Cancer Ward Solzhenitsyn. Autobiographical novel
To the work of the great genius, laureate Nobel Prize, a man about whom so much has been said, it is terrible to touch, but I cannot but write about his story " cancer corps"- a work to which he gave, albeit a small, but part of his life, which they tried to deprive him of long years. But he clung to life and endured all the hardships of the concentration camps, all their horror; he brought up in himself his own views on what is happening around, not borrowed from anyone; he expressed these views in his story.
One of its themes is that, whatever the person, good or bad, who has received higher education or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he occupies, when he comprehends almost incurable disease, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in a cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people are doomed to death. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Solzhenitsyn pushes people together in one of the chambers different nationalities, professions committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former convict, and the other was Rusanov, the complete opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person”, devoted to the party. Having shown the events first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin". Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: both from the point of view of Bega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways, their views are similar, in some ways they differ. But basically Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think like Rusanov's daughter, Rusanov himself. They are accustomed to looking for people somewhere necessarily below; think only of yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov - the spokesman for Solzhenitsyn's ideas; through Oleg's disputes with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradoxical nature of life, or rather, that there was no point in such a life, just as there is no point in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta, not realizing that literature is really a teacher of life. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means that there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. And not everyone can see and describe what is, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine at least a hundredth of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, who subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the whole horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First they deprived me of my own life. Now they are depriving them of the right to ... continue themselves. To whom and why will I now be? .. The worst of freaks! For mercy? .. For alms? .. ”And no matter how much Ephraim, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about him, for everyone he will remain the same - leave someone behind him. Kostoglotov went through everything, and this left its mark on his system of values, on his concept of life.
That Solzhenitsyn for a long time spent in the camps, also influenced his language and style of writing the story. But the work only benefits from this, since everything that he writes about becomes available to a person, he is, as it were, transferred to a hospital and takes part in everything that happens. But it is unlikely that any of us will be able to fully understand Kostoglotov, who sees a prison everywhere, tries to find and finds a camp approach in everything, even in a zoo. The camp has crippled his life, and he understands that he is unlikely to be able to start his former life, that the road back is closed to him. And millions more of the same lost people were thrown into the vastness of the country, people who, communicating with those who did not touch the camp, understand that there will always be a wall of misunderstanding between them, just as Lyudmila Afanasyevna Kostoglotova did not understand.
We grieve that these people, who were crippled by life, disfigured by the regime, who showed such an irrepressible thirst for life, experienced terrible suffering, are now forced to endure the exclusion of society. They have to give up the life that they have long sought, that they deserve.
It is terrible to touch the work of the great genius, Nobel Prize winner, a man about whom so much has been said, but I cannot help but write about his story "Cancer Ward" - a work to which he gave, albeit a small, but part of his life, to which he tried to deprive for many years. But he clung to life and endured all the hardships of the concentration camps, all their horror; he brought up in himself his own views on what is happening around, not borrowed from anyone; he expressed these views in his story.
One of its themes is that no matter what a person is, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he holds, when an almost incurable disease befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in a cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people are doomed to death. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Solzhenitsyn brings together in one of the chambers people of different nationalities, professions, committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former convict, and the other was Rusanov, the exact opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person”, devoted to the party. Having shown the events of the story first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin". Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: both from the point of view of Bega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways, their views are similar, in some ways they differ. But basically Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think like Rusanov's daughter, Rusanov himself. They are accustomed to looking for people somewhere necessarily below; think only of yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov - the spokesman for Solzhenitsyn's ideas; through Oleg's disputes with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradoxical nature of life, or rather, that there was no point in such a life, just as there is no point in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta, not realizing that literature is really a teacher of life. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means that there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. And not everyone can see and describe what is, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine at least a hundredth of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, who subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the whole horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First they deprived me of my own life. Now they are also depriving them of the right to ... continue themselves. To whom and why will I now be? .. The worst of freaks! For mercy? .. For alms? .. ”And no matter how much Ephraim, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about him, for everyone he will remain the same - leave someone behind him. Kostoglotov went through everything, and this left its mark on his system of values, on his concept of life.
