How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph). We used H.T. Willetts's translation.
Quote #4
"You just try eight years' hard labor. Nobody's gone the distance yet." (388)
Did Solzhenitsyn predict the movie Rocky here? At any rate, this idea of "going the distance" is central to the camp survival mindset. Surviving the camp is a lot like running a marathon.
Quote #5
Moments like this, though he didn't know it, were very important to him: they were turning the loud and domineering naval officer into a slow-moving and circumspect zek: only this economy of effort would enable him to endure the twenty-five years of imprisonment doled out to him. (467)
We see how camp is like running a marathon here with Buynovsky. He's learning to slow down and to conserve his energy in order to survive. It's interesting that this process is such a transformation. In a way Buynovsky won't really be Buynovsky for much longer. We wonder what Shukhov used to be like before he adapted so successfully to camp life. It's important that while we see Tsezar and Buynovsky struggling to adapt, we meet Shukhov when he's already successfully acclimated, or used to, camp life.
Quote #6
But he refused to knuckle under: he didn't put his three hundred grams on the dirty table, splashed all over, like the others, he put it on a rag he washed regularly. (1029)
Shukhov here is discussing the legendary prisoner Yu-81. Yu-81 is a picture of Shukhov's possible future in a lot of ways – the long-time prisoner who refused to give in and lose his sense of self-respect.