Mean’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl Linda Felix Positive Psychology Dr. R. Barke ' November 28, 2016 The book, in autobiographical mode, relates Auschwitz to the life of the author Viktor E. Frankl in the concentration camps of the former Nazi Germany. It reports the cruelty in which the SS soldiers used to mistreat the prisoners and in turn explains how the concentration camp life in the mind of the average prisoner affected. As soon as they reached the concentration camp, which in this case was Auschwitz, the prisoner was stripped of his personal belongings and identity documents. They identified the prisoners with a number. Then there was a first selection that for some would have a fatal destiny, crematoria and gas chambers. The forced labor of the prisoners sometimes had a reward in the form of a coupon. This coupon could be redeemed for a dozen cigarettes or a dozen servings of soup. Usually the vouchers were kept for the soup, but thanks to them you could tell when a prisoner lost the will to live and smoked their cigars to "enjoy" their last days of existence. The author divides life into the field into three phases. Phase one, "The Shock." The symptom that characterizes this phase, according to Frankl, is the shock. As soon as they were at Auschwitz, they received a group of prisoners who spoke in every imaginable and well-fed European language. That is why the prisoners who arrived thought they could share their situation. They adopt the state of
Using these two accounts of two very different experiences, conclusions can be drawn on how realistic the fictional story of Sophie’s experience within Auschwitz. Above, short summaries of Frankl and Mozes are instated so the two can be distinguishable. Now, using specific details for each of their stories to compare to Styron’s novel will be used to determine the nature of the story of Sophie.
When dealing with Non-Fiction and Memoir it is imperative to realize that no two authors will approach telling their story in the same manner. Elie Weisel and Charlotte Delbo, two survivors of Auschwitz, both chose to write their Memoir as testimonials of their experiences. Despite sharing a method of testimonial and similar experiences in their stories, the two finished pieces are nearly entirely different. This paper will focus on Elie Weisel’s method of reporting his experiences to the reader, as opposed to a brief discussion on Delbo who tends to reflect. The scene of focus in the comparison and contrast will be the arrival scene as the authors enter into Auschwitz. This is a universal scene that would have been similar for everyone that entered into the camp, so it is what I call a unique shared experience, as everyone’s experiences will of course vary. But, aside from being a common experience it is also a common primary reflective moment that both authors spend quite a bit of time discussing.
The human condition is a very malleable idea that is constantly changing due to the current state of mankind. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the concept of the human condition is displayed in the worst sense of the concept, during the Holocaust of WWII. During this time, multiple groups of people, most notably European Jews, were persecuted against and sent to horrible hard labor and killing centers such as Auschwitz. In this memoir, Wiesel uses complex figurative language such as similes and metaphors to display the theme that a person’s state as a human, both at a physical and emotional level, can be altered to extreme lengths, and even taken away from them under the most extreme conditions.
In 1958, Elie Wiesel wrote a book called “Night.” The main idea of the literary memoir was to convey his experience at the Nazi concentration camps with his father. However, because this is an autobiography of Elie Wiesel there is possible author bias. However the narrator is not Elie, but Eliezer a fictionalized version of himself. Since the point of view is from Elie Wiesel’s experience in the concentration camps there are examples of bias. “Night” contains many facts about how the SS soldiers took the Jewish people to concentration camps and how they were treated.
The holocaust is one of the world's most tragic events, approximately 6 million Jews died and the concentration camp Auschwitz is the world's largest human cemetery, yet it has no graves. In Elie Wiesel's autobiographical memoir Night, he writes about his dehumanizing journey in the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Firstly, Elie experiences the loss of love and belonging when he is separated from his mother, sisters, and eventually his father. Also, the lack of respect that the Nazis showed the prisoners which lead to the men, including Elie to feel a sense of worthlessness in the camp. Finally, the lack of basic necessities in the camp leads to the men physically experiencing dehumanization. As a result, all these factors contribute to the
The holocaust is the most deadly genocide in the world that impacted millions of life by controlling and running life because of one mean man. In Elie Wiesel memoir, The Night is describing his own experience before, during and after the holocaust. He describes in meticulous details his experience in the concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buna with is father. Wiesel depicts how the Nazi slowly destructs every interpersonal relationship in the Jews community. Within the autobiography, Wiesel shows how the interpersonal relationships are important within the population in general, in the concentration camp and in more precisely with is own relationship with his family.
