A Man In Despair In Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, prison camps are a brutality to which a person simply has no choice but to adjust. As the environment changes, a person must adapt as well. One needs to maintain satisfaction, concern for others, and dignity (Lee). For any prisoner this establishes a difficult task, especially for Fetiukov whose stretch harms him emotionally and physically; the forces of hardship deny …showed first 75 words of 1521 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1521 total…result of the Siberian labor camp. . "He was sobbing, all hunched up, his mouth smeared with blood. So he'd been beaten up again-over the bowls" (598). He never makes an attempt to hide his tears. Fetiukov shows no mercy in hiding his sneaky, cantankerous, and worthless behavior; he shows no mercy in trying to change himself. Only the other prisoners see that Fetiukov's worthless behavior will not let him survive to the end of his stretch.