dogs are not accidental: Lieutenant Volkova (“God marks a rogue,” Ivan Denisovich will say) “doesn’t look anything other than a wolf”; the guards “got excited, rushed like animals”, “just look out so that they don’t rush at your throat”, “here are the dogs, count again!”

Prisoners are a defenseless herd. They are counted head by head: “<...>look from behind or from front: five heads, five backs, ten legs”; “- Stop! - the watchman makes noise. -Like a flock of sheep. Sort it out in fives!”; they say about Gopchik - “an affectionate calf”, “he has a tiny voice, like a kid’s”; Captain Buinovsky “locked up the stretcher like a good gelding.”

This opposition of wolves and sheep is easily superimposed in our minds on the usual fable-allegorical opposition of strength and defenselessness (“The Wolf and the Lamb”) or, as in Ostrovsky, calculating cunning and simplicity, but here another, more ancient and more general semantic layer is more important - symbolism of sacrifice associated with the image of a sheep. The symbol of sacrifice, which combines the opposite meanings of death and life, death and salvation, turns out to be extremely important precisely for the camp theme, the general plot of which is life in the kingdom of unlife and the possibility (Solzhenitsyn) or impossibility (Shalamov) for a person to be saved in this unlife. It is especially significant that this opposition is not mechanical, it is associated with the freedom of human choice: whether to accept the “law of wolves” for oneself depends on the person, and the one who accepts it acquires the properties of dogs or jackals serving the wolf tribe (Dare, “the foreman from prisoners, a good woman, chases his brother a prisoner worse than dogs,” the prisoner, the head of the canteen, who, together with the warden, throws people around, is defined by the same word with the warden: “They manage without guards, Polkans”).

Prisoners turn into wolves and dogs not only when they obey the camp law of survival of the strong: “Whoever can, gnaws at him,” not only when, betraying their own, they serve the camp authorities, but also when they renounce their personality, becoming a crowd - This is the most difficult case for a person, and no one here is guaranteed against transformation. The prisoners waiting in the cold for a recount are turning into an angry crowd, ready to kill the culprit - a Moldovan who fell asleep and slept through the check: “Now he<Шухов>he was cold with everyone, and cruel with everyone, and it seems that if this Moldovan had held them for half an hour, he would have given his escort to the crowd - they would have torn apart a calf like wolves!” (for the Moldavian - the victim - the previous name “calf” remains). The cry with which the crowd greets the Moldovan is a wolf howl: “Ah-ah! - the prisoners screamed! Oooh!”

Another system of relations is between prisoners. On the one hand, this is a hierarchy, and the camp terminology - “morons”, “sixes”, “goners” - clearly defines the place of each rank. “On the outside, the brigade is all wearing the same black pea coats and identical numbers, but inside it is very unequal - they walk in steps. You can’t make Buinovsky sit with a bowl, and Shukhov won’t take every job, there’s something lower.”

Another case is the identification of informers, who are opposed to all camp inmates as not quite people, as some kind of separate organ-functions that the authorities cannot do without. Therefore, the murders of informers, which are mentioned several times, do not cause moral protest.

And finally, the third and perhaps most tragically important case of internal opposition for Solzhenitsyn is the opposition between the people and the intelligentsia. This problem, cardinal for the entire nineteenth century - from Griboyedov to Chekhov, is by no means removed in the twentieth century, but few people raised it with such acuteness as Solzhenitsyn. His point of view is the fault of that part of the intelligentsia that does not see the people. Speaking about the terrible stream of arrests of peasants in 1929 - 1930, which was almost unnoticed by the liberal Soviet intelligentsia of the sixties, who focused on the Stalinist terror of 1934 - 1937. - upon the destruction of his own, he pronounces as a sentence: “And yet Stalin (and you and I) did not have a more serious crime.” In “One Day...” Shukhov sees intellectuals (“Muscovites”) as a foreign people: “And they babble quickly, quickly, whoever says the most words. And when they babble like that, you rarely come across Russian words; listening to them is the same as listening to Latvians or Romanians.” The harshness of the opposition is especially felt because Solzhenitsyn’s traditional national alienation has been practically removed: a common destiny leads to human closeness, and Ivan Denisovich understands the Latvian Kildigs, the Estonians, and the Western Ukrainian Pavlo. Human brotherhood is created not in spite of, but rather thanks to national distinction, which gives the fullness and brightness of a great life.