The fact that Solzhenitsyn spent a long time in the camps also influenced his language and style of writing the story. But the work only benefits from this, since everything that he writes about becomes available to a person, he is, as it were, transferred to a hospital and takes part in everything that happens. But it is unlikely that any of us will be able to fully understand Kostoglotov, who sees a prison everywhere, tries to find and finds a camp approach in everything, even in a zoo. The camp has crippled his life, and he understands that he is unlikely to be able to start his former life, that the road back is closed to him. And millions more of the same lost people were thrown into the vastness of the country, people who, communicating with those who did not touch the camp, understand that there will always be a wall of misunderstanding between them, just as Lyudmila Afanasyevna Kostoglotova did not understand.
We grieve that these people, who were crippled by life, disfigured by the regime, who showed such an irrepressible thirst for life, experienced terrible suffering, are now forced to endure the exclusion of society. They have to give up the life that they have long sought, that they deserve.
Review of the book Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, written as part of the Bookshelf #1 competition.
Until recently, I tried to avoid domestic literature for reasons that are inexplicable even to myself, but the Cancer Ward has been in my plans for a long time and was located on an imaginary “I want to read-shelf” in the honorary front rows. The reason for this was the following…
In the title of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's story alone, immense fear, endless pain and bitterness, bitterness for a person are concentrated ...
So I couldn't get past. Best Books turn you inside out. And this one did, despite my willingness, despite the fact that I realized how hard it would be. The work of Alexander Isaevich was the first to make me cry. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the story is largely autobiographical. Solzhenitsyn is a writer who has endured many hardships and hardships in his life: from war, arrest, criticism and expulsion from the country, and ending with cancer, which served as the basis, I will not be afraid of this word, a great work. And it was here, in the cracked walls of the cancer ward, that the writer concluded all his thoughts and experiences that accompanied him throughout the long and difficult journey, the path to building number thirteen.
“During this autumn, I learned on my own that a person can cross the line of death, even when his body has not died. There is something else in you that circulates blood or digests - and you have already, psychologically, gone through all the preparation for death. And survived death itself.
It was with such thoughts that a person who once heard three terrible words "you have cancer", crosses the threshold of the oncology department. And it does not matter whether you are old or young, a woman or a man, an exemplary party member - a child of the system or a prisoner sentenced to eternal link - the disease will not choose.
And it seems to me that the whole horror of any disease - and even more so cancer - lies, despite the above humility, in ordinary human disbelief, in the notorious "maybe". All of us, like the heroes of Solzhenitsyn's story, are trying to brush it aside, to disown it, to convince ourselves that under no circumstances will such grief happen to us, which is teeming all around.
“... he is already sucking an oxygen pillow, he is barely moving his eyes, but he proves everything with his tongue: I will not die! I don't have cancer!"
And when we still believe, and most importantly accept illness - then, again, resigned, we begin to ask why we are so injustice, but we rummage through our past, as if in a black hole and try in the dark in the name of justification to find no less black rot, from which this deadly sore came down on us. We just don’t find anything, because, I repeat, illness doesn’t matter. And we do know this. But, I think, this is our human nature - to look for an excuse for everything. An excuse for oneself, and spit on the rest ...
"Everyone's troubles are more annoying."
Their own misfortune and their own road lead to the thirteenth building of each of the heroes of the "Solzhenitsyn" story. It's amazing, to what extent different people maybe one fine (or not so) day fate will bring. At times like this, you really start to believe in her. So here, in the cancer ward, Rusanov and Kostoglotov meet - two different people from the same powerful system. Pavel Nikolaevich Rusanov is its adept, an ardent supporter. Oleg Kostoglotov is a victim, a man forced to drag out his existence in exiles and camps (how speaking surname!). But the main thing is not Where they meet (the cancer corps is here only as decoration, if you will). More important here, of course, When! The 1950s is a turning point in the history of the Union, and, more importantly, in the history of two specific people- Rusanova and Kostoglotova. The death of Stalin, the emerging talk about the exposure of the cult of personality, the change of power - all this is clearly expressed in their reactions: that for one - an inevitable collapse, almost the end of life, and for the other - a long-awaited path to liberation.
