Man's Search for Meaning

51 pages • 1 hour read

Man's Search for Meaning

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1946

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Introduction

Before Reading

During Reading

After Reading

During Reading

Reading Questions & Paired Texts

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

PREFACE

Reading Check

1. Who is the author of the Preface?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Frankl explain his reason for writing the book?

2. How did Frankl’s father inspire him not to escape the Nazis?

Paired Resource

“The Life of Viktor Frankl”

This resource offers a brief biography of Viktor Frankl, including his experiences from before as well as after the writing of his famous book.
This connects to the themes of Meaning, Faith, and Human Decency.
Who was Viktor Frankl before he entered the concentration camps? How did Frankl’s experiences in World War II change his life?

PART 1

Reading Check

1. At which concentration camp was Frankl initially held?

2. What happened to the prisoners who were led to the left when they arrived at camp?

3. According to Frankl, what was the second psychological reaction of the prisoners after their initial shock?

4. What does Frankl describe seeing on his way to Dachau?

5. What were the two main topics of conversation in the concentration camps?

6. Why were the prisoners in a good mood on their way to Dachau?

7. What was Frankl’s job at the rest camp?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What did the veteran prisoners tell Frankl he must do to survive?

2. Who were the “Capos”? Why were they often more brutal than the guards?

3. How does Frankl describe the effects of the prisoners’ starvation diet on the mind?

4. How does Frankl characterize the religious feelings that many prisoners developed?

5. Why did Frankl feel the need to “make his will” before leaving Dachau?

6. Why did Frankl decide to stay in the rest camp when the front got closer to the camp?

7. How does Frankl characterize the disillusionment that many prisoners faced after their liberation?

Paired Resources

“The Nuremberg Trials”

This page hosted by the National WWII Museum gives an informative overview of the Nuremberg Trials, in which Nazi leaders stood trial for war crimes they committed during World War II.
This article connects to the theme of Human Decency.
Who were the Nazi leaders tried during the Nuremberg Trials? What do these trials show about human nature and human decency?

“Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment: Summary, Results, & Ethics”

This overview explains the infamous study in obedience, created by a Yale psychologist, that aspired to test the justifications of Nazi war criminals.
This article connects to the theme of Human Decency.
What did the Milgram Experiment prove? Do you think the experiment was ethical?

PART 2

Reading Check

1. What goal gave Frankl meaning during his imprisonment?

2. According to Frankl, why does Freudian psychotherapy often keep the patient stuck?

3. Why does Frankl oppose overmedication in psychotherapy?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is logotherapy? What is the goal of this form of therapy?

2. What are the first two “Viennese Schools of Psychotherapy”? How does Frankl describe them and their aims?

3. Why does logotherapy look forward rather than backward?

POSTSCRIPT

Reading Check

1. When did Frankl write the Postscript?

2. What are the two main types of people in the world, according to Frankl?

3. According to Frankl, are the majority of people decent or indecent?

4. At the end of his Postscript, what does Frankl say everybody needs to do to prevent the world from getting worse?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is “tragic optimism”?

2. Why does Frankl argue that young people should envy old people rather than pity them?

3. Why does Frankl oppose Freud’s hypothesis that people all respond in the same way to the same stimuli?

Paired Resource

“Edith Hall on Greek Tragedy and Suffering”

In this 3-minute video, classics professor Edith Hall explains the philosophical role of suffering in ancient tragedy.
This video connects to the themes of Meaning and Faith.
How was Frankl’s idea of “tragic optimism” inspired by ancient tragedy?

Recommended Next Reads

Night by Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel’s memoir gives an unflinching and unforgettable look at his experiences at the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald.
Shared themes include Meaning, Faith, and Human Decency.
Shared topics include the Holocaust and antisemitism.
Night on SuperSummary

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

One of the most influential books in the field of psychoanalysis, this text established many of Freud’s contributions to the field through an exploration of the significance of dreams.
A shared theme is Meaning.
A shared topic is psychology.
The Interpretation of Dreams on SuperSummary

Reading Questions Answer Key

PREFACE

Reading Check

1. Viktor Frankl (Preface)

Short Answer

1. In the Preface to the 1992 edition of his book, Frankl explains that he “had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of a concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones.” (Preface)

2. Frankl tells a story about how his father brought home a piece of debris from a synagogue burned down by the Nazis. The debris, a gilded Hebrew letter, represented the biblical commandment to honor one’s parents, which moved Frankl to stay in Europe with his parents. (Preface)

PART 1

Reading Check

1. Auschwitz (Part 1)

2. They were killed in gas chambers. (Part 1)

3. A shutdown of their emotions (Part 1)

4. The house in Vienna where he grew up (Part 1)

5. Politics and religion (Part 1)

6. Because they found out that Dachau had no gas chambers (Part 1)

7. Doctor (Part 1)

Short Answer

1. When Frankl arrived at Auschwitz, veteran prisoners explained to him that the only way to survive was to “look fit for work.” (Part 1)

2. Capos were prisoners who helped supervise their fellow prisoners. They often had to be more brutal than the regular guards so that they could maintain their privileges. (Part 1)

3. Frankl describes how the prisoners’ starvation diet caused them to become obsessed with food, fantasizing about the food they would have at the end of the war. These fantasies made it more difficult for them to cope with their rations. (Part 1)

4. Frankl writes that the “religious interest” of many of the prisoners “was the most sincere imaginable,” reaching great depths and even moving some to survive. (Part 1)

5. Frankl made his “will” before leaving Dachau because he was not sure whether he was being sent to a rest camp or whether this claim about a rest camp was merely a ruse. (Part 1)

6. Though Frankl had a chance to escape when the front got closer to his rest camp, he “decided to take fate into [his] own hands for once” and stay with his patients. (Part 1)

7. Frankl says that many freed prisoners felt extreme disillusionment when they went home not because they were expecting happiness but because they “were not prepared for unhappiness.” The experience of not knowing how to reintegrate into life was hard for many freed prisoners. (Part 1)

PART 2

Reading Check

1. Completing and publishing his manuscript (Part 2)

2. Because it focuses on the past rather than the future (Part 2)

3. Because he believes a person’s primary goal should be to actively seek meaning (Part 2)

Short Answer

1. Logotherapy is the name of Frankl’s psychological theory. It refers to a form of therapy that emphasizes the search for meaning as “the primary motivational force in man.” (Part 2)

2. The first Viennese school of psychotherapy was the one founded by Sigmund Freud, who focused on the human impulse to experience pleasure while avoiding pain. The second school, founded by Alfred Adler, revised Freud’s view by suggesting that humans are primarily motivated not by pleasure but by power in the social sphere. (Part 2)

3. Since logotherapy is focused on the search for meaning, it looks forward rather than backward, “that is to say, on the meaning to be fulfilled by the patient in his future.” (Part 2)

POSTSCRIPT

Reading Check

1. 1984 (Postscript)

2. Swine and saints (decent and indecent people) (Postscript)

3. Indecent (Postscript)

4. Do their best (Postscript)

Short Answer

1. Tragic optimism refers to Frankl’s idea that humans can turn the negative aspects of their lives into something positive or constructive. (Postscript)

2. Frankl thinks old people occupy an enviable position because “instead of possibilities in the future, they have the realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.” (Postscript)

3. Frankl challenges Freud’s hypothesis that people all respond in the same way to the same stimuli because, based on his experiences, some people are decent and some are not, and their nature conditions how they respond to stimuli. (Postscript)