“Educated Conversation” - a dispute about Eisenstein between Caesar and the old convict X-123 (he is heard by Shukhov, who brought Caesar porridge) - models a double opposition: firstly, within the intelligentsia: the esthete-formalist Caesar, whose formula “art is not something , but how,” is contrasted with the supporter of the ethical understanding of art X-123, for whom “to hell with your “how” if it doesn’t awaken good feelings in me!”, and “Ivan the Terrible” is “the most vile political idea - a justification of individual tyranny ", and, secondly, the opposition of the intelligentsia - the people, and in it Caesar and X-123 are equally opposed to Ivan Denisovich. In the small space of the episode - just a page of book text - the author shows three times - Caesar does not notice Ivan Denisovich: “Caesar is smoking a pipe, lounging at his table. His back is to Shukhov, he doesn’t see him.<...>Caesar turned around, extended his hand for the porridge, and didn’t look at Shukhov, as if the porridge itself had arrived by air. Caesar didn’t remember him at all, that he was here, behind him.” But the old convict’s “good feelings” are aimed only at his own people - in memory of “three generations of the Russian intelligentsia,” and Ivan Denisovich is invisible to him.

This is unforgivable blindness. Ivan Denisovich in Solzhenitsyn’s story is not just the main character - he has the highest authority as a narrator, although due to his modesty he does not at all pretend to this role. Solzhenitsyn uses the technique of indirect speech, which allows us to see the depicted world through the eyes of Shukhov and understand this world through his consciousness. And therefore, the central problem of the story, which coincides with the problems of all new (since the beginning of the 19th century) Russian literature - gaining freedom - comes to us through the problem that Ivan Denisovich recognizes as the main one for his life in the camp - survival.

The simplest formula for survival: “your” time + food. This is a world where “two hundred grams rule life,” where the scoop of cabbage soup after work occupies the highest place in the hierarchy of values (“This scoop is now more valuable to him than his will, more valuable than the life of his entire past and entire future life”), where it is said about dinner: “Here it’s a short moment for which the prisoner lives!” The hero hides the ration near his heart. Time is measured by food: “The most satisfying time for a camp prisoner is June: every vegetable runs out and is replaced with cereal. The worst time is July: nettles are whipped into a cauldron.” Treating food as a highly valuable idea and the ability to focus entirely on it determine the possibility of survival. “He eats porridge with an insensitive mouth, it is of no use to him,” they say about the old convict intellectual. Shukhov feels every spoonful, every bite he swallows. The story is full of information about what magara is, why oats are valuable, how to hide rations, how to eat porridge as a crust, etc.

Life is the highest value, human duty is to save oneself, and therefore the traditional system of prohibitions and restrictions ceases to operate: the bowls of porridge stolen by Shukhov are not a crime, but a merit, a prisoner’s daring, Gopchik eats his parcels alone at night - and here this is the norm, “ the right one will be the camp worker.”

Another thing is striking: although moral boundaries change, they continue to exist, and moreover, they serve as a guarantee of human salvation. The criterion is simple: you cannot change – neither to others (like informers who save themselves “on the blood of others”), nor to yourself. The persistence of moral habits, be it Shukhov’s inability to “jackal” or give bribes, or “weaning” and conversion “according to the fatherland,” from which Western Ukrainians cannot be weaned, turns out to be not external, easily washed away by the conditions of existence, but the internal, natural stability of a person. This stability determines the measure of human dignity as internal freedom in a situation of maximum external absence of it. And almost the only means that helps to realize this freedom and - therefore - allows a person to survive, is work, labor.<...>This is how Shukhov is built (my italics - T.V.) in a stupid way, and they can’t wean him off: he spares every thing and every labor, so that they don’t perish in vain.” Work defines people: Buinovsky, Fetyukov, Baptist Alyoshka are assessed by what they are like in general work. Work saves you from illness: “Now that Shukhov has been given a job, it seems that he has stopped breaking.” Work turns “official” time into “your own”: “What, it’s disgusting, the working day is so short?” Work destroys hierarchy: “<...>Now his work is on par with the foreman.” And most importantly, it destroys fear: “<...>Shukhov, even though his convoy is now hounding him with dogs, ran back along the platform and took a look.”

