Critical Summary Victor Frankl’s “Experiences from a Concentration Camp” from his book Man’s Search for Meaning details the everyday occurances of the average prisoner in a concentration camp. Through a series of brief stories accounting his experience in concentration camps, Frankl vividly depicts the suffering that he and other prisoners experienced and how these experiences affected them mentally. These stories demonstrate how the prisoners adapted their ways of thinking in order to ensure the survival of themselves and their friends. Survival techniques included doing anything in order to be seen as useful around the camp, using humor, and focusing one’s thoughts on love. Frankl describes how he and other prisoners used these techniques …show more content…
Mike Rose shows how learning is built through experience and practice in “A Vocabulary of Carpentry” and Viktor Frankl shares the effects of his experiences in a concentration camp during the Holocaust in “Experiences from a Concentration Camp”. Both readings touch on the ideas of phenomenology and experiential learning. Phenomenology is the study of consciousness through phenomena. In Frankl’s “Experiences from a Concentration Camp”, every experience he lived through contributed to his consciousness and self-awareness to his situation. The thoughts, emotions, and memories that Frankl experienced while enduring suffering and mistreatment as a prisoner shaped his understanding and perception towards life. Rose depicts phenomenology through the work of students. If someone were to look at a cabinet, there would be no emotional response or significant feelings toward it except to note that he or she puts their mugs there. But a student, who created this cabinet with their own hands, understands the amount of work, time, and effort that was put towards building this cabinet. The experiences of each observer, a random onlooker and the student carpenter, influence how each individual views the cabinet, and in a broader sense, their