1. Literary Analysis Essay Link
liturary_analysis_essay.docx | |
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File Type: | docx |
2. Story Summary
The story starts in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. The narrator, an Italian Jew, starts off by saying how he and his peers' only aim is to make it until spring. They look for signs of it every morning during roll call, and always comment on how much warmer the sun is today then yesterday. Then he goes on to explain how tough life is in the camp. He describes the Buna a huge entanglement of iron, concrete, mud, and smoke, and that it is essentially opaque and grey. Then one warm, sunny day the people of the camp think their problems are over, now that the cold has passed, but that sure isn't the case. As soon as their troubles of the cold have passed they begin to think of how hungry they are, and a new problem begins. While they are working they spot a machine, and while it is only a machine they personify it as steel jaws clamping down on its choice of food, and it keeps repeating. Many people begin telling stories of when they had plenty of food to spare, but the people can't take it and they tell the storytellers to stay quiet. Then there is a surprise. The official organizer of the Kommando has found a spare ninety pints of soup and says that there is enough for six pints for each person. For this one day, this one good day, their problems are gone. They are not cold, they are not hungry, but they feel good and they feel like free men.
3. Author Bio
Primo Levi, born on July 31, 1919, was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. Levi received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Turin in 1941. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, one of his essays include his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was arrested during the Second World War as a member of the anti-Fascist resistance and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. He then was diagnosed to scarlet fever and was left behind when the Germans evacuated the camp in anticipation of advancing Russian forces. In January 1945, Levi was liberated by the Red Guard and was forever changed by his experience. He went back to Milan, and he married Lucia Morpurgo and resumed his career as an industrial chemist. In 1977, he retired and wrote until his controversial death on April 11, 1987.
4. Cultural Connection
The chapter "A Good Day" is connected to many different cultures, that is partly because even though the author was from Italy he is in a camp in Poland with so many diffent people. There were several different Lagers, which included prisinors from England, Ukranian women, French volunteers, and over forty thousand workers in all. The one common similarity they have is the fact that they are all Jewish, no matter what country they are from. Even in the middle of the camp when they see the huge Carbide Tower, they can picture their culture's own Tower of Babel, in Shinar. This tower goes way back into biblical times, when the Jewish people thought it reached up to the heavens, and allowed God to come down and seperate the people and their languages. This allusion of the Tower of Babel shows that even in the toughest conditions cultures can still be shared and connected among a group of various people.
5. Interesting Tidbit
Primo Levi's work has made him one of the best Italian writers of his time. He has won many different awards; some of those awards include the Prato Prize for Resistance, the Strega Prize, the Campiello Prize, the Viareggio Prize, and many other smaller honors for his writing. His work on Survival in Auschwitz got him some of these awards, but that actually isn't the original name of the novel. The original name of the novel was If This is a Man and Primo Levi finished the peice in 1946. This is probably the piece that he is best known for and it recieved many awards on its own.