From Tsezar’s arrival in the parcel room to Shukhov’s
going to bed
When there are ten men left in line ahead of Shukhov,
Tsezar arrives in the parcel room. He is wearing a distinctive new
fur hat that someone has just sent him from outside. Tsezar smiles
at Shukhov and falls into conversation with another man from Moscow. Eventually Shukhov is able to
explain to Tsezar where his place in line is, and he asks whether he
should fetch Tsezar’s dinner that evening, secretly fishing for
an offer of Tsezar’s rations. Tsezar gives Shukhov the right to
eat his own dinner that night, since Tsezar will dine on the contents
of his parcel.
Outside, Shukhov finds the camp filled with groups of
inmates walking around. This bustle is the result of the camp commander’s recent
order against prisoners wandering the camp singly. Shukhov reflects
on how silly this order is, since no one needs to be accompanied
to the latrine. He predicts that, like similar orders, this one
will be quietly forgotten soon enough. Another of the commander’s orders
is that gangs should enter the mess hall two at a time. The result
of this order is a madhouse in the mess, with Limpy, the mess orderly,
struggling to maintain order as the crowd fights to get in to eat.
Limpy tells the men at the door to halt, but they shout back that they
are being pushed from behind. Shukhov is at the back of the crowd,
and worries that he will not be able to enter with Gang 104—in
which case he may not be allowed to eat at all.
Shukhov breaks through and enters the mess. He grabs an
empty tray from another inmate and makes his way to the cook’s hatch
to fill it with bowls for Gang 104, to the
joy of Pavlo. Gopchik snatches a tray too. Shukhov carefully notices
which bowls have the watery gruel, and makes a note to keep the
thickest bowls for himself. Though the gruel is always thinner in
the evening, it tastes heavenly to Shukhov when he sits down and
starts eating. He thinks to himself that they will all survive.
Shukhov notices that the man to his left has only water in his bowl,
and he curses the inmates for treating their fellow prisoners so
ungenerously. Shukhov savors his double meal, eating slowly. He
watches an old prisoner, thin and worn from labor, longer than he
watches anyone else. Shukhov then suddenly licks his spoon, shoves
it in his boot, and departs.
The moon is high. Shukhov decides to buy some homegrown tobacco
from the Latvian. Watching the Latvian pack his portion full, to
get his two rubles’ worth, Shukhov listens to a prisoner shout criticism
of “Old Man Whiskers,” a disrespectful reference to Joseph Stalin.
Shukhov reflects that in a political prison camp, unlike an ordinary
prison, you can say whatever you like. The secret service officers
couldn’t care less.
Shukhov pays a visit to Tsezar to give him his bread,
hoping to be allowed to keep it for himself. Tsezar is deliriously
joyful at the feast before him, having received his parcel. Tsezar
allows Shukhov to keep the ration of bread. Shukhov is not envious
of Tsezar, however, since he understands that any gift must be shared
with innumerable mouths in the camp.
Analysis
Shukhov’s unwavering attention to food in this section
demonstrates how much of a basic struggle for survival his camp
life is. This section is even more food-oriented than the rest of
the novel, not only because we are at dinner-time in Shukhov’s day
but also because the dinner is so unusually abundant. The thick
gruel and the bread ration from Tsezar are quite a windfall for
Shukhov. Having witnessed his long and anxious struggle to obtain
enough bread to live on, we share his feeling now that he has stepped
into a nutritional paradise. The bread from Tsezar, in particular,
comes as manna from heaven, and is a marvelous blessing. The fact
that Shukhov spends so much energy getting and preserving food reveals how
vital a part of his existence the pursuit of food is.
Solzhenitsyn also turns this scene into a philosophical
meditation on the question of how much a man needs. This section
can be seen as a subtle criticism of Shukhov’s physical satisfactions.
Shukhov does not share his abundance with his fellow prisoners.
He has been given far more than his daily bread, and it may not
be a spiritually good thing. Excess can corrupt, according to both
Christian and communist thought, both of which explain that anything
beyond what an individual needs should be shared with others. Yet
Shukhov does not share; in fact, he actively ignores any impulse
to be generous. Shukhov jelaously guards his food from his more
needy companions. Although we might expect Shukhov to give the prisoner with
the water gruel or the old man a handout, he does not. Even the privileged
Tsezar distributes his wealth more evenly than Shukhov does. We
sense that worldly pleasures have dulled Shukhov’s sense of the
fellowship of mankind.
Although the prisoners give up almost all of their freedom,
they are also given a few rights that civilians do not enjoy. The
Latvian’s howling criticism of Stalin shows that, ironically, the
camp inmates have considerable freedom of expression even though
the ideology behind the camp suppresses that freedom. The prisoners’
freedom of expression, however, is a result of the dehumanization
of the labor camp rather than a sign of the guard’s leniency or
respect. Because the guards to not view the prisoners as human,
they do not care what the prisoners say. The fact that they can
make whatever statements they like about Soviet leadership shows
that the authorities regard their opinions as utterly inconsequential.
