The Gas Ladies And Gentlemen

Fear, a concept that everyone has made contact with at least some point in our lives, whether it be through insectophobia, nyctophobia, or acrophobia, the emotion of fear is an emotion everyone has to come to terms with. Yet so many of us take for granted all the necessities we receive every day such as food and water while others need to work immense hours a day or trek an absurd amount of miles to obtain these resources just to survive, fearing that they still won’t have enough. Even so, there is one thing that we, as humans, always overlook until it’s creeping right around the corner: death. Although this may be true, receiving the fear of death does bear some fruit. For example, if someone were to escape death, they will most likely value life more highly. To put it in another way, This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, written by Tadeusz Borowski,

When Mr. Borowski states “‘I’m not going to unload it! I can’t take any more” (13), this reveals that he has been pushed to his limits, that he can barely grasp what it means to be human anymore. After leading so many people to their deaths, he simply wants it to stop and almost gives up hope. On the other hand, Clendinnen describes Primo Levi as someone who “was to find both personal peace and a way back to society not through the social activity of talking but the private one of writing…” (34). Furthermore, in Maus II, Art’s father is always hopeful and does everything he can to prevent his wife from dying, whether it’s providing her with more food or to move her to a safer location, he does this all for her sake. And that’s the key difference. Unlike in This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, the other two I described have something they look forward to each and every day while Borowski is stuck with an endless cycle of death and dragging people to