In “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” freedom is measured not by the height of human achievement, but by the simplicity of daily routine, but with all the more convincing it is conceptualized as the main necessity of life.

Thus, in the story about one day in the life of a Soviet camp inmate, two large themes of Russian classical literature quite naturally merge - the search for freedom and the sanctity of people's labor.

Tyutchev with the starry sky: the longer you look at it, the more stars you will see. This comparison comes to mind when you re-read “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (see its full text and summary).

When we first met him, we were so shocked by the picture of camp life that it obscured many other aspects of the work in our minds. Before us stood the shadows of loved ones tortured in the camps; we were only now beginning to understand the full extent of their suffering, and experienced their death with new acuteness. Not a single work has evoked such acute pain, such deep empathy.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One day of Ivan Denisovich. The author is reading. Fragment

In fact, the writer’s memoirs about the history of the creation of his work reveal one of the characteristic features of Solzhenitsyn’s poetics, which many critics will later talk about: “the extraordinary compaction of events in time.”

This trait was especially clearly manifested in “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” The plot of the story is limited to a narrow time frame: one day. Pushkin said that in his “Eugene Onegin” time is calculated according to the calendar. In Solzhenitsyn's story it is calculated using a dial. The movement of the clock hand over the course of one day becomes a plot-forming factor.

Both the beginning and the ending of the story speak about certain temporary categories. His first words: “At five o’clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck...” Last words: “There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his term from bell to bell. Due to leap years, three extra days were added...”

It is quite natural that the structure of a story is determined by the movement of time. After all, the main thing for a prisoner is time. And the period consists of hundreds of the same days as the one that we experienced together with the hero of the story. And although he was tired of counting them, somewhere subconsciously, in the depths of his soul, a certain metronome was working, measuring time so accurately that he even noted three extra days among hundreds of others.

The story traces the life of a prisoner hour by hour, minute by minute. And - step by step. The location of the action is as important a factor in this work as the time of action. The beginning is in the barracks, then within the zone, a transition across the steppe, a construction site, again a zone... The movement that began in the narrow space of the buggy lining ends on it. The world is closed. View limited.

But this entire extremely poor microcosm is only the first circle spreading across the water from a thrown stone. Behind the first, further and further, others disperse. Time and space expand beyond the boundaries of the camp, beyond the boundaries of one day. Behind the day come decades, behind the small zone there is a large zone - Russia. Already the first critics noticed: “... the camp is described in such a way that the whole country is visible through it.”

The story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a story about how a man from the people relates himself to the forcibly imposed reality and its ideas. It shows in a condensed form that camp life, which will be described in detail in other, major works of Solzhenitsyn - in the novel “The Gulag Archipelago” and “In the First Circle”. The story itself was written while working on the novel “In the First Circle”, in 1959.

The work represents a complete opposition to the regime. This is a cell of a large organism, a terrible and unforgiving organism of a large state, so cruel to its inhabitants.

In the story there are special measures of space and time. Camp is a special time that is almost motionless. The days in the camp roll by, but the deadline does not. A day is a unit of measurement. The days are like two drops of water, all the same monotony, thoughtless mechanicalness. Solzhenitsyn tries to fit the entire camp life into one day, and therefore he uses the smallest details in order to recreate the entire picture of life in the camp. In this regard, they often talk about a high degree of detail in Solzhenitsyn’s works, and especially in short prose - stories. Behind each fact lies a whole layer of camp reality. Each moment of the story is perceived as a frame of a cinematic film, taken separately and examined in detail, under a magnifying glass. “At five o’clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barracks.” Ivan Denisovich overslept. I always got up when I woke up, but today I didn’t get up. He felt that he was sick. They take everyone out, line them up, everyone goes to the dining room. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov's number is Sh-5ch. Everyone tries to be the first to enter the dining room: the thickest pour is poured first. After eating, they are lined up again and searched.

