“I seize a corpse by the hand; the fingers close tightly around mine. I pull back with a shriek and stagger away. My heart pounds, jumps up to my throat. I can no longer control the nausea. Hunched under the train I began to vomit” (706-707).

In this example, an S.S. officer commands the narrator and fellow captives to unload the train. The officer whips the narrator and he most likely stumbles and catches the hand of a corpse. He is then struck by terror and vomits over the rails. This incident has a strong impression because the speaker has handled so many corpses of men, women and infants that he is tragically accustomed to it. However, he has not been so appalled by dead bodies that he has the urge to vomit. This example shows how truly horrific the experience has been for him. Additionally, I believe there is some sort of significance in the corpse’s hand tightly grasping the speaker. The notion of grasping a person’s hand is usually an inviting or a confining gesture. I interpreted this as a possible revelation that the speaker feels close to death and has no hope. The narrator states that he could “no longer control the nausea” (707). This quote leads me to question: has the speaker kept all this horror and disgust to himself in order to maintain his sanity? It seems that he did not adamantly oppose the Nazi officers, or did he encourage his fellow captives to do so. In fact, he is disinterested in talking to Henri about wine and even says that there will be no way they can smuggle anything through.

For me “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” is a harsh story to read. It is hard for me to describe how I felt after reading this story. I know generally about the Holocaust, but with the horrible realism described by Borowski, and how the characters perceive their life at Auschwitz is totally different than I have imagined.

“…I am furious, simply furious with these people — furious because I must be here because of them. I feel no pity. I am not sorry they’re going to the gas chamber. Damn them all! I could throw myself at them, beat them with my fists.”

The prisoners were forced to transport corpses to the crematorium. They saw innumerable of other shocking and shameful acts. He hates what he’s doing, but he does not have a choice. He has to listen to the S.S officers and is tasked with making women take dead babies that aren’t even theirs. Instead of feeling pity for the hopeless Jews, he is furious with them. He thinks he is forced to be at the ramp at Auschwitz and experience this horror because of these people. In this moment, he questions: Is he is still the same person he was before the concentration camps. He thinks that the horrible things he’s doing are unforgivable and have changed him into a criminal person. He is looking for hope that he is still a good person by asking his friend, Henry if they are good people.

The story ‘This way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen’ by Tadeusz Borowski narrates the experience of an unnamed narrator in a first –person point of view and explains the horrifying events that surround the narrator in Auschwitz concentration camp. Borowski expresses a distant attitude as he is touched by the horrific events that occurred in the camp. A dehumanizing event is experienced in the story when a number of prisoners both alive and dead were brought to by cargo tracks and others forced to pick up dead infants from the tracks that were being unloaded. The scene begins when a train load of Jews arrives from France and three women appear among the other prisoners unloaded from the boxcars.

The track carries both alive human beings and dead infants that belonged to the prisoners. The horrific scene is seen when the narrator is forced to clean the remains of the dead bodies on the track and the prisoners are being ordered to pick up their dead infants not knowing what to do with them. The narrator illustrates the scene in the story when he says, “We carry them out like chickens, holding several in each hand.” (702) The prisoners are ordered to hand over the dead infants to the three women who just arrived from the track. The women are horrified and refuse to pick the bodies from the prisoners.

This particular scene provided an impression of inhumanity based on the way the prisoners and the three women were treated. The narrator explains the extent of the situation that was too much for him to grasp at the moment. The scene also reveals the struggle persevered by the prisoners, which is seen when the women refused to pick the dead infants and were threatened to be killed if they did not pick up the dead bodies. The events that occurred at the Auschwitz camp reveal the less value for human life and the ethic transgression in the prisoner’s personality. This impression is revealed when the prisoners and the three women were put on the same track with dead bodies.

The significance of the scene in the context of the story provides a testimony of the kind of torture and inhumanity the Jews were subjected to in the camp. The scene conquers with what the camp was all about, where the survival of a prisoner depended on the prisoner’s participation in murder and degrading their fellow prisoners. The scene also shows the reality of the degradation of the humanistic aspect of the prisoners and their emotionless behavior to do any horrific activity for their survival.

