If This Is a Man

“I was captured by the Fascist Militia on December 13, 1943” (Levi 2). Thus begins Primo Levi’s account of the debilitation, demoralization, and destruction he witnessed as a prisoner of the Nazi regime’s largest concentration camp, Auschwitz. Levi’s memoir, If This is a Man, requires its readers to examine and comprehend the history surrounding the extreme actions taken against the Jewish population during World War II. However, in the 21st century, the understanding of this genocide is schooled into us in the midst of our primary and secondary education. While this knowledge of the past is necessary, to fully contextualize Levi’s oeuvre, one must essentially examine Levi himself. Therefore, the biographical, humanistic, and literary influences…

The title of Primo Levi’s memoir if This is a Man has the sense that it is an unfinished statement. I have always envisaged it to be ‘if this is a man, then I don’t know what isn’t’ as a statement to question what defines a man. In his memoir, Levi explores this idea of what it means to be a man. He achieves this by using variation in tense to initiate the breakdown on humanity and through the selection of individuals he writes about who epitomize what it means to be a man, and what it means to…

implications and utilizations of words like "great," "wickedness," "just," and "uncalled for" start to combine and the contrasts between these perfect inverses get to be distinctly indistinct. To make due in Auschwitz required a cleansing of one 's confidence and human respect. Introduction to ceaseless dehumanization definitely drives one to be dehumanized, constraining one to fall back on mental, physical, and social adjustment keeping in mind the end goal to hold one 's life and identity. It…

Upon arrival the prisoners were forced to strip down and dispose of their clothes, shave their heads and faces, and change into the matching striped uniforms. In the end, telling them apart would be nearly impossible; their only defining feature being the number tattooed on their arm. No longer an individual but just one of the millions; disposable. Once you take away someone’s identity you take away his or her only will to survive, the only thing that would give them motivation to fight for…

The Three reasons why I Respect this Man (The paper of Christopher Eric Christenson) Have you ever lost someone that was so close to you? Have you ever been in a situation that would affect your life forever? Do you get reminders every day, that the your loved one is gone? Do you wish you could go back so you can hug them, and say “I love you”. It’s sad when you have lost one of the most important people in your life, and you can’t go back to relive the moments you took for granite. I…

humans are animals. Believing ourselves to be the pinnacle of creation, the smartest and most capable of all that populate this planet, we face a conundrum that we fall in the same classification with earthworms, flounder, bulldogs, and orangutans. Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist, explained this by asserting “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun” (Clifford 5). Those “webs of significance” are culture. So when we strike down the sticky mess of threads that…

In the memoir If This Is A Man written by Primo Levi, Primo Levi is an Italian Jew who was captured in 1943 as a prisoner. Every single belonging he has got was taken away from him even his name. He was then assigned as a number for his identification in the camp: 174517. Through out his time in the Auschwitz’s camp he met the other prisoner which some of the prisoner he have met also taught him a important and useful real life lesson. Where each of the other prisoners is added into his memoir…

In Primo Levi’s memoir, If This Is a Man, Levi focuses not on just recounting the atrocities he was forced to endure and bear witness to but provides a coldly objective narrative of the acts that humans are capable of in extreme situations. These acts run the gamut from kindness exhibited with no expectations in return to callous manipulation to the detriment of others. Levi is very intentional in avoiding judging the actions of others in the camp, although he cannot always remain so objective…

Stack sets up Every Man in this Village is a Liar in a sequential and methodical way. The chapters are based on themes, with each chapter focusing on a different country she reported from and her personal interactions and descriptions of her time in them. Despite the sequential setup of the memoir, it still comes off as bouncing from country to country and interaction to interaction. Stack could have included more information between her different narratives rather than jumping between stories.…

During his conversation with the younger waiter at the café, the older waiter contradicts what the younger waiter say about the old man. For example, when the younger waiter says “I wouldn 't want to be that old […] an old man is a nasty thing” (Hemingway 2). The older waiter says "Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk. Look at him "(Hemingway 2). This exhibits that while the younger waiter give little respect to the old man by calling him as a “nasty…