a man's search for meaning book review

Book Reviews

• Classic & Masterpieces
• Books for Women
• Parenting & Childrens Reads
• Holiday Books
• Biz & Investing Books
• Health & Fitness Books
• Self-Help Books
• Genre Fiction Books

Book Recommender Tool

• Book Comparison Tool
• Synonym & Related Words Explorer Tool
• Recipe Generator Tool

Man's Search for Meaning: Book Review & Summary

Content introduction, book: man's search for meaning.

• Originally published: 1946
• Author: Viktor Frankl
• Genres: Biography, Autobiography, Personal Narrative
• Language: German
• Original title: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager

About the Author: Viktor E. Frankl 

Book summary, book review & analysis.

What is the meaning of life?

• we know that we will eventually die, so why should we live so seriously?
• We know that in the end, we must have nothing, come and go naked, why work so hard?
• We know that the pain of life will become nothing in the end, why should we endure so much additional pain and hardship in silence?

Finally, let me talk about my life mission.

Reading Rewards

Do you prefer to listen rather than read? If so, here’s a nice opportunity to try Audible for 30 days.

Need a bookish gift? Give the gift of reading to the book lovers in your life.

Get new posts by email

Stay up to date with the latest posts and relevant updates from us.

Your information is protected and I never spam, ever.

'ReadingAndThinking.com' content is reader-supported. "As an Amazon Associate, when you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.".

About Muhiuddin Alam

Muhiuddin Alam is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ReadingAndThinking.com. He serves as a consistent contributor to various websites and publications, including Medium , Quora , Reddit , Linkedin , Substack , Vocal , Flipboard , and Amazon KDP . Alam personally read numerous books and, for the past 10 years, has been providing book recommendations and reviews. Find Me: About Me & Google Knowledge Panel .

Related Post

Looking For More Books To Read?

Explore and find your next good read - Book Recommendations for specific interests.

Discover ratings, reviews, summaries, and genres.

Book Summary Tool

Instant Any Book Summary

Explore and find your next Book Summary for specific interests.

Recent Post

Popular posts.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: Book Summary, Review & Notes

The title is so misleading. Not giving a f*ck refers to not always pursuing the "feel-good" mentality like other Americans. What t...

30 Great Books that will Expand your Knowledge and Mind

Welcome to an insightful journey through the '30 great books that will expand your knowledge and mind,' written by Muhiuddin Alam o...

41 Best Intellectual Books to Read Before You Die - Ultimate List 2024

In this article, we will talk about "Intellectual Books To Read Before You Die - Most  intellectually challenging books " , and W...

Books Like Pride and Prejudice: 15 Great Books to Read Next

Welcome to an insightful journey through the '15 Great Books Like Pride and Prejudice,' written by Muhiuddin Alam on the book recom...

Books by Subject

• Best-Cook-Books [32]
• Best-Holiday-Books [14]
• Book-Reviews [53]
• Books-For-Women [27]
• Business-and-Investing-Books [14]
• Genre-Fiction-Books [20]
• Health-Fitness-Books [11]
• Learning [6]
• Masterpieces [39]
• Parenting-Guides [35]
• Self-Help-Books [19]

Related Topics

BOOK REVIEW article

Book review: man's search for meaning (victor frankl).

• Department of Psychology, Mithibai College of Arts, Mumbai, India

A Book Review on Man's Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl)

Victor Frankl, (New York, NY: Washington Square Press), 1984, 221 pages, ISBN: 9780671667368.

Humans in suffering tend to feel hopeless with a deep sense of failure. MAN's SEARCH FOR MEANING ( Frankl, 1984 ) is a helpful book during such times: it is highly probable that one would find a solution to their depressed feelings, if the book is read actively.

Written by Austrian neurologist-psychiatrist and a Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl, this book is simple yet intense and reflective. Frankl is the founder of Logotherapy, a form of existential psychology. Awarded with several accolades, his books and talks are the most inspiring on finding meaning in life and in suffering.

The book stands out extraordinarily as Frankl, by narrating his life instances in the Auschwitz concentration camp, presents the remarkable idea of how we can choose to see a purpose or meaning in any situation, including the worst conditions. He descriptively illustrates his personal experiences and observations of minute human changes which infuses hope into the reader.

