The ‘Bare Life’ and the State: Unveiling the Paradigms of the Body in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘homo sacer’ and the notion of bare life offer a profound rethinking of political and legal structures in the context of state sovereignty. In his seminal work, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Agamben explores how modern political systems, even those considered democratic, hinge upon the exclusion and inclusion of life itself. The homo sacer, a figure from Roman law, is a person who can be killed but not sacrificed, representing a life that exists outside the realm of legal and political rights—a life reduced to its bare biological existence. This notion of bare life (zoe)—as distinct from a politically qualified life (bios)—underscores Agamben’s examination of biopolitics, where the state’s sovereign power lies in its ability to decide who counts as part of the political community and who is excluded to a state of exception, a concept where laws are suspended. Agamben states, “The inclusion of bare life in the political realm constitutes the original—if concealed—nucleus of sovereign power” (Agamben6). Here, Agamben posits that the threshold of the political order is marked by its capacity to withdraw the protections of law from individuals, thereby exposing them to violence without consequence.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199392083.2025.62-69.