The column passed the wood-processing factory, built by prison labor, the workers’ settlement (the huts had been assembled by prisoners too, but the inhabitants were civilians), the new club (convict-built in entirety, from the foundations to the mural decorations–but it wasn’t they who saw the films there), and then moved out into the steppe, straight into the wind heading for the reddening dawn. Bare white snow stretched to the horizon, to the left, to the right, and not a single tree could be seen on the whole expanse of steppe. (p. 48)
Yes, surely an accurate image of the labor camp environment; bitter cold as the prisoners troop out into the work day. But the imagery may represent as well the moral and mental circumstance above the physical. These are Stalin’s political prisoners, most in there for no good reason and for indeterminate (regardless of imposed sentence) time. Both stretch out beyond their reach like the snow-covered land. What good they put into the environment will never by reaped by them. And no hope; not even a single tree.
I see them living in a parallel world that may represent what they’ve lost. The snow, though a natural part of these worlds is a separation made of innocence; a blankness that reveals that no matter what they did or didn’t do, they had no way of knowing or saving themselves.
I’m currently further along in the book, coming to a part that seems to explain Ivan’s (Shukhov’s) own reason for becoming a part of this lost world of prisoners.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology