Despite its short length, “In the Night”, is an immensely powerful and unsettling story. \u00a0Throughout the story’s narration, Shalamov’s attention to detail, use of sensory, and tone causes the story to deeply impact and resonate with the reader.<\/p>\n
The first image in the story, that of “Glebov lick[ing] the bowl and brush[ing] the bread crumbs.. into his left left palm…Without swallowing, he felt each miniature fragment of bread in his mouth coated greedily with a thick layer of saliva” is explained in such methodic detail, that the image Shalamov describes can be easily imagined by the reader. \u00a0Moreover, the comment that “taste was an entirely different thing” further inserts the reader into the narrative \u00a0by activating both senses of sight and taste. \u00a0This use of sensory through Shalamov’s detailed narration creates and intimate experience for the reader, drawing him or her in, allowing the remainder of the story to further impact the reader.<\/p>\n
As the story progresses, Shalamov uses a rather dry, “matter of the fact” tone which is particularly haunting given the circumstances that the characters currently face. \u00a0This tone highlights the ‘new normal’ of the gulag and the alarming way in which prisoners become accustomed\/indifferent to their way of life. \u00a0In particular, Glebov questioning his own past and commenting “not only the habit of judgement was lost, but even the habit of observation” demonstrates how the prison has stripped the characters of their individualism and that they are now consumed by their new reality.<\/p>\n
The matter-of-factness that Shalamov projects is most haunting then the corpse is introduced to which Bagretsov simply remarks “he’s a young one”. \u00a0It is almost has if the scenario, finding and essentially pickpocketing and robbing a corpse is a mundane, everyday aspect of life in the story. \u00a0The feeling of normalcy is most obvious when Glebov is carrying the dead man’s underwear in an attempt to sell it in order to smoke. \u00a0The fact that an act as mundane as smoking is juxtaposed to an image as drastic as taking a corpse’s underwear demonstrates to the reader the dire circumstances being experienced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite its short length, “In the Night”, is an immensely powerful and unsettling story. \u00a0Throughout the story’s narration, Shalamov’s attention to detail, use of sensory, and tone causes the story to deeply impact and resonate with the reader. The first image in the story, that of “Glebov lick[ing] the bowl and brush[ing] the bread crumbs.. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unit-11-stalinism-thaw-and-stagnation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}