In the novel That Hideous Strength by Lewis there are many parallels to Solzhenitsyn’s novel, The Gulag Archipelago. In both novels there are situations where the powerless are faced against a big business or affiliation because they have differing ideologies. Although the enemies in both novels are not exactly in the same realm considering how much more violent the Organs are, they both essentially control the minds and actions of the people around them. As the story progresses in That Hideous Strength, the institution N.I.C.E. continues with its plan of controlling the citizen’s minds. In chapter 10, Mark’s wife, Jane, is tortured for the insightful dreams that she has. When Mark asks if they can go to the police to report the crime, Dimble replies saying, “‘you seem to misunderstand.This is a conquered and occupied city’” (200). This statement of Dimble’s implies N.I.C.E. ‘s influence has spread to high, powerful government officials, leaving Mark completely powerless. On the other hand, in The Gulag Archipelago many people who lived in the Soviet Union would be arrested at random with no understanding of what was happening. Arrests typically took place in the idle of the night to create disorientation in the victims. Every prisoner captured was never guilty of anything, yet they were sent away to be interrogated and incarcerated. The prisoners of the gulag eventually developed a mindset of; “A person who is not inwardly prepared for the use of violence against him is always weaker than the person committing the violence” (14).
In a way, both the characters in That Hideous Strength and The Gulag Archipelago are prisoners to their “captors” in a sense. While Mark and the other characters were never actually captured and tortured to the extent of the prisoners at the gulag, they both fall under the control of a greater power whom they feel they cannot escape from. While the prisoners of the gulag did not have a choice in deciding if they agreed with the policies of those in charge like those in That Hideous Strength, both fall under the influence of a higher power with little resistance. In both scenarios, the citizens under the control of N.I.C.E. and the prisoners of the Gulag, their enemies were greatly outnumbered, but neither group resisted or rebelled. It seems that both groups feared the consequences of being turned in as well as possibly had hope for a favorable outcome. Additionally, both the N.I.C.E. institution and the Bluecaps inflicted terror upon their own populations to get what they wanted with no remorse to how it affected anyone. Ultimately many similarities can be drawn from That Hideous Strength and The Gulag Archipelago.