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Key Information about the Book/Essay/Play
Book/Essay/Play: The Gulag Archipelago
Author: Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Written In: 1973
Prominent Theme(s) in the Book/Essay/Play: Freedom, Life/Death, Truth
Brief Description: Solzhenitsyn describes the horrors, both physically and psychologically, inflicted on the inmates of the Soviet gulags.
Similar Books/Essays/Plays: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Kolyma Tales
Books/Essays/Plays by the Same Author: Cancer Ward, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, In the First Circle
"Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why
he is right not to sacrifice himself."
Theme(s): Life/Death, Survival
Where: Part 1, Chapter 1: Arrest
"True, they were supposedly being arrested and tried not for
their actual faith but for openly declaring their convictions and
for bringing up their children -in the same spirit. As Tanya Khodkevich wrote:
You can pray freely ~ But just so God alone can hear."
Theme(s): Freedom, Religious Devotion, Children/Youth
Where: Part 1, Chapter 2: The History of Our Sewage Disposal System
"From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy
past firmly behind you. At the very threshold, you must say to
yourself: "My life is over, a little early to be sure, but there's
nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am
condemned to die-now or a little later. But later on, in truth,
it will be even harder, and so the sooner the better. I no longer
have any property whatsoever. For me those I love have died, and
for them I have died. From today on, my body is useless and
alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious
and important to me...Only the man who has renounced everything can win that
victory."
Theme(s): Freedom, Survival, Life/Death
Where: Part 1, Chapter 3: The Interrogation
"Ideology-that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts
seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he
won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and
honors."
Theme(s): Good vs Evil
Where:Part 1, Chapter 4: The Bluecaps
"But 1 had begun to sense a truth inside myself: if in order to
live it is necessary not to live, then what's it all for? "
Theme(s): Truth, Life/Death
Where:Part 1, Chapter 7: In the Engine Room
"And I sat there and thought: If the first tiny droplet of truth
has exploded like a psychological bomb, what then will happen in
our country when whole waterfalls of Truth burst forth?
And they will burst forth. It has to happen. "
Theme(s): Truth
Where:Part 1, Chapter 7: In the Engine Room
"But there is a limit, and beyond it one is no longer willing, one
finds it too repulsive, to be a reasonable little rabbit. And that is
the limit beyond which rabbits are enlightened by the common
understanding that all rabbits are foredoomed to become only
meat and pelts, and that at best, therefore, one can gain only a
postponement of death and not life in any case. That is when one
wants to shout: "Curse you, hurry up and shoot!""