The scene raises questions on the fate of the Jew prisoners who had no hope of resurrection from the nightmare of tribulations in Auschwitz camp. Based on the narration of Borowski, the narrator expressed a feeling of moral compromise and emotional numbness due to the dehumanization actions. This particular scene also raises the question of the readiness of the prisoners to persevere the type of torture and inhuman activities that was happening in the camp. In conclusion, the ethical transgression and the emotional detachment of the prisoners in Auschwitz camp are evident and depict the kind of life that they lived.

“Several other men are carrying a small girl with only one leg. They hold her by the arms and the one leg. Tears are running down her face and she whispers faintly: ‘Sir, it hurts, it hurts…’. They throw her on the truck on top of the corpses. She will burn alive along with them.”

1. this paragraph is saying a group Canada men are throwing a young girl onto a pile of dead body, and try to burn her. alive.  2. This part of description of the working group gave me a strong impression about how these people become so ruthless and robotlike. It’s hard for me to imagine how a man can treat another live human like a corpus.   3. The significance about this part to the story is, It shows not only the camp a killing factory, also a place to transfer innocent people into horrible devil.  4.   Apprently,  in this story, The best way and easiest way to make people fall is to give them absolute power.  This rise me a question that,  are there really innocent people?

Many instances of dehumanization are portrayed within “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”, as the narrator describes the suffering of those subject to torture in concentration camps in Auschwitz. One moment that was striking to me was the description of the transport of new incoming prisoners. The narrator says, “People . . . inhumanely crammed, buried under incredible heaps of luggage, suitcases, trunks, packages, crates, bundles of every description. Monstrously squeezed together, they have fainted from the ear, suffocated, crushed one another” (700). The descriptiveness of these lines made a strong impression on me, as I was able to visualize the horrific conditions of the prisoners experience from one of the earlier stages in the process. It was striking to see that before these new prisoners even entered the gates, the Nazi’s were already torturing them. They were being suffocated, crammed and fainting before even knowing anything about this new place they were being brought to.

This instance raised many questions for me, including: Did people die before entering the concentration camp? If so, was it common? Was any priority given to women, men or children, as far as who might be able to ride in any kind of comfort? Or, did the Nazi’s just pile in as many people as they could gather upon pickup?

The detailed description of this bus ride made a strong impression on me. I was able to picture the faces of tortured men, women and children, and understand that they had absolutely no control over their situation. In this clear depiction of the prisoners, Borowski was able to emphasize the horrors of the Nazi Germany, which he continues to do throughout the text.

“The morbid procession streams on and on – trucks growl like mad dogs. I shut my eyes tight, but I can still see corpses dragged from the train, trampled infants, cripples piled on top of the dead, wave after wave… freight cars roll in, the heaps of clothing, suitcases and bundles grow, people climb out, look at the sun, take a few breaths, beg for water, get into the trucks, drive away. And again freight cars roll in, again people…” (702).

In this example, the unnamed narrator is a political prisoner who works in “Canada.” He and other prisoners are forced to work for their captors which include carrying dead bodies to the crematorium. It describes the details of what the narrator sees as he works. The continuous trains of Jews coming to the concentration camp leads to the unceasing work and sight of dehumanization of others. As the narrator said, even when he has his eyes close, he still feels as if he is still seeing the Jews grasping for air and water, and dead corpses piling up.

This example made a particularly strong impression on me because it does not only depict the conditions in which the Jews are brought into, but also the aspects of the political prisoners’ duties in which they have no control over but to obey. Also, I feel as if the duties of the political prisoners’ are also dehumanization. Having to see other humans going to such sickening and despicable acts which can cause mental distraught to these political prisoners.

Its significant within the context of the story that shows not only are the Jews suffer from dehumanization, but also the political prisoners experience a different form of dehumanization. As the S.S. (the Nazi police system) would whip or even shoot the political prisoner’s if they were to do anything out of demand. It also raises the question that they are already being dehumanized, why would they be willing to dehumanize the Jews if it was not an order? An example of that is when the narrator called them “Pigs!” (702).

As promised, I am sharing with you my thoughts about how to go about organizing your essays. While this is an analytical essay much like your first essay, writing about two texts poses certain challenges. Basically, you have two options for organizing a comparative essay of this sort:

Option #1

Introduction: Introduces Text A and Text B, articulates the question you are asking, and lets the reader know where you will be going to answer the question (the road map.)

