From the news of the murdered stool pigeons to the
beginning
of Tyurin’s story
In their conversation during the break before dinner,
the men recount the recent murders of a couple of “stoolies,” or
stool-pigeons who have snitched to camp authorities about fellow
prisoners. Two of them were killed in their beds by an unknown assailant, and
a third innocent prisoner was killed when the murderer apparently
got confused about whom he meant to kill. A third stoolie has run
for protection to the officers’ quarters.
The men are called to their meal. On the way Shukov notes
that the weather has warmed to a balmy eighteen degrees below zero,
a good temperature for bricklaying. Pavlo, Shukhov, and Gopchik enter
the mess hall. The narrator explains that the cook gives extra rations
to certain men who carry bags of meal, wash and collect dirty bowls,
and do other tasks that should be the cook’s. The foreman also receives
a double ration.
Waiting for the gang to come in, Shukhov helps place the
bowls of oatmeal gruel on the table, taking them from Pavlo, who
takes them from the cook. Through some bold and clever deception
in the counting of the bowls, Shukhov manages to get extra rations
for the gang. The men come in and sit down to eat their oatmeal.
Shukhov eyes the extra bowls, knowing that Pavlo can do what he
likes with them even though Shukhov got them. Pavlo lets Shukhov
have one bowl, telling him to take the other to Tsezar, who never
eats with the others. Buynovsky is looking sluggish, so Pavlo generously
hands him an extra ration, which Buynovsky regards as a miracle.
The jealous Fetyukov gives Pavlo an evil look.
Shukhov leaves the mess hall to take the bowl of gruel
to Tsezar in the camp office. In the office he overhears the manager
chastising his subordinates for all the waste he witnesses in the
camps every day: dry cement blowing away in the wind and valuable
wooden boards being burned as firewood. Shukhov quietly goes past
him and heads toward Tsezar’s desk. Tsezar is in the midst of a
heated conversation in which he defends the early-twentieth-century
Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s film Ivan the Terrible, about
a fearsome medieval Russian tsar. Tsezar appreciates
the film’s artistic qualities, while the prisoner he is talking
with, an old man identified only as Kh-123,
maintains that art should be less flashy and more nourishing to
the soul. Shukhov puts down the gruel. He hopes to be offered a
drag on Tsezar’s cigarette, but his wish is not granted, and he
leaves silently.
When Shukhov returns to the Power Station he finds the
men in good spirits: the foreman, Tyurin, has been commended for
his gang’s work. This work will mean good rations for five days—a
real windfall. Shukhov joins the men around the fire and listens
in on the story Tyurin is telling.
Analysis
Tsezar and Kh-123’s discussion
about cinema reflects an artistic debate that was going on in Russia
during the time that Solzhenitsyn was writing One Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Their conversation focuses
on the disagreement between avant-garde and realist artists. The
Soviet state believed that it was destined to bring to the rest
of the world an artistic revolution; artists argued, however, about
how best to bring about this revolution. Some believed wholeheartedly
that art needed shock and innovation, such as the cinematic experiments
of Sergei Eisenstein, in order to break from traditional art and
evoke a reaction from the masses. Others, however, felt that simple,
easy-to-grasp realism, exemplified by the cartoon-like simplicity
of Soviet “socialist realism,” would better meet these goals.
Although Solzhenitsyn’s literary style does not break
from many of the conventions of Russian literature, his novel is
still strikingly innovative. Unlike most writing of the time, it
is geared for peasants rather than intellectuals. The words and
syntax are simple, and the narrator frequently uses peasant proverbs.
The novel’s style is not at all similar to the shocking effects
of Eisenstein or the avant-garde writers. The irony here is that
while the avant-garde believed that they were the true pioneers,
Solzhenitsyn’s old-fashioned simple style is actually blazing a
new trail. This novel, with its unprecedented depiction of camp
life and its daring criticism of the official regime, is as much
a landmark in the history of Russian art as Eistenstein’s films.
While Gang 104 appears
to be unified, basic matters of survival such as the need for food
reveal each man’s inevitable selfishness. The gangmembers do work
together, fully aware that only a good work effort from the whole
group will earn them extra rations. But each man is interested only
in getting more for himself, not for his peers. Fetyukov’s leer
at Pavlo after Pavlo gives an extra ration to Buynovsky stems from
jealousy. Fetyukov finds no happiness in Buynovsky’s relief at what
Buynovsky considers a miraculous gift since he cares about nothing
except his own well-being. While Shukhov does risk punishment in
his deception to grab extra bowls of gruel, he does so only because
he has his sights set on getting an extra bowl for himself. Additionally,
the report of the stool pigeons’ murders demonstrates that certain
individuals are more than willing to rat on their colleagues for
personal profit. The gang may appear officially as a tight-knit
unit, but in reality each man is looking out only for himself.