And when useless strife flares up in the middle of the ward of hopelessly ill people about a regime that breaks destinies, when one is ready to inform the authorities on the other “if only they were in another place”, when someone who agrees with you at the same time wants to argue - then it’s so right and timely, although through force, sounds hoarse voice Ephraim's neighbor:
"What are people alive for?"
And, despite dislike and conflicts, united in the face of death, each will answer the question in his own way, if, of course, he can answer at all. Some will say - food and clothing, the other - the youngest, Dyomka - air and water, someone - qualifications or homeland, Rusanov - public good and ideology. And you are unlikely to find the right answer. It's not worth looking for. I think he will find you one day.
Hard. It is sincerely difficult for me to realize how a person, being on the verge of death, can think for a minute about the meaning of life. And so it is with the whole story: it is easy to read, and you slowly swim along the lines, and you want to read, read, read, and when you imagine the patient, you look into his empty eyes, listen to the words, plunge into the pool of his disorderly, perhaps incorrect, but to the madness of strong thoughts - so tears well up, and you stop, as if afraid to continue.
But there is a small thread that stretches to the very end of the story, which, it seems, was created in order to save. Of course, it's about love. About simple and real love, without embellishment, about unhappy and contradictory love, but unusually warm, about bitter and unsaid love, but still saving.
And therefore I want to say that life wins, and I want to be filled with great hope, and then before my eyes a terminally ill person, his thick medical history, metastases and a certificate with the inscription tumor cordis, casus inoperabilis(a tumor of the heart, a case not amenable to surgery). And tears.
In conclusion, having already left the cancer ward, I want to say that I am grateful to Alexander Isaevich for one carefully presented thought, in which I discerned my attitude to literature, but, fortunately, not to people. I have to digest it.
- And what are the idols of the theater?
— Oh, how often!
- And sometimes - what he himself experienced, but it is more convenient to believe not in himself.
And I've seen those...
- Another idol of the theater is immoderation in accordance with the arguments of science. In a word, it is the voluntarily accepted delusions of others.
I cannot but add that I felt an ineradicable sense of shame in front of the book and the writer during breaks in reading. Cancer Ward is a difficult story, which is why leaving it and returning to the real “light” world was embarrassing, I repeat, ashamed, but it had to be done for obvious reasons.
The cancer ward is the place where, alas, cured people often return. I probably won't go back to the book. I can not. And I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But I will probably continue my acquaintance with Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn. Later.
It is terrible to touch the work of the great genius, Nobel Prize winner, a man about whom so much has been said, but I cannot but write about his story "Cancer Ward" - a work to which he gave, albeit a small, but part of his life, to which he tried to deprive for many years. But he clung to life and endured all the hardships of the concentration camps, all their horror; he brought up in himself his own views on what is happening around, not borrowed from anyone; he expressed these views in his story.
One of her themes is
This is that, whatever the person, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated; no matter what position he holds, when an almost incurable disease befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Solzhenitsyn described life in a cancer ward, in the most terrible of hospitals, where people are doomed to death. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Solzhenitsyn brings together in one of the chambers people of different nationalities, professions, committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former convict, and the other was Rusanov, the complete opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person”, devoted to the party. Having shown the events of the story first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin". Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: both from the point of view of Bega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways, their views are similar, in some ways they differ. But basically Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think like Rusanov's daughter, Rusanov himself. They are accustomed to looking for people somewhere necessarily below; think only of yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov - the spokesman for Solzhenitsyn's ideas; through Oleg's disputes with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradoxical nature of life, or rather, that there was no point in such a life, just as there is no point in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta, not realizing that literature is really a teacher of life. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means that there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. And not everyone can see and describe what is, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine at least a hundredth of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, who subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the whole horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First they deprived me of my own life. Now they are also depriving them of the right to ... continue themselves. To whom and why will I now be? .. The worst of freaks! For mercy? .. For alms? .. ”And no matter how much Ephraim, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about him, for everyone he will remain the same - leave someone behind. Kostoglotov went through everything, and this left its mark on his system of values, on his concept of life.
