Previous Next

There are no more fervent friendships than those made in prison.

This statement from Part One, Section 19, comes just after Ginzburg is taken to interrogation and separated from Lyama and Garey and underscores one of the book’s central themes: it is human nature to reach out for companionship and communication. Again and again, Ginzburg pays homage to those with whom she endured the horrors of prison and with whom, as a result, she became friends. She writes effusively, almost sentimentally, about the people who affected her during her incarceration. We get to know characters such as Lyama and Julia very well, and their personalities and experiences reflect Ginzburg’s own. Prison cells have no mirrors, but cellmates can function as both friend and reflection. Julia and Ginzburg often remark on each other’s wasted appearance, and Ginzburg’s frequent descriptions of other women’s dirty hair, misaligned teeth, peeling skin, and emaciated bodies reveals her own probable physical condition. Ginzburg also reserves a tone of awe for the women who, despite their imprisonment, manage to retain their outward femininity, letting their hair grow long or flashing their eyes “like diamonds.”

Given this intensive scrutiny of cellmates, intense relationships are inevitable. Ginzburg grows to call Lyama her “sister,” and there is an overwhelming sense that many of the other female inmates become like a family to Ginzburg, standing in for the real family she has lost. When the male prisoners arrive at the transit camp, the women inevitably fall passionately in love with many of them, seeing in them traces of their absent lovers, fathers, and sons. Ginzburg herself admits that she sees her husband in many of their faces. It is human nature to desire connections with others, and nowhere is that desire more insistent than in prison, where it is so often thwarted.

Previous section Important Quotes Explained Page 1 Next section Important Quotes Explained Page 3

Popular pages: Journey into the Whirlwind

Take a Study Break