Tasia Barefield

PHIL 104 - 003

Professor Steinbock

2-19-13

What is the Meaning of Life? After reading A Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor R. Frankl and short story The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man by Fyodor Dostoevsky, one may begin to question freedom and the meaning of life is. Both books give their readers an abundance of information for them to decide for themselves if these two things go hand in hand. After reading both books I came to realize that a person does not need to be free to have a meaning of life. A person can find happiness in any situation they are placed in when they just have to find a reason to be happy. The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man is a short story from the novel The Brothers Karamazov. The story about human nature and freedom is told by Ivan to his younger brother Alyosha. Alyosha just so happens to be a Monk and Ivan questions if there is a God. Their discussion is very dramatic and causes its readers to assume Ivan’s standpoint on religious faith. It almost seems as if Ivan is trying to get Alyosha to really think about his faith. He never says what he truly believes in; he kept his role as storyteller throughout the whole story. Dostoevsky’s story is about Jesus returning to earth to the city of Seville, during the Spanish Inquisition. He explains that the people automatically recognized him when they first saw him. Ivan explains to Alyosha saying: He comes silently and unannounced; yet all—how strange—yea, all recognize Him, at once! The population rushes towards Him as if propelled by some irresistible force; it surrounds, throngs, and presses around, it follows Him.... Silently, and with a smile of boundless compassion upon His lips, He crosses the dense crowd, and moves softly on. The Sun of Love burns in His heart, and warm rays of Light, Wisdom and Power beam forth from His eyes, and pour down their waves upon the swarming multitudes of the rabble assembled around, making their hearts vibrate with returning love. He extends His hands over their heads, blesses them, and from mere contact with Him, aye, even with His garments, a healing power goes forth. The Grand Inquisitor does not like how the people are falling at this man’s hands and feet. The Grand Inquisitor is a ninety-year-old man who commands his guards to seize this man who the people believe is their Savior. The Grand Inquisitor intent was to have him burnt the next day. After Jesus is thrown into a prison cell, The Grand Inquisitor pays him a visit. He starts to question Jesus, but then commands him not speak at all. He continues to question why he guarantees the intolerable burden of complete freedom on poor, depraved humanity. The Grand Inquisitor thinks that the eternal love that Jesus is giving to men and women is impossible and pointless. He believes that human beings cannot and do not want to be free. Reading this story most would look at The Grand Inquisitor as the bad guy. He may seem this way but he believes he is truly doing what is right. He wants the people to be happy in his eyes he is giving the people what they want and that is “the bread of the earth,” while Jesus is offering eternal bread of heaven. The Grand Inquisitor suggests one relief and that is the church. “Better that you enslave us, but feed us,” is the people’s cry; the Church in its wisdom responds to this plea with the three temptations “miracle, mystery, and authority.” The common people want to worship, not understand. The Grand Inquisitor strongly believes that God does not know how weak human beings are. His love consists of protecting them in their frailty, not cruelly rubbing their noses in it. When the Grand Inquisitor stops speaking, Jesus says nothing. He just leans forward and kisses The Grand Inquisitor on the lips. The Inquisitor does not have Jesus put to death in the end. Instead he sends him away, telling him to never return. Comparatively, Man’s Search for Meaning is about a man’s experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp as an inmate during World War II. The book begins with the author, Viktor Frankl’s explanation for writing the book. He then begins telling his life wrenching story about entering Auschwitz. Frankl makes reference to a condition he called “delusion of reprieve” (Frankl 28). This was when man gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the last minute, right before his execution. When the prisoners first arrived to Auschwitz it did not look so bad to them. The prisoners that were there seemed to be in good health and surprisingly happy. Little did they know that both men and women would be stripped and all of their belongings would be taken away from them. They would be guided by a man who would order them to go right or left. One way was to the crematories if they did not look strong enough to work, and the other direction would be to the cleansing station. After that every hair on their bodies was shaved. Looking back over his entrance into Auschwitz, Frankl states, "if someone now asked of us the truth of Dostoevsky's statements that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply 'yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how'"(36). He also says: The thought of suicide was entertained by everyone, if only for a brief time. It was born of the hopelessness of the situation, the constant danger of death looming over us daily and hourly, and the closeness of the deaths suffered by many of the others….The prisoner of Auschwitz, in the first phase of shock, did not fear death. Even the gas chambers lost their horrors for him after the first few days-after all, they spared him the act of committing suicide (Frankl 36-37). Both of these quotes have great importance in describing how traumatic the entrance into Auschwitz was. Frankl expressed how man lost their fear of death within a matter of days. He then talks about the prisoners in their second phase of imprisonment, after the initial shock had gone away. He explains how numbness overcomes a prisoner and how he can became able to watch a man be beaten to death and it not even bother him one but. Frankl also reminiscences about how while taking care of typhoid patients, he would watch people die horrible deaths all day, but would experience no emotional upset at all. These situations show how his mind was on one thing and one thing only, and that was to survive. Frankl explains that they had to keep their sense of humor and recognize the beauty of the world to go on each day. Viktor Frankl shares many more of his experiences, and finally explains how a prisoner reacts after they are free. He shares how that even after rescue, a prisoner had a hard time escaping the hard times that they have experienced. Frankl shares an example, "We came to meadows full of flowers. We saw and realized that they were there, but had no feelings about them” (Frankl 109). This quote explains how hard the transition from a death camp into real life must have been. He goes on to explain how a prisoner had lost the ability to feel joy, and had to relearn how to do so again. Frankl also introduces Logotherapy at the second part of the book, which he invented while suffering inside the camp. Logotherapy has three basic principles which were explained throughout the first part of the book. Frankl explains logotherapy a, “a triad which consists of those aspects of human existence which may be circumcised by: (1) pain; (2) guilty; and (3) death” (Frankl 161). Frankl explains in his last chapter how it is possible to say yes to life in spite of those three aspects. He believes that life is meaningful under any condition, even those which are most miserable. All in all life does have a meaning. Everyone has to find their meaning in life any situation they are placed in. Frankl’s novel showed how a person can turn a negative situation into a positive one and learn from it. The meaning of life is whatever you choose it to be. Just as in Dostoevsky’s novel you see that our choices and decisions is something each one of us makes for ourselves and it is always open to change. This decision becomes the basis for many other decisions that we make on a day to day basis. Yet we are free to seek help in making this choice.

Works Cited
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Grand Inquisitor. Trans. Constance Garnett. Comp. William Hubben. N.p.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1948. Print.
Frankl, Viktor E. Man's Search for Meaning. New York: Washington Square, 1984. Print.