The fact that Solzhenitsyn spent a long time in the camps also influenced his language and style of writing the story. But the work only benefits from this, since everything that he writes about becomes available to a person, he is, as it were, transferred to a hospital and takes part in everything that happens. But it is unlikely that any of us will be able to fully understand Kostoglotov, who sees a prison everywhere, tries to find and finds a camp approach in everything, even in a zoo. The camp has crippled his life, and he understands that he is unlikely to be able to start his former life, that the road back is closed to him. And millions more of the same lost people were thrown into the vastness of the country, people who, communicating with those who did not touch the camp, understand that there will always be a wall of misunderstanding between them, just as Lyudmila Afanasyevna Kostoglotova did not understand.
We grieve that these people, who were crippled by life, disfigured by the regime, who showed such an irrepressible thirst for life, experienced terrible suffering, are now forced to endure the exclusion of society. They have to give up the life that they have long sought, that they deserve.
"Cancer Ward" by A. Solzhenitsyn is one of those literary works which not only played an important role in literary process the second half of the 20th century, but also had a huge impact on the minds of contemporaries, and at the same time on the course of Russian history.
After being published in the magazine New world” of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, Solzhenitsyn offered the editor-in-chief of the magazine A. Tvardovsky the text of the story “Cancer Ward”, previously prepared by the author for publication in the Soviet Union, that is, adjusted for censorship. An agreement with the publishing house was signed, but the pinnacle of the Soviet legal existence of the Cancer Ward was the set of the first few chapters for publication in Novy Mir. After that, by order of the authorities, printing was stopped, and the set was then scattered. The work began to be actively distributed in samizdat, and was also published in the West, translated into foreign languages and became one of the grounds for awarding Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize.
The very first story of Solzhenitsyn that appeared in the press turned the literary and public life in Soviet Union. In the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (whose original title was "Shch-854"), for the first time, openly spoke about camp life, a life that millions of people lived throughout the country. This alone would be enough to make an entire generation think, to force them to look at reality and history with different eyes. Following this, other stories by Solzhenitsyn were published in Novy Mir, and his play Candle in the Wind was accepted for production at the Theater named after Lenin Komsomol. At the same time, the story "The Cancer Ward", the main theme of which is the theme of life and death, the spiritual quest of a person and the search for an answer to the question of how a person lives, was banned and was first published in Russia only in 1990.
One of the main themes of the story is the impotence of a person in the face of illness and death. Whatever the person, good or bad, educated or, conversely, uneducated, whatever position he holds, when an almost incurable disease befalls him, he ceases to be a high-ranking official, turns into an ordinary person who just wants to live. Along with describing the struggle of a person for life, for the desire to simply coexist without pain, without torment, Solzhenitsyn, always and under any circumstances, distinguished by his craving for life, raised many problems. Their range is quite wide: from the meaning of life, the relationship between a man and a woman to the purpose of literature.