The abundance of details, as it seems at first glance, should burden the narrative. After all, there is almost no visual action in the story. But this, nevertheless, does not happen. The reader is not burdened by the narrative; on the contrary, his attention is riveted to the text, he intensely follows the course of events, real and occurring in the soul of one of the characters. Solzhenitsyn does not need to resort to any special techniques to achieve this effect. It's all about the image material itself. Heroes are not fictional characters, but real people. And these people are placed in conditions where they have to solve problems on which their lives and fate most directly depend. To a modern person, these tasks seem insignificant, and that is why the story leaves an even more eerie feeling. As V.V. Agenosov writes, “every little thing for the hero is literally a matter of life and death, a matter of survival or dying. Therefore, Shukhov (and with him every reader) sincerely rejoices at every particle found, every extra crumb of bread.”

In this regard, the topic of metaphysical understanding of a person in captivity is very important. Young Alyoshka teaches the no longer young Ivan Denisovich. By this time, all the Baptists were imprisoned, but not all the Orthodox. Solzhenitsyn introduces the topic of religious understanding of man. He is even grateful to prison for turning him towards spiritual life. But Solzhenitsyn more than once noticed that at this thought, millions of voices appeared in his mind, saying: “That’s why you say that because you survived.” These are the voices of those who laid down their lives in the Gulag, who did not live to see the moment of liberation, who did not see the sky without the ugly prison net. The bitterness of loss comes through in the story.

The main character of the story is a man from the people - Ivan Denisovich, a peasant, a front-line soldier. And this was done deliberately. Solzhenitsyn believed that it is people from the people who ultimately make history, move the country forward, and bear the guarantee of true morality. Through the fate of one person - Ivan Denisovich - the author of the Brief contains the fate of millions who were innocently arrested and convicted. Shukhov lived in the village, which he fondly remembers here in the camp. At the front, he, like thousands of others, fought with full dedication, not sparing himself. After being wounded, he went back to the front. Then German captivity, from where he miraculously managed to escape. And this is why he is now in the camp. He was accused of espionage. And what exactly the task the Germans gave him, neither Ivan Denisovich himself nor the investigator knew: “What task - neither Shukhov himself, nor the investigator could come up with. They just left it like that - a task.” At the time of the story, Shukhov had been in the camps for about eight years. But this is one of the few who did not lose their dignity in the grueling conditions of the camp. In many ways, his habits as a peasant, an honest worker, a peasant help him. He does not allow himself to humiliate himself in front of other people, lick plates, or inform on others. His age-old habit of respecting bread is visible even now: he stores the bread in a clean rag and takes off his hat before eating. He knows the value of work, loves it, and is not lazy. He is sure: “he who knows two things with his hands can also handle ten.” In his hands the matter is resolved, the frost is forgotten. He treats his tools with care and carefully monitors the laying of the wall, even in this forced work. Ivan Denisovich's Day is a day of hard work. Ivan Denisovich knew how to do carpentry and could work as a mechanic. Even in forced labor, he showed diligence and built a beautiful, even wall. And those who did not know how to do anything carried sand in wheelbarrows.

Solzhenitsyn's hero has largely become the subject of malicious accusations among critics. According to them, this integral national character should be almost ideal. Solzhenitsyn portrays an ordinary person. So, Ivan Denisovich professes camp wisdom and laws: “Groan and rot. But if you resist, you will break.” This was received negatively by critics. Particular bewilderment was caused by the actions of Ivan Denisovich when, for example, he took away a tray from a weak prisoner and deceived the cook. It is important to note here that he does this not for personal benefit, but for his entire team.

There is another phrase in the text that caused a wave of discontent and extreme surprise among critics: “I didn’t know whether he wanted it or not.” This thought was misinterpreted as Shukhov’s loss of firmness and inner core. However, this phrase echoes the idea that prison awakens spiritual life. Ivan Denisovich already has life values. Prison or freedom will not change them, he will not give it up. And there is no such captivity, no such prison that could enslave the soul, deprive it of freedom, self-expression, life.

Ivan Denisovich’s value system is especially visible when comparing him with other characters imbued with camp laws.

Thus, in the story Solzhenitsyn recreates the main features of that era when the people were doomed to incredible torment and hardship. The history of this phenomenon does not actually begin in 1937, when the so-called violations of the norms of state and party life began, but much earlier, from the very beginning of the existence of the totalitarian regime in Russia. Thus, the story presents a cluster of the fate of millions of Soviet people who were forced to pay for their honest and devoted service through years of humiliation, torture, and camps.