Freedom of Thought in Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

While it may just seem like semantics, free will and freedom differ. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines free will as a “voluntary choice or decision” or “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” (Free 1). Free will includes the ability to make simple, everyday choices. The definition of freedom differs from that of free will: “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another” and “the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in a choice or action” (Freedom 1). Someone with freedom can say, do, act, and feel however he wishes without the threat of outside forces.

Freedom is defined as the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. There are different forms of freedom, two of which are physical and mental freedom. People advocate the rights of both physical and mental freedom of others who can not. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Malala Yousafzai fought for physical freedom whereas John F. Kennedy fought for mental freedom. In order to be completely free, someone must posses both physical and mental freedom.

In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn shows how Soviet prisoners, known as Zeks, are treated while being in the gulag for one day through the eyes of the protagonist and omniscient narrator named Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Despite being in an environment such as the Soviet Union, where there is harsh tundra and not much food to eat, Shukhov tries to make good use of what he has received while trying to keep himself alive. The purpose of Solzhenitsyn’s portrayal of food is to show its overall significance and that it is used as a means of trade and survival. Over time, the power of food reveals its significance to the Zeks and especially to Shukhov and food allows both groups understanding towards the necessity of food for their vitality and well-being additionally.

There is humanly no possible way to merely or easily define what “freedom” truthfully is, as every distinct person and each social order has opposing restrictions for what this belief is. Bureaucrats and social researchers, for example, have vastly diverse philosophies of what institutes freedom. This primeval belief has been ingrained into mankind since the beginning of time. Century after century mankind has fought in numerous wars for this concept of “Freedom”.

It is hard for me to define freedom because I simply look at it as making your own choices; however, I know there are many more aspects that go into freedom such as equality or expression. Just like there are many different aspects of freedom, I also believe there are many different types of freedom. For example, I believe that many people want complete freedom where they can decide things for themselves in whatever circumstance they are in, however this would cause too much chaos. I think this type of freedom can be considered a state of mind.

Every former Gulag prisoner explained his/her survival as a result of many insignificant strategies. A variety of memoirists claimed that the only reason why they have survived was due to their spiritual life. To distract themselves for the physical sufferings, many prisoners created mental

What do I mean by this? Well, firstly I need to be entirely clear about what I mean by freedom. The Oxford English Dictionary defines freedom as “the state or fact of being free from servitude, constraint, inhibition, etc.; liberty.” This is true; however, any reasonable person can determine that that does not even begin to cover what “freedom” really means. There is emotional value in the word that simply cannot be captured by such a clinical definition. When I say freedom, what I really mean is the reasonable ability to make choices about one’s own actions and one’s own life. This does not have to be free from consequence, but it has to be a reasonable possibility on a de facto level.

The Meaning of Freedom Freedom as defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary; the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action (Merriam-Webster, 1883). We all make choices so that would mean we all have freedom or so one would think. If we all truly have freedom then we should be allowed to do what we want, where we want, and how we want, however; that would lead to chaos. Just because we have freedom does not mean that we run around going crazy. That is where laws come in, they prevent the chaos from destroying society and the freedoms that we enjoy.

“In the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win!” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident, espoused this philosophy to the Swedish Academy. He spoke of the power of art in combating the tyranny and lies of a corrupt government, and as a medium for evaluating society. He was at various times, a soldier in the Soviet army, a political prisoner of the Soviet state, a celebrity for his literary works, and an exile from all of Russia. His fiery philippic against Stalin landed him in prison for eight years; his account of prison life made him immensely popular during the de-Stalinization years of the early 1960’s, and he was deported for his most famous work, The Gulag Archipelago. He has become a symbol of the

The word freedom is often associated with the idea of an unfettered liberty to select from a range of alternatives coupled with a sense that our actions will not affect our natural state.

In 1941, Solzhenitsyn was drafted to fight in World War II, where he was utilized for his mathematical aptitude in the artillery department. He amazingly survived three years of working and fighting on the front lines; yet in the year of 1945, Solzhenitsyn wrote a series of letters that would change the course of his entire life.

Solzhenitsyn calls the US to stand up to Communism, not to give in to all its demands. A strong wall will force the Communists to back down. “Never Negotiate with Terrorists”, Solzhenitsyn would say that all Communisms are a part of a Terrorist network. He delves into some of the horrific events that happened in Russia, events that he warns could happen in the West and in the United States. The West needs to heed Solzhenitsyn's warning, and we need to find the courage to defend what is good and great about democratic freedoms. He does not claim that democracy is perfect, but he does believe that it is the best system that provides liberty and freedom to all peoples who live in the system. His warning is to remind us that anyone can fall into the communist /socialist trap the moment that nations let their guard down and let go of their values and morals.

Solzhenitsyn explains that the world today is without God, and that has hurt this world more than we know. He has seen Christianity survive through Communist Russia, and he strongly believes we can recovery the world, but only through God. Critical Evaluation of Work

In Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the character Ivan has been sentenced to a lengthy stay at a Soviet labor camp. Ivan was captured during the war and the Soviets are subjecting him to intensive labor that not only attempts to strip men of their physical dignity but also to psychologically break them down. Prisoners of such camps must resort to their most basic human instinct to survive the inhuman conditions, below freezing working temperatures, and general lack of food. In other words, Ivan has been forced to act in every way humanly possible to survive the terrors of such camp.

Freedom has a large range of meaning. The encyclopedia Britannica defines freedom as “the quality or state of being free, and the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action” (Britannica). In the American society there is a lot of emphasis on freedom, and the right to be free, but one must question to what extent we are truly “free”.