Man’s Search for Meaning was written by Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. In the book Frankl discusses his time in a Holocaust work camp. He not only gives a vivid description of his own stories but the stories of his patients. Frankl also discusses his personal journey of trying to figure out what his meaning his. His idea of his own meaning went from being a psychiatrist to having a wife and helping his fellow countrymen. He also touches on suffering and how we cannot avoid it because it is all part of the experience of life. His idea was that he would rather suffer and help his fellow countrymen than give in and die. He was one of the lucky few to escape with his life from the Camps and was able to carry on and tell his story and reunite …show more content…
The final topic that I will address for this paper is how both authors talk about what their view is on the question: What is the meaning of life? The theme of faith is strong in both novels. How faith is addressed however is different. Wolpe discusses faith in a few different ways. The first time the topic of faith is examined is Wolpe’s own journey from faith as a child. The reasoning for this journey is that while at a summer camp Wolpe viewed the documentary Night and Fog He thoughts were “ Surely, if there was a God, this would not be permitted” ( Wolpe 3). After some time however Wolpe was able to bring himself back to faith through studying and teaching. Wolpe studied at a school to become a Rabbi. Wolpe goes on to discuss the equation Fear= faith (23). Wolpe touches upon how many times people do-good deeds because of their faith in the hopes that they will get into heaven. Some of the most religious people Wolpe knows are horrible people while some of the non-religious people are some of the best people he knows. Wolpe goes on to say how while he was sick with cancer he prayed, and his prayers were answered. According to Wolpe The way his prayers were answered was not because he lived but “ because I felt better able to cope with my sickness” …show more content…
Frankl suffered during his time in a concentration camp. Frankl thinks that suffering is all part of the experience that someone will have in his or her life. “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. ( 99) No one can relieve you from your suffering, your chance lies in the way that you handle your suffering is Frankl’s idea. Wolpe experienced suffering in a different way. He suffered due to a battle with cancer. Suffering is one of the real things that Wolpe mentions that our lives pivot on. We cannot see suffering sometimes, but at the same time we cannot see God, but that does not mean God does not exist. Suffering exists even though we cannot see it. “ To believe only in what you can see seems a peculiar form of blindness ( Wolpe
The insight of Frankl’s ideas and meaning, have helped the other inmates physically and psychologically survive under the inhumane abuse. This is why the author and main character Viktor Frankl affected me the most during my reading of these torturous experiences. Whether he was curing ones typhus, or causally giving advice to the other prisoners, he was always thinking of others, and was seen as a courageous figure to the other individuals at the camp. For example, on page 58 Frankl talks about how he will be escaping the camp with his friend. He states how he checked on his patients one last time before his freedom and saw the sad look in one of his deathly patients eyes. He felt unsatisfied with leaving his hopeless patients and then began to tell his friend that he could not leave camp. He stated, “I did not know what the following days would bring, but I gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned t...
Some people say that living through hard times can make you stronger. It is a crucible that you come out of with a more powerful soul. In the memoir Night, by Eliezer Wiesel, Elie and his family are sent to concentration camps throughout Germany. Eliezer is employed to do very taxing jobs in these camps, and he is rarely given any ration of food or rest. This essay is meant to evaluate these horrific events and how they affected the author, Eliezer Wiesel. Throughout the Holocaust Eliezer matured faster and more than anybody should.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
To many people religion is a sanctuary. It helps them escape the chaos of their normal lives and become a part of something much bigger. For Jews during the Holocaust, religion helped them survive at first. They remained adamant that God would not allow the genocide of millions of his people. But as time went on, they began to question the existence of god. Elie witnesses the death of one of the inmates Akiba Drumer; recalling, "He just kept repeating that it was all over for him, that he could no longer fight, he had no more strength, no more faith" (76). Many people live for religion; they go on with their lives and no matter how horrific the situation may be, they remain resilient of the fact that god will pull them through any situation. But when this faith is lost, people begin to question their existence. Jewish people grow up knowing that God would always be at their side. The realization that God was not there for them took its toll. Elie loses his faith in God...
The existence of a God is always questioned, but it is questioned even more so at times of suffering. As Rabbi Dr Louie Jacobs comments “If God exists… how and why could such a Being tolerate all the pain, misery, and anguish that is often the lot of humanity”.
Faith is an essential part of developing a worldview, however, too much faith may prevent individuals from seeing the world realistically. In Miguel De Cervantes’ book “Don Quijote,” the main character, Don Quijote, takes faith and literally makes it the deciding factor in how he sees the world. Because of the power Don Quijote gives his faith, it misleads him, and he makes poor decisions. For example; he injures himself fighting imaginary giants and hurts others to fulfill his imaginary role as a knight errant. Don Quijote takes faith from its rightful place by allowing it to extremely distort how he literally sees the world.
