Soltzhenitsyn's One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich
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Analysis of the Author’s Purpose and Meaning in the Last Paragraph in the Novel
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich begins with the morning of one single day in a Russian Gulag. From the very beginning the setting is described and the tone is set. It is cold, people are starving and all hope has been lost. However, Aleksandr Soltzhenitsyn’s purpose for writing changes in the last few paragraphs of the novel. Instead of sympathizing with Soltzhenitsyn his readers are asked to appreciate every day as if it is their last.
The setting of a novel can “set” the reader’s emotion from the very beginning. It is the first aspect of a novel that helps the reader in understanding the overall message of the author. For example, Soltzhenitsyn uses Pathos…show more content… Soltzhenitsyn shows pathos appeal by having his readers feel fearful for his personal health. “How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand a man who’s cold? The cold stung. A murky fog wrapped itself around Shukhov and made him cough painfully. The temperature out there was -17,” (19). The use of pathos appeal is shown as the author’s goal of this quote is to cause negative feelings towards the conditions of the camp. In the phrase “a murky fog wrapped itself around Shukhov” Soltzenhitsyn illustrates the frightening feelings he had by using personification. “But he had realized he had gained nothing by economizing, his belly called out to him to eat the bread at once, in the warmth. Dinner was five hours off and time dragged on. And that nagging pain had now moved down to his legs which felt quite weak. Oh, if he could only get to the stove!” (39). Word choices like “weak” and “pain” exhibit Shukhov’s vulnerability. From heat to needing the proper nutrition and food Ivan Denisovich was a survivor. The word “survivor” only connotes a person who has remained alive after others have died. However, by the end of the novel Soltzhenitsyn describes one more day that he’s survives, as a great…show more content… By including the last few paragraphs of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich it causes the reader to reflect on one’s own life. “He’d had many strokes of luck that day: they hadn’t put him in the cells; they hadn’t sent his squad to the settlement; he’d swiped a bowl of kasha at dinner...And he hadn’t fallen ill. He got over it,” (139). By using the word “luck” as an adjective to express the one day in the Gulag for Shukhov forces one to reevaluate how one looks at their life. One must feel a sense of self-appreciation after reading the end of this novel. This is because after all of those feelings Soltzhenitsyn created in pathos appeal through his setting and description of events, one realizes the life one could be living; one of freezing cold temperatures, fear, hunger, thirst, and depression. These themes are repeated throughout the