Primo Levi Essays
Primo Levi: The Two-Part Victim
Survival in Auschwitz
The victimization of Primo Levi must be addressed in two parts: the victimization of his body and the victimization of his humanity. The distinction, as menial as it may appear, is essential in placing blame for the horrors of his experiences in...
Ordinary Men and Women: What We Can Learn from Non-Traditional Sources
Survival in Auschwitz
History, always open to interpretation, is not merely limited to the traditional sources. It can be viewed through forms such as fiction, autobiography, or journalistic memoir, as demonstrated by Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front,...
The Survival of Hope in Auschwitz 11th Grade
Survival in Auschwitz
In his memoir, Survival In Auschwitz, Primo Levi defines hope and expresses its significance as a key feature of our humanity through the use of style, characterization and tone.
Levi poignantly defines his personal definition of hope through the...
Levi the Chemist and Levi the Writer: Survival in Auschwitz College
Survival in Auschwitz
When considering Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, one is immediately struck by his deadpan tone, emphasis on factual descriptions and blunt presentation of his content. Levi comments on the events he describes and offers his own insight, but...
Alberto and Lorenzo: Redeemers and Saviors 11th Grade
Survival in Auschwitz
Within Survival in Auschwitz, author Primo Levi endured a struggle with resisting dehumanization. He had been put in a place where no man is considered human anymore and where within this place, if a man wants to survive whether mentally or...
Fleeting Trusts and Moldy Crusts College
Survival in Auschwitz
There’s a plethora of adjectives one could apply to the survivors of Hitler’s nightmarish concentration camps during the later years of the second world war; lucky, miraculous, strong-willed, and many more. However, what one must begin to...
In Memory of Auschwitz College
Survival in Auschwitz
Survival in Auschwitz is a memoir written by Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who was sent to and worked in the Auschwitz-Monowitz labor camp during the later years of World War II. Levi’s memoir is significant for its...
Disguised Imperfections: Human Nature in "The Little Prince," "The Mirror Maker," and "The Nose" College
The Mirror Maker: Stories and Essays
Imperfection, like mortality itself, is an integrated aspect of being human. Most people, however, try to mask theirs through self-importance and ambition. Self-importance and ambition help to promote self-confidence and the illusion of perfection...
The Oppressed and the Oppressor College
The Drowned and the Saved
Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved provides another perspective on the holocaust and uses real-life stories and experiences to explain the nature of the behavior of those involved, the oppressed and the oppressor. His essays are important in...
Will the Barbarians Ever Arrive?: Scapegoating in the Writings of Coetzee and Primo Levi College
The Drowned and the Saved
Both Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee and The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi deal with the weighty themes of dehumanization, oppression, and the darkest sides of humanity. Similarities between the apparatus of oppression depicted...