Nowadays, it has become a commonplace practice to refer to the novels Night by Elie Wiesel and A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn as such that is concerned with revealing the sheer evilness of the Nazi and Communist political regimes. By exposing the audience to the first-hand accounts of one’s existence as a concentration camp inmate, Wiesel and Solzhenitsyn had succeeded in promoting the idea that the layer of civility covering people is very thin.
Both novels effectively show that the representatives of the Homo Sapiens species are, in fact, nothing but “hairless primates”, biologically predetermined to cease acting humanely towards each other when it comes to ensuring their physical survival. The Nazi and Soviet leaders appear to have been well aware of it: something that explains the striking similarity between the themes and motifs in Night and A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This paper will explore the validity of the above-suggested at length.
The most easily identifiable theme in both novels is the deliberate dehumanization of people and its effects on how those affected by it tend to perceive the surrounding reality and react to different existential challenges. In turn, this objective is best achieved by means of forcing the victimized individuals to “turn off” the rational workings of their psyche and grow completely preoccupied with striving to satisfy their basic biological needs, as something that has the value of a thing-in-itself. Nothing can be more effective, in this regard, than starving camp inmates to death, in the literal sense of this word.
While providing an eye-witness account of his time in Auschwitz, Wiesel admits that it was specifically the thought of where/how to get an extra ration that used to define his behavior there more than any other: “(I)… dreamed more of an extra portion of food than of liberty” (51). Evidently enough, while subjecting Auschwitz prisoners to starvation, the Nazis wanted to reduce these peoples to being nothing short of hunger-driven beasts, absolutely incapable of taking any collective action against their tormenters. Wiesel’s novel testifies to the emotionally disturbing truth that such a murderous objective can be achieved with ease.
The motif of constant hunger, experienced by prisoners, resurfaces throughout the entirety of Solzhenitsyn’s novel, as well. In fact, the novel’s main character Shukhov is represented as being rather incapable of giving much thought to what is going on around him, unless the potential prospects to qualify for receiving some extra food are in question. As this character noted: “The belly is a demon. It doesn’t remember how well you treated it yesterday” (Solzhenitsyn 54). Nevertheless, as it appears from A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, people are fully capable of adapting to such a situation and even of growing to consider it thoroughly natural.
As it can be inferred from Wiesel’s novel, one of the reasons why the Nazis were able to prove themselves very efficient in pursuing their murderous agenda against Jews is that many of the latter ended up collaborating (unwillingly) with their sworn enemies. There is a memorable scene in Wiesel’s novel, where some male Jewish deportees subject Madame Schächter to a severe beating so that she would not disturb them with her apocalyptic visions of a flame that engulfs everybody: “She (Madame Schächter) received several blows to the head… When they actually struck her, people shouted their approval” (26).
Evidently enough, for a totalitarian regime to succeed in reaching its genocidal objective against a particular group of people, the concerned individuals must be encouraged to act on behalf of their atavistic instincts while ceasing to feel any empathy towards the others, whatsoever.
In this regard, the Soviet authorities in charge of running the Gulag (system of concentration camps in the Soviet Union) appear to have been no different from their Nazi counterparts. That is, they knew that the key to making sure that Gulag prisoners never rebel is the establishment of the objective preconditions for these people to be treating each other as if they were natural competitors for scarce resources within the camp’s guarded perimeter.
Therefore, there is nothing surprising about the fact that, just as it is being seen in A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the task of watch guards at “HQ” (Soviet labor camp in Siberia) has been significantly alleviated by the inmates’ irrational willingness to act as their helpers. For example, they never hesitate to take part in the beating of those of them who fail to adhere to the informal rules of “zek” conduct. The character of Fetyukov stands out particularly illustrative, in this regard. He has been repeatedly beaten by his own team (104th) members on account of his failure to report in time for the evening stand-up counts (Solzhenitsyn 45). In a Soviet labor camp, there is no mercy for the weakest and least adaptable.
Nevertheless, even though there are indeed a number of similarities between the descriptions of concentration camps in Night and A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, it would not be appropriate equaling Auschwitz to Gulag (“HQ”). The reason for this is that, whereas the former was an extermination camp, Gulag served as a labor camp. For example, in his novel, Wiesel never ceases to refer to Auschwitz as being nothing short of the physical materialization of Biblical hell on earth: “This is what the antechamber of hell must look like. So many crazed men, so much shouting, so much brutality” (34). The novel’s scene, in which corpses are being burned to ashes in huge pits, strengthen the impression in readers that the author must have indeed been to hell.
Solzhenitsyn’s account of a Soviet labor camp implies that, even though one’s life as an inmate there was indeed very harsh and full of deprivations, it has not been necessarily leading to death. Once adapted to the realities of camp life, a prisoner had a fair chance of surviving Gulag. The mentioned earlier character Shukhov exemplifies the validity of this suggestion.
Having been a practically minded person, he came to realize that he would be much better off trying to enjoy life’s little pleasures while serving his sentence, as opposed to giving in to despair. When reflecting on the events that took place through the day at the end of the novel, Shukhov cannot help feeling calm and content: “He’d had many strokes of luck that day… He hadn’t fallen ill. He’d got over it. A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day” (Solzhenitsyn 63). In this regard, Shukhov hardly relates to Eliezer from Wiesel’s Night: a person whose very release from Auschwitz proved to be miraculous.
After all, as it emerges from Night, it was not merely the evil SS members who used to derive pleasure from torturing and killing the imprisoned Jews, but most German civilians as well. For example, German women and children would throw pieces of bread at the convoyed Jews and enjoy the spectacle of starved prisoners trying to take their eatable finds away from each other, “Where the bread had landed, a battle had ensued.
Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at and mauling each other” (Wiesel 101). Nothing of this sort can be seen in A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Quite to the contrary. In Solzhenitsyn’s novel, Gulag prisoners are seen to be enjoying much sympathy, on the part of most native villagers in Siberia.
In light of what has been said earlier, it will be appropriate to summarize the main acquired insight into the subject matter as follows. Both, the Nazis and Soviets had made a point in dehumanizing camp prisoners, as the actual instrument of keeping these people under control. While addressing the task, the representatives of both totalitarian regimes never hesitated to appeal to the most primitive instincts in men. This, in turn, has two philosophical implications.
First, people are indeed nothing but “hairless monkeys”, whose act is ultimately defined by their instinctual anxieties. Second, unless humanity comes to terms with this simple and scientifically proven but emotionally uncomfortable fact, there can be very little rationale in expecting that the mistakes of the past can be averted in the future. This conclusion is fully consistent with the paper’s initial thesis, as to what should be deemed the discursive significance of both analyzed novels.
Works Cited
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Translated by Henry Willetts, Straus & Giroux, 2005.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Hill & Wang, 2006.