al society, much like the democratic America appears to Solzhenitsyn. Matryona Vasilyevna represents, in Solzhenitsyn's eyes, everything moral, ethical, and, in general, right in life.
             Matryona is not a quintessential heroic main character that saves the day at the end of the story. She does, however, possess all of the qualities that Solzhenitsyn thinks a perfect individual, or society, for that matter, should possess. She is modest, hard working, optimistic, and generous. She possessed many qualities that the Stalinist Russia she was living in did not possess. Solzhenitsyn used Matryona to represent his ideas. Matryona was good in a society containing much evil, yet she never changed. Unfortunately, even after being such a positive person, her generosity led to her death. I believe that this is how Solzhenitsyn felt about Stalinist Russia; anything good will most likely be killed off by the evil. However, the evils will never go away if the "good" throws away their beliefs.
             During a time of change in one's life, it is easy to lose sight of priorities, morals, beliefs, and other personal attributes. Solzhenitsyn went through a lot of hard times during his lifetime. He was censored, jailed, exiled, and doubted. Through all this adversity, though, he stuck to his beliefs every step of the way. He always stood for what he thought was right, and through the use of literature, conveyed his ideas to his readers. Solzhenitsyn did not need to search for meaning, because he knew meaning all along. Meaning was to be like Matryona. Instead of losing sight of meaning in a world that seemd to have none, he held on to it in spite of all the war and death around him.
             Anna Akhmatova is placed very close to tragedy, just as the "hundred million" that scream through Akhmatova's mouth had been (Epilogue II, 13-14). She is a wife who has lost her husband(s), a mother who seemingly has lost her son, all to the same cause that many oth...