If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Book Analysis) E-Book

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• Herausgeber: BrightSummaries.com
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: BrightSummaries.com
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 26

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Unlock the more straightforward side of If This Is a Man with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!

This engaging summary presents an analysis of If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, which details the author’s experiences in Buna-Monowitz, one of the subcamps of the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp. Levi was captured in 1944 while fighting with the Italian Resistance and deported to Buna-Monowitz, where he remained until the camp was liberated by the Red Army the following year. As well as a harrowing account of the horrors of the concentration camp system, If This Is a Man is also a meditation on what it means to be human and the difficulty of retaining a sense of identity within a structure devoid of moral values. Primo Levi was an Italian writer and Holocaust survivor whose best-known books include The Periodic Table, The Truce and The Drowned and the Saved. He committed suicide in 1987, at the age of 67.

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Leseprobe

PRIMO LEVI

ITALIAN WRITER AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR

Born in Turin in 1919.Died in Turin in 1987.Notable works:The Truce (1963), novelThe Wrench (1978), novelThe Drowned and the Saved (1986), essays

Primo Levi was born in Turin to a middle-class Jewish family. After studying chemistry in his hometown, he moved to Milan for work and joined the anti-fascist resistance in 1943. As a result, he was arrested and deported to Auschwitz on 22 February 1944. He remained there for a year, until the camp’s liberation by the Red Army in January 1945. Upon his return to Italy, he found work as a chemist and married Lucia Morpurgo, with whom he had two children.

Immediately after his return from Auschwitz, he began work on his first book, If This Is a Man (1947). This was followed by several others, including The Truce (1963), which tells of his journey back to Italy, The Periodic Table (1975), which focuses on his experiences as a chemist, and The Drowned and the Saved (1986), his last and darkest book. Levi committed suicide in 1987.

IF THIS IS A MAN

AUSCHWITZ AND THE ANNIHILATION OF HUMANITY

Genre: autobiographical novelReference edition: Levi, P. (1991) If This Is a Man/The Truce. Trans. Woolf, S. London: Abacus.1st edition: 1947Themes: the Holocaust,Second World War, Nazism, concentration camps, survival, humanity

If This Is a Man was one of the first accounts of life in the Nazi concentration camps to be published and, according to its author, aims to “furnish documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind”. This first-person narrative was motivated by Levi’s urgent need to share his experience of Auschwitz with those who had not experienced its horrors.

The novel was first published in 1947 by a small publishing company, and to begin with its success was modest. It was not until it was republished in 1958 that the book reached a bigger audience, even inspiring theatre and radio adaptations. Since then, If This Is a Man has come to be considered one of the most important literary works about concentration camps.

SUMMARY

LIFE IN THE CAMP

At the age of 24, Levi joins the anti-fascist resistance in Italy, which leads to his arrest by the militia. During the ensuing interrogation, he declares himself an “Italian citizen of Jewish race”. He is then sent to a camp near Modena. From there, 600 Jews – men, women and children – are transported to Auschwitz in sealed goods wagons.

There, the healthy are separated from the sick, with the former sent to the Buna-Monowitz and Birkenau camps, and the latter condemned to the gas chamber. Levi describes the men who know they are leaving for their death and their astonishment at the gratuitous, emotionless brutality of the SS.