The Extent to Which Gregor and Shukhov's Lack of Personal Freedom Parallel in the The Metamorphosis

The extent to which Gregor and Shukhov’s lack of

personal freedom parallel in the “The Metamorphosis”

and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Franz Kafka and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have both integrated many themes in their respective novels. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich follows a prisoner, Shukhov, in one of the many Soviet work camps detailing every minute struggle and emotion that he endured. “The Metamorphosis”, is a novella that captures the struggles of a young man, Gregor, who awoke in horror to find himself transformed into an insect. The authors are able to display the numerous ways that the controlling elements have dehumanized their unfortunate victims. Metaphorically these men are simply puppets who have been stripped of their individuality, dignity and choice. Consequently, lack of personal freedom is established as a theme, which is corresponding in both of the novels.

Early in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the reader may get a glimpse of the lack of personal freedom in Shukhov’s daily schedule. The consumption of food is an important part of everyone’s day but for a prisoner in a Soviet work camp, mealtimes are the pinnacle of their existence. However Shukhov did not have a choice in what they ate. Every meal, cold gruel was thrown into a bowl and given to him. There was no variety. Every single day he devoured the same disgusting gruel, the only concession was that more often than not it was relatively hot.

“He stirred up the cold gruel and took a quick look to see what was in his bowl… the only good thing about camp gruel was it was usually hot, but what Shukhov had was now quite cold… the gruel didn’t change from one day to the next. It depended on the vegetables that they stored for winter. The fish was mostly bones”.1

1 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, p.12

Most of us are able to plan our day, based on the physical and mental state that we are in. But the men at the prison were not allowed to control their agenda for the day; they were made to wait for hours before they were fed again. They would try to save food, but then other elements like hunger haunted