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Man's Search For Meaning Sparknotes

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Template for UH 200 Final Paper Part 1 - Introduction Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust. After his release, he founded logotherapy, a type of psychotherapy that focuses on finding the purpose of life. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl first addresses what happens psychologically to an inmate in concentration camps. He then goes on to explain the basic principles of logotherapy and how it works. How did his experiences in the concentration camps inspire his creation of logotherapy? Was this mental enlightenment unique to him, or did the prisoners collectively experience it? Was Frankl able to find meaning within the suffering of himself and countless others? As an individual reads this book, they …show more content…

Since the other prisoners refused to give him up, they were all being starved. Why did Frankl believe that his encouragement was necessary? Frankl saw the deep inner good and evil within people in the concentration camps. Even though it would cause them more pain and misery, the prisoners decided to show humanity and not give up their fellow prisoner. Frankl wanted to foster this inner goodness. The other prisoners were just as tired and hungry, and one of them would likely soon rat out on their comrade. Frankl wanted to encourage them to continue suffering for a good reason. If they were to give up now, they would have still suffered just as long. Furthermore, by breaking the willpower and collective humanity of the prisoners, the guards would be able to further dehumanize and cause many prisoners to lose their motivation to keep living. Frankl knew he had the ability and knowledge to encourage the other prisoners, so he had an obligation to himself to try and speak to them …show more content…

Could this be applied to more trivial matters or is this advice exclusive to extreme suffering? This could be applied to many domestic disputes or arguments. For example, if there is a chore that both someone and their partner dislikes, such as doing the dishes, that person could embrace doing the chore as way to avoid making their partner suffer. By thinking of it as a sacrifice, the one person could feel pride in doing a disliked job, while the partner can appreciate not doing the job and the fact that their partner is willing to do it for them. If both partners were to employ this philosophy, their relationship could run

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If the fear did not break down the prisoners, the intensity of a 15-hour work shift of hard labor would have (ancestry). Frank might have endured all of these consequences, all because he blindly acted and didn 't think anything through, just blindly acted out of

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“In a few seconds, we had ceased to be men” (Wiesel 36). This quote from Night, by Elie Wiesel, shows how almost immediately, the victims of the Holocaust were dehumanized. The prisoners were stripped of every quality that made them human and were changed to fit the Nazi’s needs. In his memoir, Wiesel tells the tragedy from his memories as a prisoner of the concentration camps, while gradually losing his faith in his religion and humanity. The loss of his identity, dignity, and the inhumane conditions he had to face are the most prominent ways the dehumanization changed Wiesel’s attitude, outlook, and identity.

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Though some did not let it affect how they treated others, “ At the start of the third week, our Blockälteste was removed; he was judged too humane.” (Wiesel 44). This proves that Nazis wanted the prisoners to feel unsafe, in all contexts. Nazis did not want prisoners to trust each other. If trust formed amongst all the inmates, that could threaten the Nazi’s

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878 Words | 4 Pages

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor E. Frankl, the author, experienced the events of the Holocaust camps first hand. He got to see how people survived, and how they didn’t. Frankl tells the tale of a man who believed that on March thirtieth, he would be saved. Frankl recalls that “When F---- told me about his dream, he was still full of hope and convinced” that it was true (Frankl 79) The man’s hope of this day kept him alive in a time when he might have given up.

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1005 Words | 5 Pages

lie Wiesel’s experiences of dehumanization in the Nazi concentration camps extraordinarily influence his behavior and identity. During his time in the camps, Elie demonstrated extreme behavioral adaptations to survive the treatment; these were made possible by the erasing of his identity. Elie’s identity is established in the opening pages of the book. Elie is characterized as a deeply religious and intelligent person.

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419 Words | 2 Pages

The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life. For the first 13 years of his life, Elie seemed to have a normal outlook on humanity.

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After going through so much, many people do not have the same mindset as they did before. Being tortured and watching others being tortured changes a person’s life, especially Elie’s, his father’s, Moshe the Beadle’s, and Rabbi Eliahou’s. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, shares his own experience of going through a concentration camp, and it is clear that many things in his life changed

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Wiesel reflects on the horrendous anguish and devastation he suffered in the concentration camps, and how it affected his belief and point of view on life. This is known as the "nocturnal calmness," and throughout this period of quietness he experienced atrocious brutality and cruelty. This experience, which caused him to feel as though his God and spirit had been murdered, drained all of his desire to carry on. This displays how the violence and cruelty he encountered in the camps resulted in him losing his faith and hope in humanity. The passage also indicates how Wiesel's time in the camps had a huge effect on his perspective of the world.

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People’s actions have a significant impact on an individual's perception of life. Whether in verbal, or physical form, it can completely alter one's beliefs and optimism. In Night, Elie Wiesel explores the devastating impact of the Holocaust on the faith of the prisoners; It illustrates how the dismay of the concentration camps and the cruelty of the Nazi regime can shatter even the strongest of beliefs in God, humanity, and oneself.

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In the first part of this book Wiesel describes his life post-holocaust with his mother, father, and siblings. He writes about how he was forced into a ghetto where he was transported by a boxcar with his entire community. “There is almost no air to breathe, the heat is intense, there is no room to sit, and everyone is hungry and thirsty.” (Wiesel, Chat 3). He describes the journey to Auschwitz, the selection process, and the brutal mistreatment of people who had no idea where they were or why.

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978 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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954 Words | 4 Pages

Wiesel wanted people to remember those who did not make it, “Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” By forgetting about the tragic events and the lives lost in the Holocaust, we fall under the impression that the lives lost in the Holocaust were not important to remember, but they were. Millions of lives, innocent lives, had been lost simply because people were of Jewish faith and that was enough for Adolf Hitler to say that they were less than. Wiesel had hoped that he could persuade the people into continuing to remember what had happened. He had hoped that people would learn from the tragic events of the Holocaust, and they would fight against indifference and prevent something like the Holocaust from happening again.

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However he fought the tragic circumstances to stay alive until the end. He wanted to kill himself as soon as he arrived at the concentration camp because of the horrible conditions. “If that is true, then I don’t want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death to the flames (33)”.

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106 Words | 1 Pages

Shirley Jackson was born in 1916 in California. Her early works, including “The Lottery”, was highly controversial. Shirley moved to New York City after she graduated college in 1940. Her writing started appearing in many publications, including The New Yorker. In 1948, The New Yorker published "The Lottery" a short story by Shirley.

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His story displays how, though experiences affect decisions, it is the individual who chooses to either find purpose when there does not seem to be a clear objective, or allow one’s anguish to be fruitless. This concept is further explored with psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s idea of logotherapy, and discussed in Elie’s interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey decades after the Holocaust. In Night, Elie is overwhelmed by his suffering, as he experiences a deprivation of individuality, degradation of faith, and drainage of emotion, but he manages to find a way to channel this affliction into productivity and become a survivor rather than a victim. It is easy to misunderstand how devastating life in a concentration camp was, but through Elie’s loss of identity and distrust in God, the reader can discern the

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