One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich PDF

“One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a book written by Russian Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It’s one of the best-known books that discovered horrifying situations of forced labour camps. These camps were established in the time of Joseph Stalin’s dictation.

The book of Solzhenitsyn reveals the inhuman activities of these camps through the eyes of Ivan. The book was a massage for the outer world to show how is life under the oppression of the USSR. It also talks about how we are captive in our daily life and has no control over out them. But the second philosophy is much more different from reality and it needs discussion to bring out some other facts.

For writing “One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich”, the author became widely famous. But it doesn’t end here, he faced lots of trouble from his government for criticising their methods.

Below, we will talk about how Solzhenitsyn came to write this book, little summary and analysis of the book and some other facts.

So, let’s start.

One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich PDF

One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich

Summary of One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich:

The books start with Denisovich, on a bitterly cold morning. Denisovich wasn’t feeling so good that day, he has a fever and aches. He wanted to sleep more but the guard didn’t show him any mercy. And forced Denisovich to wake up and made him clean the floor.

After cleaning the floor Denisovich run for the food hall. He was worried that if he came late then there will be no breakfast for him. But thankfully, one of his friends saved bread for him.

After breakfast, the guard searched everyone and then send them to the workplace. On the way to the workplace, Denisovich found peace of iron. He put the iron striper in his pocket so that he can make a knife out of it later.

In the break time off work, Denisovich reveals his past life. And after finishing the task all the prisoners returned to the jail.

And it was the 3,653 days of Denisovich in jail.

Analysing of One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich:

In our above discussion, we have already talked about the main summary of this book. It’s mainly showed us how brutal life was in a labour camp for general people. It opened the inhuman pressure that was created by the USSR. And another thing that the book did very well was that it shows how people fit in and survived in this critical situation.

Three things were very significant in that book. And it also resolves some questions. Let’s see.

First, why the book is based on only one day? It means that every day in the Soviet Union under Stalin’s government is the same. And everyone is a prisoner in their hand. There is no other freedom day or unique moment.

The second thing is, the story takes place on a bitter snowy cold day. We learned from the book that guards used to treat prisoners so badly that prisoners would die by freezing if they don’t warm themselves by work. There wasn’t enough cloth or food for any of the prisoners.

Finally, the books talk about belief. It doesn’t much put any faith in beliefs. But it made it clear that when you are in this it’s good to believe in something. Cause there is no other way to survive. At the same, it also tells us that having a belief is good but hope will be useless here.

Solzhenitsyn writing of “One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich”:

Solzhenitsyn has had a passion for writing since his childhood. As he grew older the passion became the goal of his life. And in his time, Stalin’s torture on the civil people was very awful. Solzhenitsyn talks about it very openly and wanted a change. He expressed the harsh reality of the Soviet Union to the world.

In 1945, his fate was changed after he wrote a letter to his school friend. He criticised the system of Stalin’s in that latter. And then he was arrested for writing such a thing. He was sentenced to prison for 11 years. Solzhenitsyn spent 8 years of his life in different prisons of the USSR and three years in exile.

After returning to regular life Solzhenitsyn wrote the book. It was basically a view of his experience. After the publication, the book immediately got the attention of everyone and became one of the symbolic books of all time.