Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published:Rakovy korpus, 1968 (English translation, 1968)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1955-1956

Locale: An unnamed city based on Tashkent in Kazakhstan, Soviet Union

Principal characters

• Oleg Filimonovich Kostoglotov, a political exile with stomach cancer
• Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, a bureaucrat with a tumor on his neck
• Lyudmila Afanasyevna Dontsova, the head of the radiology department
• Vera Kornilyevna Gangart, a radiotherapist who takes a special interest in Kostoglotov
• Vadim Zatsyrko, a geology scholar with cancer in his leg
• Zoya, a young nurse who is attracted to Kostoglotov
• Dyomka, a teenage cancer patient
• Asya, a teenage athlete and cancer patient

The Story:

In February, 1955, Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov is admitted into the cancer ward of a Soviet hospital. His wife, upon examining conditions in the hospital, immediately tries to bribe one of the nurses to offer him superior care. Rusanov is a Communist Party official in charge of labor relations—a euphemism for being a government informer—and used to having privileges. He chooses this hospital rather than one in Moscow because his doctor, Lyudmila Afanasyevna Dontsova, insists that he receive treatment as quickly as possible for the large tumor on his neck. Dontsova, fifty years old and one of the older doctors, is the head of the radiology department at the hospital.

Rusanov quickly sizes up the other eight patients in the ominously named ward no. 13 and decides that they are his inferiors. He takes a particular dislike to Oleg Filimonovich Kostoglotov, a former labor camp inmate whom he nicknames Ogloyed, or “lout,” even though the man appears to be an avid reader. Dyomka, a teenage student with cancer in his leg, also reveals that he enjoys reading, now that he has the time to do so. Kostoglotov tells him that education does not necessarily make a person smarter, but Dyomka disagrees.

Kostoglotov asks Zoya, an attractive young nurse, whether he might borrow one of her medical books. His doctors never told him what is wrong with him, and he wants to know. He was near death when he arrived at the hospital less than two weeks earlier, and six months prior to that, a doctor told him that he had less than three weeks to live. Once he discovers the type of cancer he has, he asks Dontsova whether he might get a year of peace rather than undergoing the radiation treatments that will make him sick and not necessarily cure him. Dontsova becomes attached to him, in part because she is writing a professional thesis on cancers similar to his; the hospital has too many difficult cases to allow her to take a leave to finish the thesis. She recognizes the danger of radiation treatment and sympathizes with Kostoglotov.

Dyomka meets Asya, a beautiful girl, in a recreation area shared by male and female patients. She is an athlete, and she tells Dyomka that she is in the hospital for a checkup. In her opinion, she says, it would be better for him to be dead than to have his leg amputated. Dyomka receives contrary advice from Vadim Zatsyrko, another patient. Zatsyrko studies intensely in the ward and wants to go back to his research on a geological theory about radiation. He knows that he has less than a year to live, but he wants to leave behind his method of finding ore deposits.

Rusanov learns from the newspaper that the entire Supreme Court of the Union was replaced, and he has a nightmare that the people he denounced were being called to the new Supreme Court. His wife earlier revealed that amnesty was granted to Rodichev, a former neighbor whom Rusanov and his wife denounced, partly to get a larger living space.

Kostoglotov becomes friends with Vera Kornilyevna Gangart, a radiotherapist who is about his age. He is taking a diluted poison made from a mushroom that grows on birch trees, a folk cure for his cancer. She persuades him to pour out the poison. Kostoglotov finds Gangart attractive, but he also pursues Zoya. He persuaded Zoya to kiss him, and she tells him that he is getting hormone therapy that will eventually render him impotent. She briefly withholds the hormone treatments. When he stops pursuing her, she becomes more distant.

Dontsova begins having pains in her stomach. Like many of the other medical personnel, she was exposed to more X rays than is safe; the doctors choose to operate the X-ray machines according to patients’ needs rather than according to recommendations for their own exposure. She later visits Dormidont Tikhonovich Oreshchenkov, an older doctor who is allowed to have a private practice as a reward for saving the son of a local politician. She asks him to examine her, and they discuss the merits of a private system of medicine. Later, because the doctors at the cancer ward are uncertain of her diagnosis, they send her to Moscow. Were she a regular patient, they would cut her open to examine her, because that is less expensive and more expedient.

Asya comes to visit Dyomka, who decides to have his leg amputated. She looks like the other patients, disheveled and in an old dressing gown. She reveals that she has breast cancer and asks him to kiss the breast that will be removed; she wonders if anyone will ever like her, once it is gone.

Rusanov and Kostoglotov are discharged. Because his neck tumor shrinks, Rusanov believes that he is cured, but the doctors expect new tumors to grow and are not sure whether he will live a year. Gangart offers to let Kostoglotov stay briefly at her apartment; as a political exile, he is not allowed to stay in a hotel. Unless someone takes him in, he will have to sleep at the railway station. Zoya also invites him to stay with her. He travels around the city, trying various things that he did not experience before. He decides not to see Zoya again and goes to Gangart’s apartment, but she is not home. Rather than wait for her or return later, he goes to the railroad station and writes letters to Dyomka, Zoya, and Gangart.

Bibliography

Allaback, Steven. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. New York: Taplinger, 1978. The chapter on Cancer Ward focuses on various characters’ journeys toward self-discovery and the degree to which they represent Soviet society. Offers brief comparisons with other works by the author.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2001. A collection of critical essays, including comparisons of Solzhenitsyn’s work with that of Leo Tolstoy and of Boris Pasternak, an analysis of the representation of detention in the works of Solzhenitsyn and Fyodor Dostoevski, and a discussion of Solzhenitsyn’s experiences as a creative artist in a totalitarian state.

Burg, David, and George Feifer. Solzhenitsyn. Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: Stein & Day, 1972. There are references to Cancer Ward throughout this biographical volume. Includes an index, a bibliography, and a brief chronology of the author’s life.

Ericson, Edward E., Jr. Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1993. Examines Solzhenitsyn in light of the collapse of Communism in Russia. Answers some of the common criticisms that are leveled at his writing.

Ericson, Edward E., and Alexis Klimoff. The Soul and Barbed Wire: An Introduction to Solzhenitsyn. Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2008. Two major Solzhenitsyn scholars provide a detailed biography of the writer and analyses of his major fiction. Includes a chapter on Cancer Ward.

Kodjak, Andrej. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Several chapters describe the author’s major works. The chapter on Cancer Ward highlights the use of dialogue to present various philosophies.

Mahoney, Daniel J. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Ascent from Ideology. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Focuses on Solzhenitsyn’s political philosophy and its impact on twentieth century thinking. Analyzes Solzhenitsyn’s writings to demonstrate how they represent the political condition of modern man.

Rothberg, Abraham. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Major Novels. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971. Discusses Cancer Ward’s use of cancer as a metaphor for the problems of Soviet society and institutions. Describes major characters and the plot lines involving them and provides an overview of the novel’s themes.

Scammell, Michael. Solzhenitsyn: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. An impressive text of more than a thousand pages, including notes and an extensive index. The chapter entitled “Cancer Ward” compares Solzhenitsyn’s own hospitalization for cancer with that of Kostoglotov.

Thomas, D. M. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. A personal portrait of Solzhenitsyn, providing insights into his struggle with the Soviet authorities and his relationship with the two women who provided strong support for his efforts to expose the evils of the Communist regime. An imaginative, well-documented, and at times combative biography, which includes a discussion of Solzhenitsyn’s return to Russia in 1994.