...ences the individuals dealt through in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes to avoid any personal bias, as he was a prisoner himself and emphasizes the notion that man has the ability to determine what will become of his life, as he himself was able to apply this thought while living three years in captivity. His notion of finding meaning in life becomes a key factor in survival, which was ultimately able to help him and help others under his teachings, to make it out from the camps alive with a positive attitude. The need for hope, gave him a purpose to keep fighting, although others became struck down with the thought of suicide. Though Victor E. Frankl faced many difficulties and challenges while in captivity and days following his release, he comes to the ultimate realization that life will never cease to have meaning, even when under the cruelest conditions.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
Faith is believed to be one of the most important elements attached to the life of a human being. Faith brings meaning to life. It is the essence that ties a person to life no matter the struggle encountered. Whenever some one looses faith in the people of their society, all he has felt is a religious believe which can be translated into “faith in God(s)';. In the stories “Bontsha the Silent'; and “Gimpel the Fool'; by Isaac Loeb Peretz and Isaac Bashevis Singer respectively, the protagonists are victims of tremendous sufferings, where faith is the only way out. However, the faith focused by both authors differ somewhat. Peretz prioritizes faith in the divine, while Singer elaborates faith in man around their protagonists.
Existentialists believe that “to live is to suffer; to survive is to find meaning in the suffering”. Despite all the horrific experiences in the concentration, Viktor Frankl is determined to not lose the significance of his life and succumb to the cruelty of his situation. With the use of three literary techniques- argumentation, rhetoric, and style- Frankl gives his proposition warrant that a man will not find meaning in his life by searching for it; he must give his life significance by answering questions life asks him.
Viktor Frankl's concept regarding survival and fully living was developed through his observations and experiences in the concentration camps. He used his psychiatric training to discern the meanings of observations and to help himself become a better person. He uses analysis to develop his own concepts and describes them in steps throughout the book. When the prisoners first arrived at the camp most of them thought they would be spared at the last moment. The prisoners believed they had a chance of surviving, but this belief was eventually eliminated and it was at this time when the prisoners began to learn how to survive by using their internal strength. A sense of humor had emerged among the prisoners. This humor helped to get through some difficult situations they faced. Viktor also observed how much a person could really endure and still live. Even though the prisoners could not clean their teeth and were deprived of warmth and vitamins, they still were able to survive. The sores and abrasions on their hands did not suppurate despite the dirt that gathered on them from the hard labor. The challenge of staying alive under these wretched conditions was to have and maintain strong internal strength. During the time he spent in the camps, Viktor learned what was needed to survive and how to keep his internal strength despite his weakening external strength. During the second stage of Viktor's psychological reaction, prisoners lost their sense of feeling and emotion toward events that would be emotional to people outside the camps. This was a result of the violent environment, which consisted of beatings of prisoners and the death of many others. The prisoners could no longer feel any disgust or horr...
Frankl was a strong believer that love and caring for someone can make you with stand any horrible event because you will do it for someone else. “My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing whic...
The question of suffering comes up much when talking about, or practicing any religion. Many ask why people suffer, and what causes suffering? The various religions try to answer these questions in their own way. Pico Iyer’s editorial, “The Value of Suffering” addresses the questions of suffering and how it is handled. This article could be compared to the Bhagavad-Gita which also addresses and explains suffering through different stories of the interactions of humans and different Gods. One can specifically look at “The Second Teaching” in the Bhagavad-Gita, which explains the interaction between a man named Arjuna and the god Krishna. In it Arjuna is suffering because he does not want to fight in a war and with people whom he should be worshiping. Krishna says to fight because the souls of the people will forever live on, and because he needs to fulfill his Dharma. With what is known about the Bhagavad-Gita and how Iyer thinks about the subject, Iyer would agree with how the Bhagavad-Gita address suffering.
The concept of suffering plays an important role in Christianity, regarding such matters as moral conduct, spiritual advancement and ultimate destiny. Indeed an emphasis on suffering pervades the Gospel of Mark where, it can be argued, we are shown how to "journey through suffering" (Ditzel 2001) in the image of the "Suffering Son of Man" (Mark 8:32), Jesus Christ. Although theologians have suggested that Mark was written to strengthen the resolve of the early Christian community (Halpern 2002, Mayerfeld 2005), the underlying moral is not lost on a modern reader grappling with multifarious challenges regarding faith in the face of suffering. In his article "A Christian Response to Suffering", William Marravee (1987) describes suffering as an "experience over which we men and women continue to stumble and fall". The way we view God is crucial to the way we view suffering according to Marravee, who delineates the disparity between a view of God as an ‘outsider’ and the biblical image of God – where God is an ‘insider’ who suffers with us in our struggle. This essay seeks to explain the Christian view of suffering and the purpose suffering can have in our lives.
In Viktor Frankl’s essay “Man’s Search For Meaning,” he recounts his experiences surviving the holocaust. Frankl shows how traumatic experiences shape people and force them to change in accordance with what is happening to them. Furthermore, he argues that adaptation was the only way he could survive. To prove this, he describes how he learned to shut himself off from certain aspects of his life and pay more attention to aspects of life that gave him hope, such as nature. Similarly, adaptation is also an important concern of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. In Beloved, Morrison explores Frankl’s idea about how people adapt differently to trauma, some love more than they previously had because they are finally free to do so, some try to find a shaky balance between independence and love and others rely too heavily on the love of a few.