The One And Only Ivan Book Review

Viktor E. Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who also had survived the Holocaust, writes “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves” (BrainyQuote). Frankl survived genocide against his own people and still chose to have a positive outlook on it because he understands that if he did not, he would continually live an unhappy, upset life. Like Frankl, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, the main character in One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, contains a similar outlook to that of Frankl. The novel takes place during Soviet Russia in a gulag in Siberia, or otherwise known as a labor work camp. The whole book is about only one day that Shukhov lives; from 5 in the morning to 10 at night and all that happens in between. In this labor camp, not only are the weather conditions very cold, making it difficult to work in such circumstances, but also the workers are punished and harshly treated if they do not obey the guards. When placed in this environment, it is easy to be discouraged and miserable, but instead of facing the negatives of his situation, Shukhov remains affirmative in his thoughts – which are most important in order to survive not only physically, but also mentally. This stoicism portrayed in the narrative can also be found in Epictetus’s work, The Handbook. In this text, Epictetus discusses how he believes people can live a happy life, despite the hard conditions they are put through

On a day to day bases, men and women in prison or jail are dehumanized and terrorized by their superiors or even their inmates in the Criminal Justice System. The inmates that are in this situation are usually physically, emotionally, and mentally abused, they are often deprived of meals and are belittled. The inmates in this situation have no other choice but adapt to their best ability of the harsh situation they are founded in or be broken and taken over by the system they are forced to be a part of. Is it true that a person in difficult situations needs to be indifferent of their past because being nostalgic can only hurt them? Or does the harsh situation they become a custom to make it easier to forget their past life?. Solzhenitsyn uses Shukhov’s indifferent attitude towards his past to illustrate that a person cannot be nostalgic because it can lead to one’s self-destruction.

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.

Newbery Award winning books, and Newbery Honor books, are children's literature that have exceeded in one or more area. These areas include: Theme or concept, accuracy, clarity and organization of information, development of plot and characters, the delineation of setting, and the appropriateness of the style of the literature. The One and Only Ivan exceeds these categories in more than one area. This fiction story is written for students in grades 3-5 and 6-8 at a guided reading level S (Scholastic, 2018). Katherine Applegate writes this story with a clear concept throughout. This children's literature clearly conveys the idea of what it means to treat others kindly, and how to be humane to not only humans, but to all living creatures. Not only is her concept defined throughout the story, the portrayal of the setting of the story is also appropriate and

In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Rakitin responds to a central question throughout the novel, “What is permitted?” when he proudly states to Dmitry that “An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he’s clever enough to get away with it” (788). While Rakitin has found his answer to this question, multiple characters in the novel are still stuck on that question. Throughout the novel, Dostoevsky seems to separate these characters into two groups: the characters like Dmitry who wonder if all actions are permitted and the characters like Ivan who wonder if all thoughts are permitted. These groups seem completely separate until Book 10 when a boy named Koyla Krasotkin comes onto the scene who seems to be in both groups at once as he tests for himself exactly what thoughts and actions are permitted. In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky uses Book 10 and Kolya to introduce the idea that the “free thinkers” and the “free doers” are one in the same in that they are wondering who will punish those who go beyond “what is permitted” and by extension sets up an argument between moral and legal punishment throughout the rest of the novel.

What were you doing when you were 15? Probably going to class every day, learning about the same old stuff. What would you have done if you were crowned the first Czar in all of Russia when you were that young? Certainly, most people would’ve gone a wee bit crazy. But Ivan the Terrible, he went completely bonkers.

There are not too many books that can describe acts of defiance in an oppressive society quite like Fulcrum: A Top Gun Pilot’s Escape from the Soviet Empire. Alexander Zuyev, with Malcolm McConnell, details what his life was like living the Soviet Union and serving in its armed forces during the Cold War. Published in 1992, Zuyev explains the difficult living conditions that would then cause him to steal a fighter jet in order to defect to the United States. With a unique perspective from within the Soviet Air Force, he explains how major events of the Cold War played out in the Soviet Union. With a clear purpose to inform readers of his life in the Cold War, Alexander Zuyev delivers a rich story that helps readers understand what kind of events would cause someone to make a daring escape like he did.

In Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich the narrator claims that Ivan lived a terrible life. " Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible" (818). This is an interesting and conflicting claim made the narrator because most of people today live simple lives. According to Tolstoy’s claim then, they all are living terrible lives.

Mark Steinberg and Vladimir Khrustalev’s The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution presents hundreds of annotated primary documents, introduced by dry descriptions of the major contemporary events. This dense document collection offers a detailed account of the downfall of the Romanov family, divided across four chapters. Steinberg and Khrustalev worked to avoid bias in this piece, and offer a wide range of documents for the reader to analyze. Unfortunately, some bias is intrinsic to historical writings, especially in translated primary documents. With pre- and post-revolutionary government documents and private correspondence included, readers are shown competing views on the family’s actions. This remarkably unbiased piece balances explanations and intimate letters to provide a complex description of the “moral contradiction and fatal certainties” that led to the former royal family’s demise.

The Word of God is expressed to us though many different works. The works vary from a set of ancient scrolls found in a cave off a sea to a 19th century book written by an old Russian. The power and influence that these works have on us is all determined by how the works are written and how we ourselves interpret them. If you read the Bible with a closed mind and only take the language for what it is and not the deeper meaning, then you wouldn’t get much out of it. You have to look beyond the words for more understanding. Before Leo Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilych, his life, the existence of all mankind and the universe, seemed completely futile to him. He overcame this depression by finding almost his own religion.

Chandara Rui from Punishment by Tagore and Ivan Ilych from The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy are characters who share a number of similarities such as they are emotionally distant from their spouses, intuitive of the future, they both undergo some type of change, and they both die at the end of the story. However, on closer analysis of the stories, the characters exhibit differences such as the fact that the death of Ivan is seen through the structure of the story while Chandara’s death appears through both tone and structure of the story. Moreover, the two characters play different roles when it comes to victimization. Ivan is responsible for the alienation from his family while Chandara’s gender role as a woman in India makes her the victim. The two characters share some traits when it comes to a complicated marriage, views on future plans, and their death at the end however the format of the text and the roles played by each character differs.

Mucha, in this painting tries to bring together all the themes he addressed in the previous painting of the Slav epic series, which were nineteen in number which were to celebrate the independence of the Slav nations. The painting composed of four deferent parts characterized by four different colors blue, red, shadow looking color and yellow. Blues in the bottom of the painting represents the early years of Slav history, the red on the top right signified bloodshed in the Hussite wars, the shadow looking painting represents the enemies repeated attacks on the Slavs and the yellow band in the center shows Czech and Slovak soldiers returning from World War 1. The painting was meant to signal the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the

Abstract: Both Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Leonard Peltier allow the reader to see life through the eyes of one man, and through that one man, a vision of a nation of suffering people emerges. Despite using very different styles and genres, both One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Prison Writings: My Life is my Sundance show the reader deep truths about a people through the lens of one imprisoned man.

is as important to Alyosha as bread is to Shukhov. At the end of the

In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novel is told using ‘narrated monologue’.