In this episode, Ivan is shown as less than perfect when he brutalizes a smaller and weaker prisoner in a fight for a food tray. In fact, there are a number of small incidents in the story which show Ivan in a less than saintly way, but this is the most negative one. Solzhenitsyn did not intend to make Ivan a "perfect" human being. Yet, in spite of all his shortcomings, Ivan is still the model of the average Russian "common man": kindhearted without being a saint, religious without being a bigot, wise but not intellectual, cunning but not devious, practical and resourceful, yet not coldly calculating.
From the moment that he sits down to his "grand dinner" — two bowls of thin gruel and a double bread portion — until the end of the day, Ivan feels content. He even forgets about the extra work on Sunday and about the two years which he still has to serve. But then he comes face to face with his alter ego of the future: prisoner Y-81.
According to prison lore, Y-81 has been in prison longer than anybody else. Whenever one of his sentences has run out, another one has been added on to it, and yet his back is still as straight as a ramrod. He has lost all his hair and his teeth (Ivan has lost many of his own teeth), and he takes no interest in anything or anybody around him. He is determined never to give in, and he has developed his own rigid code of behavior. His eating habits are impeccable; he does not put his bread on the filthy table, but lays it on a clean rag. We are reminded that Ivan has begun to establish similar habits: he does not eat loose fish eyes (only when they are still in the sockets); he has never bribed anybody or taken a bribe. Solzhenitsyn insinuates that, like Y-81, Ivan will not leave the prison camp, but he will not give in. And he will survive because of his strength of will and his refusal to compromise his human dignity.
