Aksyonov’s Gray Hair Symbol Analysis

Aksyonov’s graying hair emerges as a vivid symbol of his suffering, highlighting not just his aging (or the years he loses in Siberia), but his corporal decay resulting from a system of justice and punishment oriented around the body (bondage, beating, incarceration, and forced labor), rather than the soul (as in divine salvation or damnation). At the outset of the story, Aksyonov’s wife foretells his suffering and persecution through a nightmare in which her husband’s hair turns completely gray. Aksyonov’s hair had previously been cited as a prominent physical feature and as evidence of his youthful attractiveness (“Aksyonov was very handsome, with light-brown curly hair”); thus, the decay of Aksyonov’s hair amounts to a major transformation of his appearance. After Aksyonov has been wrongly arrested for murder, his wife’s prophecy is quickly fulfilled; when she visits her husband in his holding cell, Aksyonov’s wife runs her fingers through his hair and notes that it is already graying. That Aksyonov’s hair has grayed even before he is sent to Siberia, and while he is still a relatively young man, establishes his graying hair as a direct symptom of his persecution—or his mistreatment by the corrupt state justice system. As Aksyonov’s wife explains, “all your troubles have well and truly turned it [his hair] grey.” Later, during Aksyonov’s years in Siberia, his hair “turned as white as snow.” This final step in the graying of Aksyonov’s hair goes together with the culmination of his bodily deterioration, including his developing of a “stoop.” Aksyonov now appears as an old man, and his fellow inmates call him “Grandpa.”