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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is this book most concerned with?

2. Why does the author decide not to try to escape the concentration camp?

3. What was the main characteristic of the second phase of the prisoner's mental life?

4. How did Frankl respond to an SS officer who called him a pig, and asked him what his profession was?

5. How did prisoners experience beauty?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the first section of the text, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp," what groups does Frankl identify within the concentration camp? Which group does he focus on? Why?

2. According to the first section of the text, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp," what advantages did the Capo have over normal prisoners?

3. What did Frankl call to "run into the wire"? What role did this play in camp life, and in the mental lives of prisoners in camp?

4. Who were termed "Moslems" in camp? What consequences did being called "Moslem" have?

5. Due to the difficult conditions and the need to fight for survival, which prisoners does Frankl claim were most likely to survive life in the concentration camp?

6. In the section on "Experiences in a Concentration Camp," Frankl describes a physical condition that affected "nearly all the camp inmates." What was this condition? How did it affect Frankl?

7. How did the Capo alter the normal reactions of those prisoners assigned to clean latrines?

8. What were the beatings like in the concentration camp? What does Frankl argue was the worst part of these?

9. After the initial mental phase that was characterized by shock, what characterized the second phase that Frankl noticed in his fellow prisoners and in himself?

10. In the first section of Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, Frankl writes of his job working to lay tracks for a railway line. What was this job like? Who paid for it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Frankl writes of how two men who were contemplating suicide seemed to have lost meaning in their lives. He writes, "In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them." How does Frankl understand and describe those who commit suicide? What role does finding the meaning in their lives play for him? Does he sympathize with their despair over their feeling of meaningless and suffering? Does he understand suicide to be a choice, or a simple reaction to unfavorable circumstances? Is this understood as characteristic of neurosis?

Essay Topic 2

Frankl writes about the importance of the malnutrition, or starving, of the prisoners at Auschwitz; What consequences did this have in terms of the prisoner's daily speech? How did it affect their dreams? What does Frankl argue that this starving of the prisoners prevented in camp life?

Essay Topic 3

Frankl describes the importance for the individual of finding meaning of life. He writes, "Man's search for meaning is a primary force in his life and not a 'secondary rationalization' of instinctual drives." How does he define the meaning of life? How does he suggest that people search for the meaning in their lives? What role does he give to the conditions in life that seem to fully determine behavior?

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