Thursday, October 23, 2014

Common Themes

The passage “Experiences in a Concentration Camp” from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl shares many of the same topics and motifs as King Lear. The theme of power is the first to come to mind, most likely because it seems to be very prominent between the two. The topics of weak men and suffering, however, are also present.

On page 32 in the passage, Frankl describes how a colleague of his sneaks into his “block” and gives advice on how to survive: “If you want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work. If you even limp, because, let us say, you have a small blister on your heel, and an SS man spots this, he will wave you aside and the next day you are sure to be gassed.” This not only relates to the motif of weak men, it also falls under the category of appearance vs. reality. The prisoners are disguising their suffering and pain in order to stay alive.

This leads me to the next theme: suffering. As mentioned in previous posts, Frankl describes how mental pain can be more scarring than physical pain: “At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most…it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all” (36). Lear is also forced to endure a form of mental suffering after his daughters’ betrayal and loss of power.

There are obviously many more thematic links between these two stories, but I thought that these were some of the most dominant.

1 comment:

  1. At first I found it difficult to see how Frankl's situation would connect to King Lear. However, I agree that there is a common theme of suffering. I think it's interesting how the two readings compare mental and physical suffering.

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