With the nutrients and energy it provides, food is the basis of life. However, because of its very scarcity in the camp, the act of eating takes on a new and profound importance for the prisoner who has the abil

Following a regular breakfast, Solzhenitsyn further adds a ritualistic dimension to portray the eating description of a perpetually hungry prisoner. Without hesitancy, Shukhov draws his right knee up to his stomach, pulls his spoon from under his boot-top, removes his hat and puts it in his left armpit and runs his spoon around the edge of the gruel. This simple routine shows that Shukhov attempts to maintain his dignity by controlling the way he eats the meal. Moreover, such day is different than usual. With the extra two bowls that Shukhov has finagles for his brigade from the kitchen, he has the right to a second bowl. Following the ritual, he eats the first bowl in the way he regularly does, chewing every mouthful thoroughly and slowly and preparing it possible for the most complete digestion. However, he has to eat the meal faster in order to show Pavlo that he is ready to be served for the second bowl. With the anticipation of the second bowl, the first bowl now seems like an appetiser to Shukhov; he does not feel as full as he usually does after one bowl of mush. Moreover, he scrapes every single remain of food from the bowl with pieces of bread crusts salvaged in the morning for purpose. He licks the crust clean; “then [repeats] the whole process.” Different than the other’s bowl, Shukhov’s “bowl [looks] now as if it [has] been washed, with a dull film, nothing more on the inside surface.” Such an abnormal act, transforming eating into a ritual, helps Shukhov maintain his dignity and to survive through harsh condition. From Shukhov’s eyes, the habit of eating ritually is not merely the instinctive adjustments of a consistently undernourished man, but a complex and well-formulated strategy for survival. Through the eight years of suffering in the camp, he has learned that the human body is a whole, and it is essential to engage all its parts in its functions while consuming the meal. If one eats mechanically, without concentrating all one’s sense on the meal, the bod

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