One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch

Our book group choice for June 2009 is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Aleksandr Solzhenstenitsyn. First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov wakes up at 5:00 am feeling sick. He’s currently serving out a sentence in a gulag, a forced labor prison camp. Shukhov stays in bed longer than usual and is punished by the warden for not getting up on time. As punishment he has to go wash a floor in the wardens’ office.

After this, Shukhov rushes to eat breakfast and then goes to sickbay. But the orderly there tells him he’s not that sick and he has to go to work. Shukhov meets up with the rest of his work gang, 104, and they and the other gangs march out in the snow to a work site. Gang 104 is assigned to a Power Station and Shukhov spends his day building a brick wall in the freezing cold. During the dinner break Shukhov snags a few extra bowls of gruel and gets an extra dinner portion.

The work day finally comes to a close and Shukhov, who gets caught up in his work, is nearly late lining up for roll call. Another prisoner is missing and the gangs are all late marching back to camp. Shukhov is upset to think that his evening is ruined. But his group spies another gang heading back to camp late and Shukhov’s group beats them back, which means that they can get their supper faster. Shukhov manages to smuggle a steel piece back into camp and he plans to make a bread-knife out of it later.

Back at the camp Shukhov picks up a package for a fellow inmate and gets to have some of his supper as a reward. After supper Shukhov buys some tobacco and goes back to his hut. He helps an inmate hide his package during evening roll call, and as thanks Shukhov is given some biscuits and a piece of sausage. Shukhov goes to sleep content and thinks that he had a pretty good day.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch Discussion Questions

  1. What, if anything, is significant about this particular day in Shukhov’s life? Do you think that the book narrates this day because it’s unusual, because it’s typical, or because it’s some combination of the two?
  2. This book has a weird narrative style, that jumps around between third, second, and first person points of view. What is the effect of this complicated narrative style on the book as a whole?
  3. This day in the life narrative means that we only get so much information about characters and events. What is the experience of reading a narrative like this? How might the emotional response of reading a narrative like this tie in to some of the book’s main points and themes?
  4. A lot of the members of Gang 104 aren’t very well adjusted to camp life, such as Tsezar, Buynovsky, Fetyukov, etc. How would the book be different if the main character wasn’t the well-adjusted and smart Shukhov but a struggling character like Buynovsky? How would this switch impact the book’s style, tone, and themes?
  5. We get basic backstories on nearly all our characters. What is the significance of including these backstories in the text? How might the book be different if we didn’t get background information?
  6. What is the tone and the style of the end of the book, and what sort of effect does it produce?
  7. Is there any noticeable difference between Shukhov’s inner voice and the voice of the narrator? What is the significance of this distinction, or lack thereof?
  8. Are there any antagonists in this story, or could you argue that everyone in the camp is a victim of the oppressive Stalin government?
  9. Are there any scenes/passages where the book is directly critical of Stalin’s government and its ideology? Or is the criticism more subtle and symbolic?
  10. Does survival in the camp seem to be physical, mental, spiritual, or some sort of combination of factors? Which characters seem to demonstrate the best survival techniques?
  11. Would you describe Shukhov as a moral person? Does he do anything that isn’t very moral in the text?
  12. How and why is Fetyukov’s behavior bad, and why does Shukhov criticize it?
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