With rich primary and secondary data, Frankl puts forward his ideas in three sections. The qualitative methodology utilized has smoothly fused his thoughts through these three parts, clarifying Nietzsche words, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how .” This book is a collaboration of Frankl's personal experiences and stories, references to other existential forerunners, quotes from humanistic and psychoanalytic schools, and excellent figurative examples. Many pathological terms have been used in the book, which are well explained by the author.

The first section describes the brutality every prisoner faced at concentration camps, Frankl being one of them for three years. As he realized their “naked existence,” Frankl begins by explaining how a prisoner passes through three major phases in the camp, and also how each phase transformed the prisoners from their previous lives and how they developed various pathologies. The prisoner was first in a state of shock, which was followed by the phase of developing apathy and finally, on being liberated, prisoners felt depersonalized at first and later manifested strong symptoms in differential ways.

Frankl here slowly introduces his first thoughts on these experiences. Though he has toned down the language of brutality, the message comes across loud that it was certainly the worst suffering one could imagine of.

At the end of section one, an active reader realizes the true meaning of life, of love (which is fairly depersonalized in the recent decades) and also how thankless we have become toward the little mercies in life.

An active reader also learns about “Logotherapy” that the author attempts to explain in the second section. The nature, meaning and goals are well detailed. Even the finest differences between psychoanalysis and Logotherapy are clearly specified. Frankl liberally introduces every concept of Logotherapy (such as the existential vacuum, responsibility of survival, existential frustration). He also describes the therapy process and techniques with some great figurative examples and case studies. A novice therapist may find these useful. However, he fails to explain how one can integrate these techniques with the conventional psychotherapeutic process.

Nevertheless, his strong request to re-humanize psychotherapy inspires us into a new direction of thought and practice.

The third aspect of the book is an attraction for readers wishing to apply the principles of Logotherapy on the self (to begin with): the section on tragic optimism elaborates it. The triad of pain, guilt and death is well justified, though further intensive reading is necessary for a practicing therapist.

This section is also useful for a therapist to understand how anticipatory anxieties, depression, obsessive behaviors, aggression, unemployment neurosis (and even Sunday neurosis) can be dealt with effectively through Logotherapy. Frankl takes the effort to explain how meaninglessness in life may not be pathological, but can certainly be pathogenic. However, this section is exhaustive to comprehend with the given information, and hence, would suggest further reading of the ‘Tragic Triad’ for a practitioner.

Having justified the idea of finding meaning in life, this book extends itself to coherently explain where and how one can find their purpose in life—reading this section of the book will most certainly spark a solution to every despaired reader. Frankl positively disregards a specific age group that can benefit from this book because he elucidates how old age and death must not be looked upon as an “end of opportunities and possibilities,” but as a repertoire of all the “potentials actualized, meanings fulfilled and values realized.”

He also explains how “suffering is not necessary to find meaning.” If suffering can be avoided, meaningfulness would lie in attacking the cause of suffering; but if it can't, meaningfulness would lie in changing the way we look at the situation and unlock the actual meaning lying “dormant” in that suffering! This relates very well to the “ Serenity Prayer .”

Readers having knowledge in the Indian philosophy may easily connect the ideas of this book to the Bhagavad-Gita ( Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, 1978 ) wherein Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna (and the humankind thereby) about how he could find meaning in his dreadful situation, how his suffering may be looked upon differently and how one can elevate oneself from hopelessness and anguish by realizing the purpose of one's existence on earth.

Clinically as a limitation, the book lacks presentation of validity, procedure and practice of Logotherapy. The therapy doesn't easily allow a quantitative inquiry: it is a philosophical approach to the human inner-world (as Frankl describes it). Despite the shortcomings, the spirit of the idea is noteworthy.

Recent researches have also well supported Frankl's ideas. Thagard (2012) in The Brain and The Meaning of Life , argues how brain science matters for fundamental issues about meaning in life.

Positive correlations have been found between search for meaning with other variables such as positive affect ( King et al., 2006 ), well-being ( Mascaro and Rosen, 2005 ), and self-evaluation ( To et al., 2014 ). Steger et al. (2008) found that people lacked the search for meaning in life through a life-span perspective ( Steger et al., 2007 ).

