Ivan does not like these new developments, and he resents his wife's urging him to take up carpet painting after his release from prison. Ivan's wife hopes that he'll return and become a carpet painter. There is a great demand for them, since most Russians cannot afford real carpets.

The collective farm is suffering because everybody is earning easier and better money with these carpets. Carpentry and basket weaving, once the specialities of his village, have been abandoned in favor of painting cheap commercial carpets from stencils. The agricultural work is done almost entirely by women. Most of the young people have left the kolkhoz to work in the towns and in the factories. Many of the men did not return to the kolkhoz after the war, and those who did return only 'live' there they earn their money somewhere else. The letters that he has received from her have left him puzzled.Īccording to her letters, his former kolkhoz, the collective work farm of the Soviet agricultural system, is in total disarray. He is allowed to write two letters yearly, but there is not much he can write about that might interest his wife. Hungry and still feeling ill, Ivan daydreams about a letter that he considers writing to his wife - while all the time marching along, automatically, toward the power plant, his gang's worksite. Style and Narrative Perspective in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.Levels of Meaning in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Ivan Speculates about Faith and Astronomy.

About One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Solzhenitsyn ivan denisovich