How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph). We used H.T. Willetts's translation.
Quote #7
[Volkovoy] would pop up when you least expected him, shouting, "Why are you all hanging around here?" There was no hiding from him. At one time he'd carried a lash [...] They said he thrashed people in the camp jail. Or else, when zeks were huddled outside [...] he would creep up and slash you across the neck with it. (173)
Volkovoy stands in as a representative for all the guards and their worst abuses of power. It's interesting that he is depicted as "surprising" or sneaky multiple times in the book, which is something of a metaphor for prison life: something or someone is always there to catch the zeks off guard.
Quote #8
"You have no right to make people undress in the freezing cold! You don't know Article 9 of the Criminal Code!"
But they did have. They did know. It's you, brother, who don't know anything yet! (187-8)
Poor Buynovsky, still clinging to his ideas of justice and fairness, is punished for this outburst, while Shukhov cynically comments that he doesn't realize how powerless the zeks are yet. In his later work, Solzhenitsyn would discuss how the Criminal Code itself was set up to abuse power.
Quote #9
All the men in Gang 104 saw Shukhov being led out, but nobody said a word: what good would it do, whatever you said? (34)
Futility, or the uselessness of taking action, is a running theme throughout the book, and may be the most terrible aspect of camp life. If everything is futile for zeks, then it's a constant battle not to slide into depression or hopelessness.