Ubiquitously, I would strongly recommend this book as the first step into existential psychology and urge the reader to continue reading Frankl's other books.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, A. C. (1978). Bhagavad Gita As it is . Gorakhpur: Gorakhpur Press.

Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man's Search for Meaning . New York, NY: Washington Square Press.

Google Scholar

King, H., Hicks, J. A., Krull, J. L., and Del Gaiso, A. K. (2006). Positive affect and the experience of meaning in life. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 90, 179–196. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.179

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Mascaro, N., and Rosen, D. H. (2005). Existential meaning's role in the enhancement of hope and prevention of depressive symptoms. J. Pers. 73, 985–1013. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00336.x

Steger, M. F., Kashdan, T. B., Sullivan, B. A., and Lorentz, D. (2008). Understanding the search for meaning in life: personality, cognitive style, and the dynamic between seeking and experiencing meaning. J. Pers. 76, 199–228. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00484.x

Steger, M. F., Oishi, S., and Kashdan, T. B. (2007). Meaning in life across the life span: levels and correlates of meaning in life from emerging adulthood to older adulthood. J. Posit. Psychol. 4, 43–52. doi: 10.1080/17439760802303127

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Thagard, P. (2012). The Brain and the Meaning of Life . Reprint Edition. New Jersey, NJ: Princeton University Press.

To, S., Tam, H., Ngai, S. S., and Sung, W. (2014). Sense of Meaningfulness, sources of meaning, and self-evaluation of economically disadvantaged youth in Hong Kong: implications for youth development programs. Child. Youth Serv. Rev. 47, 352–361. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.10.010

Keywords: search for meaning, Victor Frankl, meaningfulness, suffering, man's search for meaning, depression, anticipatory anxieties

Citation: Adhiya-Shah K (2016) Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl). Front. Psychol . 7:1493. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01493

Received: 08 May 2015; Accepted: 16 September 2016; Published: 16 November 2016.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2016 Adhiya-Shah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Khushali Adhiya-Shah, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• NONFICTION BOOKS
• BEST NONFICTION 2023
• BEST NONFICTION 2024
• Historical Biographies
• The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
• Philosophical Biographies
• World War 2
• World History
• American History
• British History
• Chinese History
• Russian History
• Ancient History (up to 500)
• Medieval History (500-1400)
• Military History
• Art History
• Travel Books
• Ancient Philosophy
• Contemporary Philosophy
• Ethics & Moral Philosophy
• Great Philosophers
• Social & Political Philosophy
• Classical Studies
• New Science Books
• Maths & Statistics
• Popular Science
• Physics Books
• Climate Change Books
• How to Write
• English Grammar & Usage
• Books for Learning Languages
• Linguistics
• Political Ideologies
• Foreign Policy & International Relations
• American Politics
• British Politics
• Religious History Books
• Mental Health
• Neuroscience
• Child Psychology
• Film & Cinema
• Opera & Classical Music
• Behavioural Economics
• Development Economics
• Economic History
• Financial Crisis
• World Economies
• Investing Books
• Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
• Data Science Books
• Sex & Sexuality
• Death & Dying
• Food & Cooking
• Sports, Games & Hobbies
• FICTION BOOKS
• BEST NOVELS 2024
• BEST FICTION 2023
• New Literary Fiction
• World Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Literary Figures
• Classic English Literature
• American Literature
• Comics & Graphic Novels
• Fairy Tales & Mythology
• Historical Fiction
• Crime Novels
• Science Fiction
• Short Stories
• South Africa
• United States
• Arctic & Antarctica
• Afghanistan
• Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
• Netherlands
• Kids Recommend Books for Kids
• High School Teachers Recommendations
• Prizewinning Kids' Books
• Popular Series Books for Kids
• BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS (ALL AGES)
• Ages Baby-2
• Books for Teens and Young Adults
• THE BEST SCIENCE BOOKS FOR KIDS
• BEST KIDS' BOOKS OF 2023
• BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS OF 2023
• Best Audiobooks for Kids
• Environment
• Best Books for Teens of 2023
• Best Kids' Books of 2023
• Political Novels
• New History Books
• New Historical Fiction
• New Biography
• New Memoirs
• New World Literature
• New Economics Books
• New Climate Books
• New Math Books
• New Philosophy Books
• New Psychology Books
• New Physics Books
• THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS
• Actors Read Great Books
• Books Narrated by Their Authors
• Best Audiobook Thrillers
• Best History Audiobooks
• Nobel Literature Prize
• Booker Prize (fiction)
• Baillie Gifford Prize (nonfiction)
• Financial Times (nonfiction)
• Wolfson Prize (history)
• Royal Society (science)
• Pushkin House Prize (Russia)
• Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction)
• Arthur C Clarke Prize (sci fi)
• The Hugos (sci fi & fantasy)
• Audie Awards (audiobooks)