Solzhenitsyn brings together in one of the chambers people of different nationalities, professions, committed to different ideas. One of these patients was Oleg Kostoglotov, an exile, a former convict, and the other was Rusanov, the exact opposite of Kostoglotov: a party leader, “a valuable worker, an honored person”, devoted to the party. Having shown the events of the story first through the eyes of Rusanov, and then through the perception of Kostoglotov, Solzhenitsyn made it clear that power would gradually change, that the Rusanovs with their “questionnaire economy”, with their methods of various warnings, would cease to exist and the Kostoglotovs would live, who did not accept such concepts as "remnants of bourgeois consciousness" and "social origin". Solzhenitsyn wrote the story, trying to show different views on life: from the point of view of Vega, and from the point of view of Asya, Dema, Vadim and many others. In some ways, their views are similar, in some ways they differ. But basically Solzhenitsyn wants to show the wrongness of those who think like Rusanov's daughter, Rusanov himself. They are accustomed to looking for people somewhere necessarily below; think only of yourself, without thinking about others. Kostoglotov is the spokesman for Solzhenitsyn's ideas. Through Oleg's disputes with the ward, through his conversations in the camps, he reveals the paradox of life, or rather, that there was no point in such a life, just as there is no point in the literature that Avieta extols. According to her, sincerity in literature is harmful. “Literature is to entertain us when we are in a bad mood,” says Avieta. And if you have to write about what should be, then it means that there will never be truth, since no one can say exactly what will happen. And not everyone can see and describe what is, and it is unlikely that Avieta will be able to imagine at least a hundredth of the horror when a woman ceases to be a woman, but becomes a workhorse, who subsequently cannot have children. Zoya reveals to Kostoglotov the whole horror of hormone therapy; and the fact that he is deprived of the right to continue himself horrifies him: “First they deprived me of my own life. Now they are also depriving them of the right to ... continue themselves. To whom and why will I be now? Worst of freaks! For mercy? For charity?" And no matter how much Ephraim, Vadim, Rusanov argue about the meaning of life, no matter how much they talk about him, for everyone he will remain the same - leave someone behind. Kostoglotov went through everything, and this left its mark on his system of values, on his understanding of life.
Central question, the answer to which all the heroes are looking for, is formulated by the title of the story by Leo Tolstoy, which accidentally fell into the hands of one of the patients, Efrem Podduev: “How does a person live?”. One of Tolstoy's later stories, which opens a cycle devoted to the interpretation of the Gospel, makes a strong impression on the hero, who, before his illness, thought little about deep problems. And now, day after day, the whole chamber is trying to find the answer to the question: “How does a person live?”. Everyone answers this question according to their beliefs, life principles, upbringing, life experience. The Soviet nomenclature worker and scammer Rusanov is sure that "people live: by ideology and the public good." Of course, he learned this commonplace formulation a long time ago, and even thinks little about its meaning. Geologist Vadim Zatsyrko claims that a person is alive with creativity. He would like to do a lot in life, to complete his large and significant research, to carry out more and more new projects. Vadim Zatsyrko is a frontier hero. His convictions, brought up by his father, who bowed before Stalin, are in line with the dominant ideology. However, the ideology itself is for Vadim only an appendix to the only important thing in his life - scientific, research work. The question, why is a person still alive, constantly sounds on the pages of the story, and finds more and more answers. The heroes do not see the meaning of life in anything: in love, in salary, in qualifications, in their native places and in God. This question is answered not only by patients of the cancer corps, but also by oncologists who are fighting for the lives of patients, who face death every day.
Finally, in the last third of the story, a hero appears who deserves special attention - Shulubin. If life position and Rusanov's beliefs in the novel are opposed to the truth that Kosoglotov understands, then a conversation with Shulubin makes the hero think about something else. With traitors, sycophants, opportunists, informers and the like, everything is obvious and does not need any explanation. But Shulubin's life truth shows Kosoglotov a different position, which he did not think about.
Shulubin never denounced anyone, did not scoff, did not grovel before the authorities, but nevertheless he never tried to oppose himself to it: “As for the rest, I will tell you this: at least you lied less, understand? at least you bent less, appreciate it! You were arrested, and we were driven to meetings: to work on you. You were executed - and we were forced to stand up and clap for the announced verdicts. Yes, do not clap, but - demand execution, demand! Shulubin's position is in fact always the position of the majority. Fear for oneself, for one's family, and finally, the fear of being left alone, "outside the team" silenced millions. Shulubin quotes Pushkin's poem:
In our ugly age...
On all the elements, man -
Tyrant, traitor or prisoner.
