Human Cruelty In Candide And Tadeusz Borowski's

Literature is one of the most powerful tools when attempting to understand both the human condition and the surrounding world. A talented writer is not only able to tell a compelling narrative but also give key insights on themes and motives concerning why individuals and humanity, as a whole, carry out or experience certain actions or emotions. One of the overarching concerns many writers try to tackle is the nature of human cruelty and the justification of such cruelty. Two works separated by two centuries, Voltaire’s Candide and Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman, both take their stance on how human cruelty is justified and how individuals act in the face of atrocity. While Candide was written during the time of the Enlightenment and utilizes its ways of thinking to support its themes and messages, This Way …show more content…
His two main characters, Henri and the narrator, show distaste for both religion those who have faith in it. While in the bunks, both the narrator and the other prisoners scorn a rabbi for praying loudly, “Can somebody shut him up… that much sooner” (Borowski 2). Henri then interjects with the statement, “Religion is the opium of the people” (Borowski 3). This exchange, while it may be insignificant in comparison to the horrid things mentioned later on, shows the reader how the characters view religion in their situation. As soon as the new arrivals and acts of cruelty begin to happen, Henri and the narrator become selfish only worrying about what loot they might receive or their suffering caused by the passenger’s. Borowski is making a statement on how humanity behaves in dire times without the strict moral guidance of a faith. While the rabbi who was chastised earlier shares the same situation and most likely a worse outcome, the reader could infer he would never share the same cruel sentiments the two main characters