Primo Levi
"Shame"
This chapter, which is the third in the book but is the first of the book I have read, delineates Levi's brief reflections on his time in Auschwitz in the context of shame.
Levi frames the chapter by explanations of his time at the death camp as a time in which his humanity, and indeed humanity in general, was suspended for the animalistic goal of survival. This suspension is a great source of shame for Levi, and further, in its inability to be clearly or rationally explained, constitutes a defining trauma for the writer.
The real lack of humanity is demonstrated in a change in the "moral yardstick" of the prisoners, and with that change an accompanying lack of solidarity so essential for survival in extreme circumstances. Indeed, Levi includes a few personal anecdotes in which the act of sharing, or even lending a listening ear, became completely impossible due to the challenges of survival.
Further defining the trauma for Levi is the coincidental nature of survival. Told by a friend that he must have survived to write, to bear witness, Levi stated that it was not the good or true people who survived. Rather, Levi felt those people were more likely to die, while the worse ones survived. This seems to be an obvious expression of survivor guilt.
Significantly, Levi ends the chapter with a prediction that events like those in the Holocaust could still occur in the postmodern contemporary world, specifically in the non-Western world.
Something to think about: trauma and postmodernity
No comments:
Post a Comment