Much of the moral force of One Day is derived from the matter-of-fact way in which Solzhenitsyn describes the inhuman conditions in the camp. There are no adjectives of indignation or protest in his sober statement that the prisoners do not have to work when the temperature sinks below 41 below zero, and the reader should be horrified to hear the narrator describe without commentary that the water in Ivan's bucket was steaming and that he had to hack through a crust of ice to be able to get the bucket into the well.
The guards, addressing Ivan in dehumanizing terms, complain about his careless mopping performance, not realizing that for Ivan "There's work and work. It's like the two ends of a stick. If you're working for human beings, then you do a real job of it, but if you work for dopes, then you just go through the motions." Ivan does not take any pride in his mopping, since he does not, in this instance, work for "human beings"; when he works for his own satisfaction and for the benefit of his whole work gang, as when he later lays bricks, then he will do a "real job." Even so, this work makes him feel better right away, and his aches return only when the mopping is done.
The guards, faceless and nameless lackeys of the system, have one chance to redeem themselves and show some humanity. When they ask Ivan whether he remembers his wife washing the floor, he responds that he has not seen her since 1941 (the novel takes place in January of 1951; ten years have passed), and he says that he does not even remember what she looks like. For any decent human being, this remark might have at least prompted a rough response from the guards about his wife's looks, anything to show a trace of human interest and compassion. But the guards only continue to berate Ivan's work and to belittle him further. Their chance to prove their humaneness has passed.
