Other, more sophisticated reasons, are given in the course of the story to explain Ivan's hard work. First of all, only meaningful work — that is, work which influences the food rations — is done well: the mopping of the guardhouse floor does not fall into this category, and Ivan does a sloppy job. In addition, it becomes clear that work, any work, is better than no work at all.
In this episode, we hear no more of Ivan's aches and pains after he is given a meaningful task; all thoughts of going on the sicklist are forgotten. Work, as we see later in the story, serves to bolster an individual's self-esteem, and work well done (Ivan's brick wall) gives an otherwise unimportant, faceless prisoner an individual identity. This is also the reason why Ivan actually does his job well, when it might be enough to make it look as if it had been done well. Fetyukov, not used to doing manual labor, has to be forced to work and, accordingly, he performs his tasks unwillingly. Small wonder that he is a scrounger and a bowl licker.
Also in this episode, we discover a special relationship between Ivan and Gopchik, a young Ukrainian. Gopchik, in many ways, serves as Ivan's surrogate son (Ivan's only son died young), and Ivan is trying to pass on some of his knowledge to the young man. He does not even mind that Gopchik does not share any of the packages he receives from home, but, instead, eats the contents secretly at night. just as Tyurin picked out Ivan upon his arrival at the other "special" camp, Ivan now adopts Gopchik in a fatherly way.
When Ivan looks up at the sky, he notes that it is almost noon, and this leads to a sarcastic criticism about the Soviet bureaucracy.
