Search For Meaning

Frankl endured much suffering during his time in the concentration camp. All of his possessions were taken away, including his manuscript in which he recorded all of his life's work. He went through rough manual labor, marching through freezing temperatures, and little or no

In Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning we are told a powerful story of a man’s survival through the Holocaust. Frankl struggles to not only keep his body alive, but his spirit as well. Frankl’s main goal is to not only come out alive from the Holocaust but to not let it change him and ultimately defeat or take over his life and change who he truly is. He knows the only way to stay alive is to find some sort of meaning in his life. As we watch him fight to survive during his stay in concentration camps we begin to realize that the only way he is surviving is because he hasn’t forgotten who he still is and the identity that the Nazi’s were trying to take from him. He keeps his personal identity, goals, and morals in mind while

    A country singer named Randy Travis once sang in “Three Wooden Crosses”,  “It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it’s what you leave behind you when you go.” This verse gives meaning to my life and defines what I will do when I am gone. A man by the name of Viktor Frankl writes the book, Man’s Search for Meaning. In this novel, Frankl is at one of the dreadful concentration camps during the Holocaust, trying to search for his meaning of life. What gives one meaning to his or her life? One might think they have no purpose in this world however, that is not true. He or she must find the people or concepts that make them happy or give significance to their lives. The meaning of one’s life can be interpreted

In the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, he uses his past experiences from different concentration camps to describe what he learned was the true meaning of life. Throughout the book he describes in details that he had no hope for life as he felt pain, humility, and human cruelty during his time as a prisoner in multiple concentration camps. Frankl, believed that he had a chance to survive by using inner strengths. His great sense of humor helped him get though the many difficult situations that he had encountered. He supposed that “what doesn’t kill you makes your stronger.”

Without any exaggeration or platitude, I can definitely say that Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is the most challenging book I’ve ever read at Somers High School. The book begins as an autobiographical recount of the immense human suffering the author encountered in the Nazi concentration camps, particularly the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Frankl offers his personal reflections, interspersed between anecdotes from the camp about men at their lowest moments. The horror of the camps is undeniable, but despite his tragic stories of hopelessness and anguish among, there’s an odd feeling of emotional subversion and insult when he uses collective pronouns to describe his personal convictions.

Imagine being arrested, forced out of your home, transported to a jail-like camp, and seeing people die all around you while wondering if you would be next - all due to your race, religion, or sexuality. This situation seems unrealistic for the 21st century, but sadly, just one century prior, this circumstance was reality for millions of people, including Viktor Frankl, who tells the story of his Holocaust experience. Between the years of 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi soldiers captured anyone who he viewed as a lesser race. Common targets included Gypsies, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Afro-Germans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled people, and the most common, Jews. About two-thirds (six million) of European Jews were killed during the Holocaust, more than one million of these were children (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Frankl turned his experiences and findings into an extremely powerful novel, Man’s Search for Meaning. He tells his story of living in a concentration camp, while also introducing and explaining his psychological theory of logotherapy.

Man’s Search for Meaning, is a biography and the personal memoir of Victor Frankl’s experience in a Nazi Concentration Camp. The book was initially published in 1946 in German and was then published in 1959 in English, under the title From Death-Camp to Existentialism. Prior to World War II, Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist working in Vienna and then later was responsible for running the neurology department at a Jewish Hospital in Rothschild. In 1942 he and his family were arrested and deported. They were separated and sent to concentration

Certain situations and experiences we undergo in our lifetime are destined, nearly inevitable. Mans search for meaning urges us to acknowledge that “we cannot avoid suffering, but we can chose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose”. Viktor Frankl was faced with an experience of inevitable suffering during his time spent at various concentration camps during the second World War. It is these experiences and sufferings that set the narrative in his novel “Mans Search for Meaning”, where he uses a philosophical standpoint to evaluate his life in camp which led to his liberation. Within this paper, I intend to present Frankl’s ideology that when faced with suffering, you must have control over your free

Life is dictated with an overarching sense of purpose. Living with a purpose allows an individual to see beyond any current frustrations or woes of any situation while remaining on the path to greater fulfilment. As discussed in Part I of Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, the prisoners in Nazi Concentration Camps who looked beyond the current duress of their situations – and created some sense of purpose in living – were the ones who best survived the hardships within the camp confines. The concept of purpose varies with the individual, but connects people to a greater sense of meaning in life. Discovering a purpose is not as tractable as Frankl dictates. Living does entail a purpose, but uncovering the purpose can be complex and difficult for people at times. When surviving in the Concentration Camps, Frankl uncovered the underlying truth that, “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but

For the prisoners, the question of the meaning of life turned to the question of if their suffering had any meaning at all, and Frankl argues that what they really needed to be asking was what life

Life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. Frankl's idea of finding meaning in the midst of extreme suffering is found in his account of an experience he had while working in the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His only hope was that he can survive and be with his lovely wife again. Frankl believe that if there was a meaning to life at all there must be a meaning to suffering. He agrees that without suffering and death human life cannot be accomplished. Humans spend too much time thinking about what the futures holds for them and they don’t realize that we should live each day as it would be our last

The main goal of this book is to provide perspective and techniques for a person to use to find meaning in his or her life. It is written in an autobiographical style by psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl. He discusses many specific examples from his imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, along with his professional knowledge to offer a method for discovering personal fulfillment and a sense of meaning in life. With descriptive language, Frankl creates a vivid image of this horrible ordeal. He begins the book by describing his reactions and observations at the outset of his imprisonment.

In 1985, Frankl could obtain Oskar Pfister Award from The American Psychiatric Association due to his important works for people and society. 39 books were published from Frankl (Längle, "Frankl, Viktor Emil") that Man's Search for Meaning, his very popular book, is his narration of his life when he was in Nazi camp. Frankl in this book explained that how could find the meaning of his life and discover his new theory which introduced it as logotherapy to the psychology world (Pytell, TIMOTHY E, "Viktor Frankl (1905-1999)"). Frankl's best-selling book "Man's Search for Meaning," chronicles a psychologist's experiences as an inmate in the concentration camp, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence (Pytell, TIMOTHY E, "Viktor Frankl (1905-1999)"). Viktor Frankl founded what he called the field of "Logotherapy." Logotherapy is related to Frankl own experiences in Nazi camp. In his life years, which spent in camp, the tensions caused to contemplate deeply about the meaning of life and human purpose of living ("Logotherapy"). He narrates about his problems and restriction, moreover, other men in Auschwitz, that how they

The premise of Frankl’s book is that mankind’s desire for meaning is much stronger than its desire for power or pleasure and that if man can find meaning in life he can survive anything. Frankl introduces this idea [which he calls the theory of logotherapy] throughout his concentration camp experiences in the book’s first section and delves deeper into it in the second section. Referencing Nietzsche, Frankl tells us “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'” (p. 80). The most important thing to be learned from this statement is that no matter what your circumstances are, you can be happy, or at least survive, if you find a meaning or purpose in life. While in the concentration camp Frankl tells us that in order to maintain his desire to have a meaningful life he focused on three main things: suffering, work, and love. Of sacrifice

A notable example of this way of finding meaning is presented as Frankl recalls his experiences in the camp. He is then reminded of a moment in which the ethereal meaningfulness of love (in this case, the love he feels for his wife) is fully revealed. On an early morning walk to the work site, his mind is entranced completely by thoughts of his wife; so much so that the reality of his very existence in the camps is rendered null, that through the contemplation of his beloved, he is able to achieve a momentary bliss and fulfillment in this position of utter distress and devastation.