In this episode, the reader becomes acquainted with Ivan Denisovich's personal code of behavior, which is a mixture of sound advice from experienced prisoners, his personal adaptation to the work ethic, and certain guidelines derived from his background as a superstitious Russian peasant. He accepts without comment the camp code that allows fishbones to be spit onto the table, wiped off, and then ground into the floor, but forbids the prisoners to spit the fishbones directly onto the floor. He eats slowly and carefully, even when he is very hungry or when the food is not very good, and he eats the eyes of the fish in his soup, but only when they are still in place, not when they are loosely floating around in the soup. He has also come to the realization that all prisoners, despite their uniform outer appearance, are different individuals, with different roles and talents; he accepts without misgivings the fact that he himself does not count for very much in his work gang, but he is proud of the fact that there arc jobs which are even beneath him and which the other members of his gang will not ask him to do.
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