Survival In Auschwitz Analysis

In Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi describes his time in the concentration camp. The depiction of Auschwitz, is gruesome and vile in the Nazi’s treatment of the captives being held, but especially in the treatment of its Jewish prisoners. A key proponent to the text is Levi’s will to live which is shown in various places in the text, however a thematic element to the will to live is the reference to Inferno by Dante. In particular, the Inferno aids Survival in Auschwitz in by adding another layer of context to the prisoner’s condition, which resembles hell, and Levi’s will to live paralleling the character, Dante. The direct reference to Dante comes in the form of Levi trying to recall a particular verse in the chapter, “The Canto of Ulysses”.

This allows the Inferno to be able to function as a complete juxtaposition of Levi’s narrative to Dante’s voyage into hell where Levi acts as Dante enduring trials and witnessing/experiencing hell first hand. For example, Nicholas Patruno affirms this in “Primo Levi, Dante, and the Canto of Ulysses” when he says:

Even before entering into Auschwitz, the reference to the Inferno is present in Levi’s description of the soldier who accompanies the prisoners from the cattle train to the camp in the truck. In the soldier’s request that those in the group turn over to him anything of value that they may have, Levi relies on a parallel to Dante’s description of Charon, the demon who, in canto III of the Inferno, takes the damned in a boat across the Acheron River and who, according to the legend expected some kind of compensation for his labor (Patruno

However, this is dependent on the translations in both Levi and Dante’s texts as the two can be further intertwined. Nicholas Patruno, believes the sign “Arbeit macht Frei, Work Gives Freedom” that is present upon Levi’s arrival to the camp is a reference to “the words cast in stone over the entrance to Dante’s Inferno… ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter’” (Patruno 35). This makes sense as these signs function as ominous messages to the characters of what is to come. Likewise, he also asserts that when Levi says, “the memory of it still strikes me in my dreams” in the chapter “On the bottom”, is a direct reference to Dante saying, “the thought of it reawakens the fear” (36). Patruno’s point illuminates both texts through his translations as Levi is making references to the Inferno beyond just thematic content. This corresponds to the impact Dante had on Levi as his narrative is making implicit references to Dante’s character as they both undergo the similar scenarios. So while Levi is writing about actual events that took place, he cannot help but reference Dante as the similarities are