One day in the life of ivan denisovich ibooks download free manual#
He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date, or for favors and services he can do prisoners that they will thank him for in small gifts of food.Īt the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special services for Tsezar (Caesar), an intellectual who does office work instead of manual labor. Rations are meager – prisoners only receive them on the basis of how productive their work units are (or the authorities think they have been) – but they are one of the few things that Shukhov lives for. Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad, possessing versatile skills that are in great demand, and he is generally well-respected. Though a morose man, Tiurin is liked because he understands the prisoners, he talks to them, and he helps them. Tiurin, the foreman of gang 104, is strict but kind, and the squad's fondness of Tiurin becomes more evident as the book progresses. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods used by the prisoners to survive the whole camp lives by the rule of day-to-day survival. For example, they are seen working at a brutal construction site where the cold freezes the mortar used for bricklaying if not applied quickly enough. The rest of the novel deals mainly with Shukhov's squad (the 104th, which has 24 members), their allegiance to the squad leader, and the work that the prisoners ( zeks) do in hopes of getting extra food for their performance.
It is relatively late in the morning by this time, however, so the orderly is unable to exempt any more workers and Shukhov must work. When Shukhov is finally able to leave the guardhouse, he goes to the dispensary to report his illness. For arising late, he is forced to clean the guardhouse, but this is a comparatively minor punishment. The day begins with Shukhov waking up feeling unwell. Although innocent, he is sentenced to ten years in a forced labor camp. He was accused of becoming a spy after being captured briefly by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet Gulag system. The English spelling of some character names differs slightly among the translations. Willetts (New York: Noonday/Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991), is the only one that is based on the canonical Russian text and the only one authorized by Solzhenitsyn.
Of those, Ralph Parker's translation (New York: Dutton, 1963) was the first to be published, followed by Ronald Hingley and Max Hayward's (New York: Praeger, 1963), Bela Von Block's (New York: Lancer 1963), and Gillon Aitken's (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1971). At least five English translations have been made.