Living and surviving in a prison camp requires cleverness, luck, and good ethics to govern oneself. In the novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Ivan Denisovich Shukov, the protagonist, is sentenced to a labor camp for ten years for spying for the Germans during World War II. The novel illustrates the routine lives of other prisoners such as Shukov's in the camp. In the camp they are forced to work in the cold and are sometimes beaten by guards. On the particular day, Shukov starts his day off on the wrong foot. He is caught sleeping in bed past the reveille and is ordered to clean the floors of the guardhouse. However, as the day progresses, his luck begins to change: he is able to get a cigarette from Tsezar, was able to swipe two extra bowls from the chef, and earned a special favor from Tsezar. In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn creates a protagonist with the philosophy of 'one can manage to survive'. Shukov faces three main conflicts, man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. environment, in order to survive explains the specific conflicts Shukov faces and how he manages to survive this day.
In the novel, Shukov faces many man-versus-man conflicts. Shukov faces his first conflict in the mess hall during the midday meal. While the chef was busy shouting at the dishwashers for not cleaning the dirty bowls fast enough Shukov "quietly took two filled bowls from the counter" without the chef knowing. Swiping bowls is a conflict between the chef and Shukov because he confused and outwitted the chef into thinking that he had passed out 12 bowls instead of the 14 he had really passed out. The next conflict takes place in the mess hall also after the zeks come back at work in the evening. The camp commandant had passed a decree saying that no squad can enter the mess hall unless given permission by the mess orderly, the Limper. Several zeks tried to push past the Limper but were always pushed back.