Body Paragraph 1: Idea #1/Text A

Body Paragraph 2: Idea #1/Text B

Body Paragraph 3: Idea #2/Text A

Body Paragraph 4: Idea #2/Text B

Body Paragraph 5: Idea #3/Text A

Body Paragraph 6: Idea #3/Text B

Conclusion: Brings together Texts A and B and provides an answer to the “so what?” question.

Obviously, you may have more than 3 ideas and more than 6 body paragraphs. This is just to give you the general idea of what Option #1 might look like. Option #1 works best when your two texts are tightly aligned and you are making parallel arguments about the two texts.

Option #2

Introduction: Same as in Option #1

Body Paragraph 1: Idea #1/Text A

Body Paragraph 2: Idea #2/Text A

Body Paragraph 3: Idea #3/Text A

Body Paragraph 4: (transition) Idea #1/Text B

Body Paragraph 5: Idea #2/Text B

Body Paragraph 6: Idea #3/Text B

Conclusion: Same as in Option #1

In my opinion, Option #1 is somewhat more challenging to execute because it requires more going back and forth between the two texts, but both are excellent ways to organize a comparative essay. However, you need to choose one option or the other and stick with it. Do not try to combine these two organizational approaches to create a third option! What both of these options require is that you PLAN your essay before writing it! This will yield a much more effective piece of writing!

Use the comments area below to ask me any questions you may still have about this!

Good luck!!

Borowski’s fictional account of his young narrator’s experience in Auschwitz-Birkenau is full of horrifying moments.  Choose one example of dehumanization in the texts and share it on the blog, answering the following questions:

–What is going on in the example you share?

–What about this example made a particularly strong impression on you?

–What is its significance within the context of the story?

–What questions does it raise?

In the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, Prufrock seems like a restless man, constantly questioning himself and his current position in life, and contemplating what his next move will be. In lines 36 and 37 he says “and indeed there will be a time to wonder, do I dare? Do I dare?” and again in lines 46-48, “Do I dare, disturb the universe? In a minute, there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” It’s here that he appears to question what his next move will be. Does he dare make a decision, make a change? He continues to have this sort of insecurity, constantly questioning himself throughout the poem: “How should I presume?” (61), “How should I begin?” (69), “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?” (121). He seems tired of the same old things, claiming to have ‘seen’ and ‘known’ it all: “I have known the eyes already, known them all” (55), “I have known the arms already, known them all” (63). It’s as though he feels trapped – he’s afraid to make a move, yet he’s also afraid of not making one and of looking back on his life when he’s old and wondering if what he had done was worth it. He’s “seen the moment of [his] greatness flicker…and in short, [he] was afraid” (84,86).

Lines 47 and 48 stood out to me, where it said “In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” Here, I felt like Prufrock was really trying to stress how fleeting moments are. In a minute, we could make a decision that changes everything. And just as quickly as a decision can be made, it can be unmade and we can find ourselves right back where we started. Life moves so fast and if we spend so much time being indecisive, we might find ourselves looking back years later and realize we aren’t where we want to be, or we haven’t accomplished what we wanted to accomplish.

Three questions I had while reading this poem were: What are the significance of arms in the poem? Who are the mermaids? Why does he talk about drowning in the end – is that referencing the possibility of his own death because he’s unhappy?

An example of romanticism is shown in the beginning of  T. S Elliot’s poem ” The Love Song of J. Alfred”, in lines 5 and 6. The narrator says:

“Let us go, through certain half- deserted  streets,the muttering retreats,of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels,And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells”

After this stanza he begins to speak about his later experiences in life. The context of the poem would help to make one believe that he wasn’t happy through out his life.  He starts off the poem comparing the weather to a patient on anesthesia.

“And would it have been worth it, after all,After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,would it have been worth while,to have bitten off the  matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball, to roll it toward some overwhelming question”

According to this stanza,  Prufrock regrets something. However he has not spoke exactly about what would have been worth it all. but it is very obvious that if he would taken the risk he speaks of he would have been happy. You can also say that it must have been something very big, being that he says:” To have squeezed the universe into a ball”. This must have meant the world to him, if he compared it to a universe.

1. What is the Yellow Fog?
2. What do you think his regrets may have been related to?
3. Why does he compare himself to Lazarus and Prince Hamlet?