Man's Search for Meaning

By viktor frankl.

In Man’s Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration camps, argued for the existentialist belief that even in the worst possible conditions, as human beings we still have control over how we think about our situation. The original title of the book, when it was first published in 1946, was Saying Yes to Life Anyway: A Psychologist Survives the Concentration Camp .

Recommendations from our site

“What’s interesting about his account, which I found absolutely fascinating, is the way he explores the importance of meaning in life as the key to survival.” Read more...

The best books on Auschwitz

Mary Fulbrook , Historian

“Frankl says, let me tell you and show you how I and my friends lived in the concentration camps. And if I can do it there, and suffer at that level, so you can you.” Read more...

The best books on High Performance Psychology

Michael Gervais , Psychologist

“Walk into any bookstore and somewhere there’s a shelf that’s labelled self-help. In my view, you can just ignore the whole shelf and read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning …Frankl was born in the early 20 th century. He studied psychology and when he was in university, he started a programme to study why people in high school committed suicide. He then set up a programme to provide psychological counselling…. Man’s Search for Meaning is about his experience in the concentration camps. How do we find meaning in suffering, in even the most brutal suffering imaginable? In that crucible of the most difficult learning environment imaginable, he really came out with a couple of gems of wisdom that everyone should read and understand…I re-read this book about once a year, usually over Christmas. Frankl had this simple equation, he said D=S-M. The equation was: despair equals suffering without meaning…basically, if you’re suffering and you can’t find any meaning in it then you experience ultimate despair. The power of the human spirit is that we can find meaning in suffering. We can turn despair into hope and possibility. That really is the main message of the book. He has this beautiful philosophy about life which is that we can always find meaning in our lives, under any conditions. Our lives are given meaning by the decisions we make” Read more...

The best books on Navigating the Future: a reading list for young adults

Chris Kutarna , Political Scientist

“I chose this book because it’s an incredibly powerful and moving example of what existentialist thought can actually be for in real life, what good it can do, how it can help people. Viktor Frankl was a concentration camp survivor and a psychotherapist and psychologist. Just after the war he wrote a book which has been translated as Man’s Search for Meaning . (The original title translates as Saying Yes to Life Anyway: A Psychologist Survives the Concentration Camp .) In it, he tells the story of his experience and how you can maintain your inner freedom and your human identity in the face of a situation that is designed to completely destroy and demolish all human dignity. It’s almost impossible to do, and he doesn’t say ‘This is the recipe for how I did it’ — he just explores the ways in which fragments of purpose and of meaning in human life kept him going.” Read more...

The best books on Existentialism

Sarah Bakewell , Philosopher

“He was a psychiatrist in Vienna in the 1930s and then got carted off to Auschwitz with all his family. He was the only one that survived and he wrote this book.” Read more...

The best books on Overcoming Insecurities

Robert Kelsey , Entrepreneurs & Business People

“Frankl’s time in concentration camps was enlightening for him. He noticed that those most likely to survive had what he called a ‘will to meaning’.” Read more...

The best books on The Art of Living

Roman Krznaric , Philosopher

Our most recommended books

Stumbling on happiness by daniel gilbert, the man who mistook his wife for a hat by oliver sacks, principles of psychology by william james, the language instinct by steven pinker, the presentation of self in everyday life by erving goffman, eichmann in jerusalem by hannah arendt.

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount .

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

© Five Books 2024

Book review: “Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy” by Viktor E. Frankl

Sigmund Freud once said that, if you take a widely diverse set of people and starve them, soon all their differences will fall away to be replaced by “the uniform expression of the one unstilled urge” for food.