And then the logical conclusion follows: “And if I remember that I have not been in prison, and I firmly know that I was not a tyrant, then ...” And a person who did not betray anyone personally, did not write denunciations and did not denounce his comrades, still traitor.
Shulubin's story makes Kosoglotov, and with him the reader, think about another side of the question of the distribution of roles in Soviet society.
In addition to numerous literary studies and articles devoted to the "Cancer Ward", the article by L. Durnov, academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, professor, oncologist, deserves attention. This is the doctor's point of view, an attempt to analyze the Cancer Ward from the point of view of medical deontology. L. Durnov claims that the "Cancer Ward" is "not only piece of art but also a guide for the doctor. He dwells in detail on the medical terminology of the story, emphasizing how correctly and accurately Solzhenitsyn describes the symptoms of various oncological diseases. “The feeling that the story was written by a certified, knowledgeable doctor does not leave me,” writes Durnov.
In general, the theme of the relationship between the doctor and the patient, medical deontology is one of the leading ones in the Cancer Ward. And it is no coincidence that the role of Vera Gangart (Vega, as Kosoglotov calls her, giving her the name of the largest, guiding star) in the spiritual quest of Kosoglotov. It is she who becomes the embodiment of life and femininity. Not mundane, bodily, like Nurse Zoya, but true.
However, neither the romance with Zoya, nor Kostoglotov's admiration for Vega lead to the unity of the heroes, because Oleg, who even defeated his illness, is unable to overcome the alienation and spiritual emptiness acquired in prisons, camps and exile. The failed visit to Vega shows the hero how far he is from the usual Everyday life. In the department store, Kosoglotov feels like an alien. He is so accustomed to a life where buying an oil lamp is a great joy, and an iron is an incredible success, that the most ordinary items of clothing looked to him as an incomprehensible luxury, which, nevertheless, is available to everyone. But not to him, because his work, the work of an exile, is practically free. And he can only afford to eat a barbecue stick and buy a couple of small bouquets of violets, which eventually go to two girls walking by. Oleg understands that he cannot simply come to Vega like that, confess his feelings to her and ask her to accept him - such an eternal exile, moreover, a cancer patient. He leaves the city without seeing him, without explaining himself to Vega.
Literary allusions and reminiscences play a significant role in the story. Tolstoy's story was already mentioned at the beginning of the work. It is worth noting Solzhenitsyn's other appeals to the topic of literature, its role and place in the life of society and every person. For example, the characters of the novel discuss Pomerantsev's article "On Sincerity in Literature", published in Novy Mir in 1953. This conversation with Rusanov's daughter Avieta allows the author to show a narrow-minded attitude towards literature: “Where does this false demand for the so-called “harsh truth” come from? Why does the truth have to be harsh all of a sudden? Why shouldn't it be sparkling, exciting, optimistic! All our literature should become festive! In the end, people are offended when their lives are written gloomily. They like it when they write about it, decorating it.” Soviet literature should be optimistic. Nothing dark, no horror. Literature is a source of inspiration, the main assistant in the ideological struggle.
Solzhenitsyn contrasts this opinion with the very life of his heroes in the ward of the cancer ward. The same story of Tolstoy turns out to be the key to understanding life for them, helping them to solve important issues, while the characters themselves are on the verge of life and death. And it turns out that the role of literature cannot be reduced either to mentoring, or to entertainment, or to an argument in ideological dispute. And the closest thing to the truth is Dyoma, who claims: "Literature is the teacher of life."
Gospel motifs occupy a special place in the story. So, for example, researchers compare Ephraim Podduev with a repentant robber crucified along with the Savior. Kostoglotov's search eventually leads him to a spiritual rebirth, and final chapter The story is called "The Last Day". On the last day of creation, God breathed life into man.
In the "living soul" - love, which for Tolstoy means striving for God and mercy, and for the heroes of Solzhenitsyn - conscience and "mutual disposition" of people to each other, ensuring justice.
Solzhenitsyn cancer camp building
