Essay Questions

How does Lina continue to be trapped even after she leaves the camp?

Lina remains trapped by the Soviets for years after she leaves because of the restrictions that the Soviet Union places on the former prisoners. Even after they are free, they are prevented from sharing their experiences with others, under penalty of punishment by the government. This prevents her from processing her trauma adequately by talking about it and also prevents the people who imprisoned her from facing consequences for their actions. She carries that trauma with her for the rest of her life, and the burying of that trauma is reflected in how her story is found: in a box of letters buried in the ground, where almost no one will be able to hear about what happened to her.

How does Lina find the strength to survive when others in her family cannot?

Lina is able to survive in part because of the support of her family. While other prisoners in the camp are separated from their families or lose them early, Lina has her mother and her brother for the majority of her imprisonment, and is able to rely on them and Andrius for support. More importantly than that, however, Lina has access to art and words, two of her passions, to keep her going. She is commissioned by one of the officers to draw his portrait, and while she hates serving him, it allows her to draw and steal paper for her to keep drawing. Andrius also gets a book for her that she starts reading, and that, combined with her love for drawing, helps her stay alive and gives her purpose in a terrible time.

A prominent theme of Between Shades of Gray is sacrifice. Identify a sacrifice that one of the characters makes, and explain whether or not that sacrifice is justified.

Several of the women in the camps make the sacrifice of sleeping with officers to protect their families. Andrius's mother is one of these women, and while she faces judgement for her decision, it is justified because doing so allows for her son to be kept safe. Andrius is an able-bodied teenage boy, meaning that he is a valuable worker for the camp. This means that officers could give him the most grueling tasks (especially since the camp is mostly women and children) and put him in a position to die sooner. While sleeping with the officers is a major sacrifice for Andrius's mother to make, she is justified in doing so because it means she keeps her son safe in conditions that want to kill him.