SOURCE: "The Impact of Structure in Solzhenitsyn's 'Matryona's Home'," in The Russian Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, April, 1977, pp. 167-83.

In the following essay, Spitz analyzes the significance of the structural and linguistic devices of "Matryona's Home" apropos the work's themes, ideals, and ironies.

"Matryona's Home" is considered to be not only one of Solzhenitsyn's finest works but also one of the greatest short stories in recent Soviet literary history. It has been discussed in almost every survey of Solzhenitsyn's work and has often been translated. Unfortunately, these discussions and translations have not always been adequate to the demands of the story. In part this is due to the multiple nuances of language and event employed by the author. These nuances are difficult to disentangle in the space of the few paragraphs usually assigned to the story in literary surveys, and it is an acknowledged fact that in the linguistic...