Dr. Frankl was an author of many books and a psychiatrist. He was one of very few survivors of Concentration camps during World War 2. In the book, Man’s Search for Meaning he revealed the everyday life of prisoners in concentration camps controlled by the Nazis. Inmates were stripped of their own names and possessions and each inmate was known for his/her number. The primal theme of this story lies in the topic of the book. I am going to discuss the Meaning of Life and how was it used by inmates as a methodology for survival and overcoming the suffering.
According to Frankl, I think the meaning of life to him comes from the central theme of existentialism “to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in dying” (9) and “don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.” (12). I think those two ideologies were the main reasons for him being one of very few to survive the smaller more brutal camps. In the first citation lies the importance of faith in some sorts, hope and need for survival were attributes that overcame sleep deprivation, diseases and seeing people die around him day after day for years. He did not aim for leaving the camp alive, all he cared about was survival. An inmate’s main priority was keeping himself and his dear …show more content…
This is supported by Dr. Frankl and other inmate’s attitude regarding death and how they stripped death from its seriousness, although the behavior is, in fact, abnormal but it was valid after grasping the whole picture of their environment where dying incidents were as frequent as breathing, another part that is related to that was when starvation got bad cannibalism was the solution that inmates tended to do for
According to Frankl, I think the meaning of life to him comes from the central theme of existentialism “to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in dying” (9) and “don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.” (12). I think those two ideologies were the main reasons for him being one of very few to survive the smaller more brutal camps. In the first citation lies the importance of faith in some sorts, hope and need for survival were attributes that overcame sleep deprivation, diseases and seeing people die around him day after day for years. He did not aim for leaving the camp alive, all he cared about was survival. An inmate’s main priority was keeping himself and his dear …show more content…
This is supported by Dr. Frankl and other inmate’s attitude regarding death and how they stripped death from its seriousness, although the behavior is, in fact, abnormal but it was valid after grasping the whole picture of their environment where dying incidents were as frequent as breathing, another part that is related to that was when starvation got bad cannibalism was the solution that inmates tended to do for