Survival In Auschwitz Analysis

In Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi describes his time in the concentration camp. The depiction of Auschwitz, is gruesome and vile in the Nazi’s treatment of the captives being held, but especially in the treatment of its Jewish prisoners. A key proponent to the text is Levi’s will to live which is shown in various places in the text, however a thematic element to the will to live is the reference to Inferno by Dante. In particular, the Inferno aids Survival in Auschwitz in by adding another layer of context to the prisoner’s condition, which resembles hell, and Levi’s will to live paralleling the character, Dante.

The direct reference to Dante comes in the form of Levi trying to recall a particular verse in the chapter, “The Canto of Ulysses”.

Jean, Levi’s fellow prisoner, is not familiar with Dante in the least which Levi accounts this as:
…Who is Dante? What is the Comedy? That curious sensation of novelty which one feels if one tries to explain briefly what the Divine Comedy is. How the Infermo is divided up, what are its punishments. Virgil is Reason; Beatrice is Theology (Primo 120).
Immediately, Levi is taken away from Auschwitz, from his hunger, and from the very real probability of his death. It is by trying to recall a few lines from the Inferno that enables Levi to escape into a temporal space where he can align himself with memories of his education on Dante, the significance of The Divine Comedy, and even says that he would give his soup away to remember “And over our heads the hollow seas closed up” which is a bold statement as he is emaciated from hunger. As a reference in the text, the Inferno, is significant as it represents a character change in Levi as well as equating Auschwitz with hell. Johnathan Druker, expands on this in his essay “The Shadowed Violence of Culture” as he explains this chapter as:
"The Canto of Ulysses" chapter is not only about literature as a form of cultural memory, but also about forgetting it. While reciting for Jean, Levi agonizes over the gaps in his memory of Canto XXVI, which become "irreparable" by the end of their soup-fetching journey... The silence evokes the painful death of memory that precedes the demise of the self. In his extraordinary willingness to sacrifice food in a place where hunger is constant, Levi acknowledges that his mind and spirit need nourishment, as well as his body, if he is to remain a man for a few more days (Druker 146).
Druker’s point that “spirit need nourishment, as well as his body, if he is to remain a man for a few more days” is relevant to the Survival in Auschwitz as Levi himself says acknowledges that in order to survive the concentration camp that a person needs “moral survival” just as much as someone needs food and water ( Levi 37). While the Inferno’s reference in Survival in Auschwitz, is significant to the chapter, “The Canto of Ulysses”, its implications stretch throughout the entire text.
While the Inferno is referenced explicitly in the chapter of, “The Canto of Ulysses”, it is also more implicitly referenced elsewhere in Survival in Auschwitz.

This allows the Inferno to be able to function as a complete juxtaposition of Levi’s narrative to Dante’s voyage into hell where Levi acts as Dante enduring trials and witnessing/experiencing hell first hand. For example, Nicholas Patruno affirms this in “Primo Levi, Dante, and the Canto of Ulysses” when he says:

Even before entering into Auschwitz, the reference to the Inferno is present in Levi’s description of the soldier who accompanies the prisoners from the cattle train to the camp in the truck. In the soldier’s request that those in the group turn over to him anything of value that they may have, Levi relies on a parallel to Dante’s description of Charon, the demon who, in canto III of the Inferno, takes the damned in a boat across the Acheron River and who, according to the legend expected some kind of compensation for his labor (Patruno

35).
Patruno’s point should not be mistaken as saying that Levi modeled his narrative, but rather, the impact the Inferno has had on him, permeates through Survival in Auschwitz’s subtext. Similarly, it corresponds to the notion that Levi is making Auschwitz a representation of hell not only to draw similarities to the Inferno, but because it actually was for him and the prisoners. An instance where this takes place in the text happens early on. In the chapter, “On the bottom”, Levi narrates:
This is hell. Today, in our times, hell must be like this: A huge empty room. We are tired, standing on our feet, with a tap which drips while we cannot drink the water, and we wait for something which will certainly be terrible, and nothing happens and nothing continues to happen. What can one think about? One cannot think anymore; it is like being already dead (Levi 17).
Levi evokes the hell imagery from the start of Survival in Auschwitz. By doing so, he makes his text a narrative about that much impactful on the reader. Since, his reference to the Inferno permeates through the text, it acts as both a narrative influence in terms of how to describe the experience and a way to accurately portray how he and the prisoners in the concentration camp were feeling.
The aforementioned passage on hell also functions as a more implicit reference to the Inferno.

However, this is dependent on the translations in both Levi and Dante’s texts as the two can be further intertwined. Nicholas Patruno, believes the sign “Arbeit macht Frei, Work Gives Freedom” that is present upon Levi’s arrival to the camp is a reference to “the words cast in stone over the entrance to Dante’s Inferno… ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter’” (Patruno 35). This makes sense as these signs function as ominous messages to the characters of what is to come. Likewise, he also asserts that when Levi says, “the memory of it still strikes me in my dreams” in the chapter “On the bottom”, is a direct reference to Dante saying, “the thought of it reawakens the fear” (36). Patruno’s point illuminates both texts through his translations as Levi is making references to the Inferno beyond just thematic content. This corresponds to the impact Dante had on Levi as his narrative is making implicit references to Dante’s character as they both undergo the similar scenarios. So while Levi is writing about actual events that took place, he cannot help but reference Dante as the similarities are

daunting.
The chapter, “The Canto of Ulysses”, functions in a variety of ways throughout the text. Nicholas Patruno believes this chapter to be a “turning point in Levi’s own Auschwitz odyssey” as he moves from an observer to a more active role as seen in later chapters of the book. He also argues that:
While Ulysses’s words may have meant nothing to the others, they prove to be decisive for Levi. Dante, who has supplied the author with a rendering of a hell to which he can compare his own, now provides him with a Ulysses figure who gives him the strength to resist that hell (39-40).
This becomes prevalent in the later chapters of the book where Levi is helping Kraus in the latter part of the text. In effort to make Kraus work slower so that he does not dies of exhaustion, Levi begins to tell him of a dream he has had in which there is a “loaf of four pound bread”, “food and drink”, and “a good bed” for him to sleep in (Levi 144). Levi’s effort to allow Kraus a means of relaxation also shows his growth as a person and even embodying Ulysses as Patruno suggests. Another aspect to Kraus’ story is how references within the text allow for an individual to mentally escape the confines of the concentration camp. By vividly trying to depict a dream to Kraus, they are both in a temporal space where the hard labor, starvation, and the fear of imminent death seize to exist. This first occurs during Levi’s attempts to remember the lines to Canto XXVI which relates back to Druker’s idea of “mind and spirit need nourishment” if one is to survive. The reference to Inferno is more than just an acknowledgment to Dante for his impact and literary contributions from The Divine Comedy, it is what kept Levi alive during these time of intense physical and mental stresses that resulted from surviving in a concentration camp.
In conclusion, the Inferno’s significance in the text is relevant to how the narrative is framed. This is not to say that Levi wrote Survival in Auschwitz to model his experience after Dante’s poem, but that his experiences parallel the Inferno as the concentration camp was a literal hell for Levi. With that said, the reference is most parts of the novel either as Patruno’s points out from translations of the text or from character development from Canto XXVI as Ulysses can be a model for Levi to “resist that hell”. In either case, the Inferno’s influence is a reoccurring element throughout the text and allows the reader to understand the personification of hell through its literary usage. Finally, by understanding the significance of the Inferno, in the context that Levi provides, it acts a reference to the outside world; keeping him alive during strife and peril.