Insun

Craft and picture could have gone further. Nice connections and theme work. 14/15

Questions** This novel has difficult language and complex sentences which is very challenging to understand what you are reading as a reader. Also the story is based on Russian Revolution and if you do not know about Russian Revolution and its labour camps, it is hard to understand Ivan Denisovich's life and if you don't understand his life it is hard to find this novel interesting. That is why we need background information before reading the book to read more interestingly and to read with fully understanding.
 * Lit Circle Homework
 * What is challenging in the book and what methods are people using to overcome this?**

Since title of the novel shows that it is about "one day", I thought it would not have much events with no flow of story with turning points and everything. However as I got to the scene of disaster during meal, I predict that there would be more surprising and big disaster events. I predict that there would be several disaster during meal of the day and drama between workers and guards.
 * What do u predict for the man to happen?**

Passage: p. 13 He didn’t leave anything- not even the gills or the tail. He ate the eyes too when they were still in place. This passage describes that Ivan does not leave a single crumb or anything when he eat meals. It shows how much the food is important to the workers of the camp during Russian Revolution. They are desperate for such a small amount of food, they would eat anything even the eyes of the fish because they were hungry to death. This desperation for food of the workers shows how they are so focused only on surviving that they forget about themselves, they forget how to feel and think, which leads to destruction of their feelings and emotions.
 * World Lit Book Discussion Questions**

Craft / 6-Traits: p.39 it tasted so good, this soggy black bread. This quote shows the different effect of people’s minds in different environment. For example, food is so important for people in poor countries but for us living in richer country compared to them, we do not thing that food is so important and we even go on diet to eat less than we usually do. Author of this book likes to use this irony that “soggy black bread” actually “tasted so good” to them to show how workers’ mind is so different to others due to their such cruel bad environment.

Connection: p. 51 To the captain, camp work was like navy. (“If you are told to do something, then get down to do it!”) He’d gotten pretty thin in the last month, but he was still doing his best. This quote about how the Captain works harder and harder even though he was pretty thin reminded me of Boxer in Animal Farm. They both “[do] [their] best” when “[they] are told to do something, they just “get down to do it”. However the situation of them is sort of different. When I read this, Captain was not doing this to make the society like better, he just wanted survive and it is his personality to work “like navy”. But Boxer in Animal Farm does his best so that it will create a better society of others and that it will lead to freedom to all animals; he is not selfish like Captain is. He does it with hope to get better, not to survive.

Theme: p.34 So maybe it would have to be those carpets after all. This quote shows that selfishness and tricks are necessary to survive in this world (carpeting was easy-making money job). The author, throughout the book, tells the reader the reality that human dignity is based on materialism and that selfishness is necessary to achieve such dignity.


 * Historical Conflict**

In this book, we can infer that Ivan's life involves during Russian Revolution when Stalin was in power as a dictator. Stalin being the dictator of totalitarian (where government takes total control over everything of public and private life) Russia, created Five Year Plan which was for "development of Soviet Union's economy"; this plan was "set impossibly high quotas", in other words, "numerical goals to increase output of steel, coal, oil and electricity". So he created labor camps and Ivan in this book is one of the workers there. We can see the cruel and bad conditions for workers during that time from the book. Due to desperation of food people work harder and harder. All cruel aspect of labour camps are shown in this book; such as ration system of food for the workers, being punished harshly for not working hard, whole life of workers is being spent for development of Soviet Union's economy.


 * POV assignment**

Third Point -> One Point of Ivan Denisovich Due to long,long time, almost 10 years I spent in camps and prison, it made me to get out of the habit of worrying about the next day or next year, and how to feed my family. Believing that those fellows at the top thought everything for me made it easier for me and others to live without worries. I spent winter after winter, summer after summer but I still have long, long way to go. But this business about carpets upset me.

It seems like an easy, sure-fire way of making money. However it would be sort of wrong if I did not keep up with other fellows in the village. Deep down inside of me did not want to have anything to do with this carpet business. You had to have a lot of impudence and you had to know how to make a deal or relation with the right, helpful person. I have been living in this earth for 40 years. I had lost half of my teeth and I was getting bald. However, even in all this long years, I have never given or taken a bribe from anybody and I have not learned that easy way or trick in the camp either.

Easy money doesn't weigh anything and it does not give you that good feeling you get when you really earn it as old saying says. I believe it is true; what you don't pay honestly don't get good value for. My hands were still good for something. Back home I will surely find myself work making stoves, or something in carpentry line, or mending pots and pans.

The only problem was that if you had been convicted with loss of civil rights, you could not get work anywhere and you were not allowed to go back home. So may be it would have to be those carpets after all.

Affects: I think if it was first point of view of Ivan, it would be more easier to understand what Ivan is feeling as he lives and works at the camp. However third point shows what everyone else thinks, we can see broader surface of understanding the emotions and events that occurred in labour camps