That didn’t happen “in the filth of Auschwitz,” writes psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy .

There , the “individual differences” did not “blur” but, on the contrary, people became more different: people unmasked themselves, both the swine and the saints.”

Frankl’s short, powerful book, rooted in his three years in Auschwitz and other German concentration camps, is an argument against the view that human life is simply biological responses to stimuli.

In some ways, the Holocaust can be seen as the epitome of this mechanistic view. Prisoners were stripped of identity and became, as Frankl notes, simply numbers in a system of slave labor and mass murder.

This genocide was carried out by the nation of Beethoven and Goethe, of Freud and Einstein. And it has been seen as proof that great science, great art and great thinking are insubstantial and unimportant in the face of power.

Could life have any meaning for any person living in a world that produced the Holocaust?

Even more, could life have any meaning for someone, like Frankl, who found himself in a concentration camp?

The answer, Frankl asserts, is “yes.”

The meaning of life, he writes, isn’t as an object or a thing or an idea out in the world, a system or pattern that a person fits into. Rather, it is something that each person chooses. Far from being determined by outside forces, each person has the freedom — and the responsibility — to determine the meaning of his or her life.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes — within the limits of endowment and environment — he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

Creativity, love and suffering

Man’s Search for Meaning is a short book, and it was originally even shorter.

Frankl’s account of his experience in the concentration camps is the core of the book and its oldest element. Totaling about 28,000 words, it was published in 1946.

The 1992 edition I read contained an additional 14,000 words in two sections that were added later. One was about logotherapy, Frankl’s theory of psychotherapy. (This theory, which Frankl began developing before being sent to the camps, is rooted in the idea of will to meaning, as opposed to Freud’s will to pleasure and Alfred Adler’s will to power.) The other is a postscript, based on a 1983 lecture and titled “A Case for Tragic Optimism.”

These two sections spell out in general terms Frankl’s approach to psychotherapy and mental health in general. As he sees it, a human being has the right to determine the meaning of his or her own life — and a duty to do so.

In declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it was a closed system….. [B]eing human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself — be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love — the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.

Frankl writes that there are three ways of finding meaning in life: by creating and doing, by experiencing and loving and by one’s attitude to unavoidable suffering.

Suffering isn’t necessary to be creative or to be loving. And suffering for the sake of suffering isn’t a healthy goal. Not something to be sought.

Yet, suffering is, by nature, part of human life. And, Frankl argues, a person has control over his or her attitude toward suffering. A patient with terminal cancer has the ability to approach this pain and coming death in a variety of ways. So did the victims of the Holocaust.

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

“A rasping hoarseness”

Frankl’s theories gain power from his unflinching yet nuanced depiction of daily life in the camps — “the sacrifices, the crucifixion and the deaths of the great army of unknown and unrecorded victims.”

As the train carrying Frankl and hundreds of other prisoners neared Auschwitz, “The engine’s whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in commiseration for the unhappy load which it was destined to lead into perdition.”

Yet, if the inanimate railroad engine seemed to feel pity on his passengers, the SS men and the Polish Capos at the camp met the prisoners with a solid ominously discordant wall of sound, a blast of shouted commands:

We were to hear those rough shrill tones from then on, over and over again in all the camps. Their sound was almost like the last cry of a victim, and yet there was a difference. It had a rasping hoarseness, as if it came from the throat of a man who had to keep shouting like that, a man who was being murdered again and again.

Most of the new arrivals from Frankl’s train were sent to the gas chamber. The lucky few were assigned to slave labor crews, and most of these eventually died. Life was reduced to simple questions of survival, and it was impossible, Frankl writes, not to grow numb to the pain and suffering of others.

After [one of his typhus patients] had just died, I watched without any emotional upset the scene that followed, which was repeated over and over again with each death. One by one the prisoners approached the still warm body. One grabbed the remains of a messy meal of potatoes; another decided that the corpse’s wooden shoes were an improvement on his own, and exchanged them. A third man did the same with the dead man’s coat, and another was glad to be able to secure some — just imagine! — genuine string.

The prisoners were cold and hungry and exhausted and often beaten and scorned and sick and crowded together and infested with vermin and in constant fear of death.

