1
Rachel Pata
Dr.Faulkner English 150HN
11/2/14
Different yet the Same
Although many novels are made into movies, they are not the only novels that appear to be similar to movies. This being said, the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovichiis extremely similar to the movie The Pianist. Both main characters are forced to face similar working conditions, living conditions, and day-to-day struggles. Even though the characters have to face large numbers of the same challenges, each one has their own individual hopes and dreams and way of maintaining friendships with those around them.
Throughout the movie and throughout the book, both main characters are forced to endure backbreaking labor and harsh working conditions all while struggling to survive.Shuhkov is forced to work all day long on backbreaking projects outside, year round, regardless of how cold it is. During the winter, “work or no work” the men’s “fingers felt numb” in their “thin mittens” all the time because of the extremely low temperatures. (120) Although Szpilman endured hard working conditions while carrying bricks, selling things, and dealing out rations of food, he did not have to endure the harsh temperatures that Shuhkov was forced to endure. Both men spent numerous hours out in the harsh temperatures of the summer and of the winter, trying to work in order to stay alive for another day longer.
Both Shuhkov and Szpilman are living in extremely run down living conditions that make life not only hard, but almost unbearable.Shuhkov’s living conditions have been reduced to a cold room with little heating that often leaves him shivering throughout the night. His bed is made out of sawdust providing him little to no comfort after a hard day’s work.Szpilman on the other hand bounces around from house to house after being evicted from his fancy house in Poland. When he is evicted from his house he is forced to live in a small apartment in the Warsaw Ghetto with his family. These apartments in the Warsaw Ghetto, an area of only 1.3 sq. miles, averaged housing 7.2 people per room. (Warsaw) Szpilman’s family could have all fit into one room and it would have been completely normal. Shortly after Szpilman’s family arrived in the Warsaw Ghetto, their family was displaced yet again. Szpilman was fortunate enough to be saved by a Jewish officer before he boarded a train to a Jewish camp. Although Szpilman’s life was saved, he was left without a place to stay or an income for an extended period of time. His desperate actions of searching for jobs in numerous areas helped land him a job that provided him both food and housing that was helpful towards his surviving. Eventually, Szpilman escaped this job and was able to contact people that he knows in the German section of Poland. By doing so, he found many places to live, some of which areconsidered adequate living spaces while others are literally holes in a wall. As the war began to come to an end, Szpilmanis able to hide out in an abandoned house in the Warsaw Ghetto where a German captain singlehandedly helped his survival by providing him with food. Both are forced to endure their own horrendous living conditions that are similar in their repulsive ways but different in theircontext. Shuhkov has steady living conditions whereas Szpilman has to worry about where he would be sleeping next on a constant basis. Both men faced their own unique revolting living conditions throughout their stories.
Although Shuhkov and Szpilman have many large problems overall, they both have daily struggles that they are forced to suffer through that caused a large number of bigger problems to arise.During his time at the labor camp, Shuhkov’s platoon has to work hard in order to earn a decent amount of food to eat for the day because each platoon’s daily work and daily productivity helped determine how much food they would earn for the day. Even after a long day of work, each platoon was forced to wait in a long line for their food, hoping that there would be enough left for them. They are forced inexplicably to wait endlessly in order to receive less than theyoriginally expect to receive, leaving them disappointed day after day.Szpilman on the other hand, has to wait for food to be brought to him the whole entire time that he was in hiding, often waiting weeks in between food deliveries. Before he was in hiding, his family struggled to buy food as their money supply began to completely disintegrate before their very eyes. In addition to struggling to afford their food, the Nazis set their food rations at just 181 calories per day, singlehandedly leading to the starvation of thousands of Jews. (Historical Film Footage) The lack of food for both Szpilman and Shuhkovcaused their health to go to shambles, especially after months of malnutrition. Szpilman especially suffered from many illnesses that nearly killed him due to lack of food whereas Shuhkov at least has a constant source of food that helped prevent him from coming down from illnesses as often as Szpilman. No matter how many small problems Shuhkov and Szpilman have, lack of food and illnesses always managed to be problems that loomed over their heads.
Even though their daily livesare hard, Shukov and Szpilman both have their own hopes and dreams that they hoped to one day achieve. As Shuhkov’s sentence began to near its end, he dreamed of the day that he would be free more and more. He did everything that he could to not have another 10 years added on so that he could finally go home to his family. Szpilman on the other hand, dreamed of one day being able to play piano on the Polish radio again. The main difference between Shuhkov’s aspirations and Szpilman’s aspirations is the fact that Shuhkov knows that there was a chance that he would see his family again whereas Szpilman knows that his chances of seeing his family are slim to none. Although both men have their hopes and dreams that they hope to achieve, they both think extremely realistically about the possibility of their hopes and dreams being achieved showing each individual’s levelheadedness.
In situations like the ones that Shuhkov and Szpilman are in, relationships with those around you can either make or break you. These relationships play a key role in your survival in especially tough situations. Throughout both of their stories Shuhkov and Szpilmanare forced to utilize their relationships with those around them in order to survive. Shuhkov uses his friendship with Caesar to gain more food. He stood in line at the post office for Caesar instead of going to get his food straight away knowing that by doing so, he would receive at least part of Caesar’s dinner. Shuhkov also used his friendships with people to earn a small amount of money to buy things in the store with or he built his friendships with people in hopes that they could one day help him in some way, shape, or form.Szpilman on the other hand uses his friendships and relationships with people to find jobs, hiding places, and food. Throughout his story, Szpilman uses his relationships with numerous people to find jobs that will help him get by and when one job doesn’t work out, he almost always manages to find a person that will help him along until he can provide for himself. When the war starts to come to an end, Szpilman is no longer able to find a job that will keep him safe so he uses one of his many contacts to find a place to stay and hide until the war comes to an end and even when that falls through, he makes friends with a German officer that provides him with food until the German troops are forced to withdraw from the Warsaw Ghetto. Even though both men effectively use their relationships to implement their survival, Shuhkov is the person that people want to know in the camp whereas Szpilman knows the right people that can and are willing to help him as much as possible. Both Szpilman and Shuhkov utilize their relationships and build new relationships with those around them in order to help ensure their survival.
Both men endured extremely tough situations that helped shape the outcomes of their stories. Shuhkov’s story ends with him falling asleep at the end of his synopsis of a day saying that his day “had been almost happy” whereas Szpilman’s story ends with him standing in the field, back to normal life, looking for the captain that helped him during the war.(203) Shuhkov survived yet another day in work camp and Szpilman survived a lifetime’s worth of hardships. Each man’s story ends differently in context, but they both end with each man reflecting on their own personal journey, relatively happy about the outcomes of things, no matter how big or how little it was. Both men understand the importance of their journeys and how far they have come as individuals. Although their journeys are very different, both men still took time out of their day to reflect upon how far they have come and all of the struggles that they have overcome showing the vast importance of each man’s reflection on their struggles. Both men areextremely humble in their reflections showing that no matter how hard times are, you should always take time out of your day to reflect upon how far you have come.
Works Cited
"Historical Film Footage." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Bantam Book, 1963. Print.
"Warsaw." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 20 June 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.