One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Although this novel has been created to present an impression of reality, it is as carefully constructed as feature articles and expository texts. Even though the novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” presents a version of reality, it must not only engage and appeal to the reader but “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” also has a main purpose. The main purpose of this novel is to provide the reader with an insight into the history of Soviet Russia. This has been achieved by the use of symbols, motifs, themes and characters. This is evident in the novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” where the author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, has used these and many other techniques to not only appeal to and engage his readers, but also to provide his audience with an insight to the history of Soviet Russia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has constructed this novel out of his own experiences. This is evident in the novel techniques listed above where Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has linked his personal context to create characters, symbols, motifs and themes that relate to his own experiences and the history of Soviet Russia.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn the author of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” has created characters that reflect and represent people from our society. He has done this to allow us to relate to and create different views upon the different characters in this novel. The characters in this novel all have different roles and illustrate the extreme conditions ordinary people like you and I faced whilst in the Russian camps. Fetyukov is a great example of this. He is a fellow prisoner, who is seen as the scrounger of gang 104. If we were to be placed in his situation, we would do anything to survive even if this was to cost us our human dignity. All the characters created by Solzhenitsyn in this novel represent different people in our society, just as the symbols used represent different ideas and concepts.
Symbols have been used in the novel “One Day...