Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich criticizes the Soviet government and its communist regime. He does this by showing the dehumanizing effects of the soviet system. Under this system, people were imprisoned or exiled for even minor infringements of the law. He uses the imagery of animals to reinforce this dehumanizing process. He writes of the prison camp as if it were a farm and the people of the prison camp as if they were animals. Through the use of farm imagery, the author portrays the dehumanizing communist regime.

The ringleader of the camp, Lieutenant Volkovoi, is characterized as being a wolf. He is the head of the pack, the top dog on this communist farm. All the guards follow his rulings and he hunts down the prisoners and draws strength from their weakness and frailty. Volk which when translated into...