Night by Elie Wiesel is a short book about Wiesel's experiences in the Auschwitz sub-camps. The theme developed by Wiesel throughout the text is the idea of loss and dehumanization, which are prevalent during the entire book. Wiesel writes this book from his own perspective, but he alters the character slightly to distance himself from the horrible events that occurred. The book is organized into parts, each with differing times which in turn cover the five years of his experiences. This essay will describe the relationship between Eliezer and his father, Schlomo. The relationship development aspects I will discuss occurred at the fire pits of Birkenau, the constant beating of Schlomo at Buna, and finally, Schlomo's death in Buchenwald.
What would it do to a person to go to a concentration camp, see the horrible things, and come out alive? This book, Night, is about Eliezer Wiesel, who is both the main character and the author. Elie’s book is a memorial about his experience in Hitler’s concentration camps, what he went through, and how he survived. This paper is going to be about Eliezer’s horrific experience and the ways that it changed him.
Everyone experiences emotional and physiological obstacles in their life. However, these obstacles are incomparable to the magnitude of the obstacles the prisoners of the Holocaust faced every day. In his memoir, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, illustrates the horrors of the concentration camps and their mental tool. Over the course of Night, Wiesel demonstrates, that exposure to an uncaring, hostile world leads to destruction of faith and identity.
In his memoir “Night”, Elie Wiesel gives his account of events that took place during the holocaust. Historical records confirm that the holocaust was an undesirable experience for the victims who had to go through physical torture. In his memoir, Wiesel gives gruesome accounts of the different threats prisoners faced at the Nazi concentration camp. Clearly, the psychological threats seemed to wear the prisoners down more than the physical ones, nevertheless, the prisoners adopted physical unresponsiveness and emotional numbness to protect themselves from both threats, however, Wiesel carefully selected the two execution scenes to strengthen the pathos of his memoir, and to show that sometimes even emotional numbness fails to shield one from
Elie Wiesel’s short memoir Night recounts his experience surviving the concentration camps during the Holocaust. In the third chapter of the book, he focuses on describing what it was like to arrive at the first concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the process the men had to go through to transform from men into prisoners. In addition to lying about his age and occupation, Wiesel lost his hair, his clothing, his mother and sisters, his name, and most importantly, his faith. Elie Wiesel's use of imagery and diction in Night makes readers understand the true atrocities of the Holocaust.
The germans conducted inhumane forms of torture towards the jews, such as separation from their families and killing of family members, experimentation, and refusal of care. In the novel “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, the author, an actual holocaust survivor, reveals the explicit details of the holocaust, as well as some of the personal struggles he experienced throughout the time of him being in a concentration camp.
After World War II, many people survived physically, but were killed off psychologically by the mental torture of the Nazis. Not only did these prisoners ache from physical torment, but they also suffered from intellectual abuse for decades following the concentration camps and still recollect their inhumane experience during the 1940s. The Nazis completed many different actions to incapacitate the prisoners psychologically, such as taking away their identities, making them feel like animals, and giving them an incredulous amount of false hope before the concentration camps were put into place. Elie Wiesel’s Night documents his experience, mentally and physically, from the holocaust and all of the suffering he went through. In Night, Wiesel
Primo Levi, in his novel Survival in Auschwitz (2008), illustrates the atrocities inflicted upon the prisoners of the concentration camp by the Schutzstaffel, through dehumanization. Levi describes “the denial of humanness” constantly forced upon the prisoners through similes, metaphors, and imagery of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (“Dehumanization”). He makes his readers aware of the cruel reality in the concentration camp in order to help them examine the psychological effects dehumanization has not only on those dehumanized, but also on those who dehumanize. He establishes an earnest and reflective tone with his audience yearning to grasp the reality of genocide.
By seeking the opinion of other prisoners and other people whose stories are found in the book, the author seeks answers for the question of whether it is possible for the victims to forgive their tormenters. It is said that the environment, the practices and tradition of the surroundings of the victims of the holocaust are shaped by the experiences that they had in the concentration camps where they were