Reading Guide to Mans Search for Meaning Imagine you are a young, up and coming psychologist working in Vienna
in the middle of the 20th century. Youre bright, and can boast of having attended lectures by Freud. You have been working with suicidal cases, and have formulated a theory which challenges the different approaches to psychoanalysis that have been developed thus far. The only problem is: you are a Jew during the Nazi era. You try to hide your manuscript as you are processed on arrival at Auschwitz, but it is taken from you. Nothing in your life has any meaning: you are only a number, a source of biological energy while you are able to do manual labor and a source of raw material when you are dead. What doesnt get used will be incinerated, or buried in a mass unmarked grave. Arbeit macht frei proclaims the gates at Auschwitz work will make you free. Against the odds, you survive. While in the death camp system, you find yourself continuing to act the part of the psychiatric analyst, observing human behavior all around you. And you begin to notice that physical strength and stamina are not indicators of who will survive. Some of the fittest physical specimens are the quickest to die. No, there is some other factor that makes a person a candidate for survival (if the disease, work, undernourishment and lack of sleep dont ultimately kill you): and, oddly enough, you already knew what it was. Your manuscript, applied to the life in the camps, predicted who could survive and who would succumb. We will be reading pages 15-105. By the end of your study you should be able to: Explain Frankls position on mans search for meaning o Why it is an indirect search (compare with happiness and success) o The three ways the search must be conducted o Why he disagrees with Freud and Maslow Explain how Frankl proposes to show that his thesis is valid, and give examples from the text of instances where prisoners succeeded or failed in the search Relate Frankls ideas on the nature of the meaning of human life to your own Discuss his idea of the last of human freedoms in the context of the different circumstances we all meet in life
Reading Schedule: Read at least 15 pages per night on average. You must be past page 38 by 9/13; 84 by 9/17; finished by 9/19. You must journal in your notebook each time you read: o Pages read o What struck you most? o What was agreeable? What was disagreeable? o What questions did it raise? The Guide on the other side is meant to help you focus your reading and prepare for pop quizzes
1) Read the preface to the 1984 edition: a) Find, in Frankls words, his thesis on page 16. b) Put into your own words Frankls stated method of demonstrating his thesis is true (validation) and see if you can explain what he means by existential. c) Contrast his theory about the ensuit of happiness with your own understanding of the pursuit of happiness. (Use a dictionary to be sure you understand ensues; note his example of how success ensues.) Frankls Analysis of The Psychological Life of a Death Camp Inmate 2) Although he is speaking in generalities, he is describing what happens to a person in these circumstances. Read pages 21-25, and summarize what he is saying about personal experience and its relationship to facts and figures. Frankl describes three states of a prisoners mental condition: arrival (p25-38), survival (p38-105), and release (p105-115). 3) Read pages 25-38. Arrival is marked by shock, disbelief (illusion of reprieve), a strange kind of humor and curiosity, and thoughts of suicide. Which of these most affected Frankl? What were the events surrounding his decision to strike out his former life and how did this affect him? Theres no surprise here: to survive this kind of brutality you have to disassociate yourself from what is happening. A kind of relative apathy marks the second phase. (Look up apathy in the dictionary). What makes it relative? What happens to those for whom it ceases to be relative but becomes total apathy? 4) Read pages 38 - 55. How does the prisoner protect himself, and what can penetrate that protection (hint: page 44). 5) Read pages 55 85. He claims it was possible for the spiritual life to deepen. What does he mean? What evidence of this does he offer? Note here his attitude towards fate. Is it fatalistic? 6) Go back and review Frankls experience of his wifes presence. For Frankl, is this a real presence? How does what he is saying here compare to what he says about personal experience vs. facts? 7) Pages 85 105 contain the heart of Frankls perspective. In them you will find What he calls the inner life The relationship of this inner life to a sense of the future What the last of human freedoms is, and why this ultimately makes us responsible for choosing how we respond to lifes circumstances How lifes circumstances change from moment to moment, but can be classified in three basic groups, each of which calls for a different response: creative work, relationships/appreciation, and enduring unavoidable suffering Why it is necessary to be able to answer life when challenged by unavoidable (existential) suffering Why the meaning of life cannot be given to someone; the importance of concrete, personal circumstances.
