Character development of Shukhov in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Review of essay

Rating: 3 star(s)

Response to the question

Although the introduction to this essay seems promising and based on fact, the body and conclusion are badly argued and render the essay superficial and lacking in analytical insight. The essay starts off on a very concrete note, giving the character’s background; however, the author could have included less facts and more introductory words that relate directly to the topic; indeed, he could have steered the general theme towards a more specific argument. This would have automatically guided him towards a more specific response, rather than making the essay as vague as it is. After the introduction, the overall structure is clear, precise. Unfortunately, the contents do not quite match it; the response is suffused with examples and quotes, while the analysis that is essential to an essay on this level vanishes. This gives the essay rich potential, but it has not been developed, which means that the form, rather than content, guides the essay – and as such, there is no clear line of argument, but rather a descriptive account of what the protagonist has been experiencing throughout the novel. Towards the end of the essay, the writer veers away from the aforementioned specific examples, which means that the conclusion resembles a grand, sweeping, yet hollow statement; we have not seen enough proof to make the conclusion valid!

Level of analysis

The writer provides many examples, including quotations, to give a flow to the argument that the protagonist has, indeed, undergone a transformation. However, these examples are too straightforward and separated from each other, as if the entire middle of the novel had been omitted; this makes it impossible to see exactly how the transformation took place. All in all, the analysis, though competent and based on facts, is too superficial to make this essay excellent. Each of the examples should have been followed by a more analytical insight, rather than one, simple sentence, which reiterated the quote. On a similar note, the writer should have dived deeper into literary vocabulary and used it; this would have immediately made the analysis more precise.

Quality of writing

The style is usually correct and the sentences and paragraphs organised into clear structures. However, the writer often seems to get lost in his own grammatical structures by not using enough punctuation or repeating words (e.g. “authorities who decide their life even for the basic needs of the life like food and warmth”). This confuses the essay’s arguments and sets a linguistic barrier in front of what could be a well-argued, concise piece of work. Moreover, the writer should not use colloquialisms such as “and so on”, “actually”. Having a more idiomatic, rather than dispassionate, attitude to the writing style might also raise the standard of the essay.