One night, Frankl was awakened by the sounds of a fellow prisoner who was thrashing about in the depths of what was obviously a horrible nightmare.

I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.

“Dance of joy”

Even so, Frankl writes that, despite all the privations in a concentration camp, “it was possible for spiritual life to deepen.”

That happened for many prisoners, he says, and it happened to him in this way. On the long walk to a work site in the dark of early morning, the man next to Frankl whispered the hope that life was better for their wives in the camp where they were held.

This brought the image of his wife present to Frankl in an intense way. He could see and hear her.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom of so many thinker. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

He did not know if his wife was alive. (She died in the camp where she was being held.) But, for him in this moment — and later in his captivity — it didn’t matter. Even though physically imprisoned, he was able to escape the camp by living much of his time in the presence of his memories of his spouse.

When his camp was liberated, Frankl and his fellow prisoners did not initially react with elation. They were starved and numb, and feared disappointment.

Nonetheless, during their months and years in the camps, they had become expert at finding humor and happiness, even in the most unlikely situations.

For a prisoner who could find and develop this rich inner life, the beauty of art and nature could still be something rich and rewarding. Frankl describes a train journey from Auschwitz to a Bavarian camp that went through “the mountains of Salzburg with their summits glowing in the sunset.”

The men in the over-crowded train car with him crowded around the little barred windows, and “we were carried away by nature’s beauty, which we had missed for so long.”

There was even joy to be found in the camps although it was often macabre.

Frankl was among a group of prisoners taking another train to a new camp, and they were afraid they were heading for Mauthausen, a camp infamous for torture. They knew that, at a certain bridge, the train would turn one way to go to Mauthausen, and another to head for another camp affiliated with Dachau.

Those who had never seen anything similar cannot possibly imagine the dance of joy performed in the carriage by the prisoners when they saw that our transport…was instead heading “only” for Dachau.

And, when they arrived at the new camp to learn it had no oven, no crematorium and no gas chamber, “We laughed and cracked jokes in spite of, and during, all we had to go through in the next few hours.”

“I am life”

Viktor E. Frankl 1905-1997

Despite the inhumane character of the camps, prisoners had the freedom to choose how to react to that inhumanity.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Frankl tells the story of a young woman in a camp who knew she would die in a few days. Yet, when Frankl talked with her as her doctor, she was cheerful.

Her sufferings, pain and illness had taught her much, she told him. Pointing out the window, she said, “This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.” Only one branch of the tree could be seen from her bed, and on that branch were two blossoms.

She said she talked to the tree, and it talked back, saying, “I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.”

Frankl came into the camps with the manuscript of his first book, his initial description of logotherapy and its emphasis on the need for every human being to determine and pursue the meaning of his or her life.

Despite his efforts to hide and hold onto the manuscript, he lost it when he had to give up his clothes before taking a shower.

Coming out he “inherited the worn-out rags of an inmate who had already been sent to the gas chamber immediately after his arrival at the Auschwitz railway station.”

In a pocket of his newly acquire coat, as if as a substitute for his manuscript, he found a single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer book, containing the most important Jewish prayer, Shema Yisrael (“Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One”).

How should I have interpreted such a “coincidence” other than as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper?

Patrick T. Reardon 10.14.14

Written by : Patrick T. Reardon

For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.

No Comments

This book explains beautifully what goes on inside the man’s soul as he is confronted with the physical, mental and emotional threats to his existence. It not only makes the reader assess the mortal and moral dangers in a scientific and logical light but also provides the necessary tools to overcome them. Whether in a normal situation or during the most distressing states. The book not only changes the reader’s attitude towards life but also bring a conviction that any difficulty in no matter how hard the circumstances can be overcome.

Leave A Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

© Copyright 2024 | Patrick T Reardon.Com | All Rights Reserved

• Non-Fiction
• Author’s Corner
• Reader’s Corner
• Writing Guide
• Book Marketing Services
• Write for us

Book Review: Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor E Frankl

Author: Viktor E Frankl

Publisher: Beacon Press

Genre: Psychology, Memoir

First Publication: 1946 (Vienna, Austria) 1959 (United States)

Language:  Originally written in German

Setting Place: Nazi concentration camps during WWII, Auschwitz, Dachau

Theme: Logotherapy and Psychology, The Search for Meaning, Suffering and Hope, Freedom, Optimism

Narrator: First person (autobiographical)

Book Summary: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos (“meaning”)-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”

At the time of Frankl’s death in 1997, Man’s Search for Meaning  had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey for the Library of Congress that asked readers to name a “ book that made a difference in your life ” found  Man’s Search for Meaning  among the ten most influential books in America.

Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning is written by a psychologist who survived several Nazi concentration camps and on his journey observed all the different reactions, choices and mindsets of people who survived WWII and those who didn’t. The big idea of the book is that anyone can choose to make meaning out of any situation, no matter how bad thing are. He uses his personal experiences and observations from Auschwitz as an example.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is a memoir that should be read by everyone at least once, it’s a classic must-read, and one of the most influential books written in America. With its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps, it’s certainly a difficult & painful read ; but the lessons for spiritual survival are deeply profound which you can apply to your life.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz , while losing everything he had, including his loved ones. There were many times when he wanted to give up, and Viktor Frankl and his fellow prisoners had to endure atrocities that many of us cannot even imagine. But throughout the book, Frankl speaks deeply about his own “why” and pursuit of meaning which helped him endure his difficult circumstances. Viktor Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory known as logotherapy , from the Greek word logos (“meaning”), holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

I find Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl extremely hopeful, that as human beings, we have the ability to rise above all sufferings, to find our own individual meaning to our existence and in that way make sense of why we are in this world, and why we should continue in it, doing our very best. If you’re going through tough time, remember that, it may take time to realize it, but you’re loved, worthy, and a fighter. God put all of us on this earth because he loves us, he gave you a gift to use, and purpose to live for.

Importantly, take care of yourself, mentally, physically, and spiritually. We live in a hyper-connected, busy society where it’s easy to get lost, overwhelmed, and compare yourself to others constantly. It’s all about you, you have to put yourself before others. Live the life that that makes you happy, not to impress others. Don’t let the petty, little, vain things get in your way.

Buy Now: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

[content-egg module=Amazon template=item]

More on this topic

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Sign me up for the newsletter!

Readers also enjoyed

Dissonance, volume ii: reckoning by aaron ryan, a man eater in kasan kadu by balamurugan k a, overcoming anxiety and depression by lillyin love, the vanishing half by brit bennett, the atlas six by olivie blake, popular stories, one day, life will change by saranya umakanthan, most famous fictional detectives from literature, the complete list of the booker prize winner books, book marketing and promotion services.

We provide genuine and custom-tailored book marketing services and promotion strategies. Our services include book reviews and social media promotion across all possible platforms, which will help you in showcasing the books, sample chapters, author interviews, posters, banners, and other promotional materials. In addition to book reviews and author interviews, we also provide social media campaigning in the form of contests, events, quizzes, and giveaways, as well as sharing graphics and book covers. Our book marketing services are very efficient, and we provide them at the most competitive price.

The Book Marketing and Promotion Plan that we provide covers a variety of different services. You have the option of either choosing the whole plan or customizing it by selecting and combining one or more of the services that we provide. The following is a list of the services that we provide for the marketing and promotion of books.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews have direct impact on readers while they are choosing their next book to read. When they are purchasing book, most readers prefer the books with good reviews. We’ll review your book and post reviews on Amazon, Flipkart, Goodreads and on our Blogs and social-media channels.

Author Interviews

We’ll interview the author and post those questions and answers on blogs and social medias so that readers get to know about author and his book. This will make author famous along with his book among the reading community.

Social Media Promotion

We have more than 170K followers on our social media channels who are interested in books and reading. We’ll create and publish different posts about book and author on our social media platforms.

Social Media Set up

Social Media is a significant tool to reaching out your readers and make them aware of your work. We’ll help you to setup and manage various social media profiles and fan pages for your book.

We’ll provide you our social media marketing guide, using which you may take advantage of these social media platforms to create and engage your fan base.

Website Creation

One of the most effective and long-term strategies to increase your book sales is to create your own website. Author website is must have tool for authors today and it doesn’t just help you to promote book but also helps you to engage with your potential readers. Our full featured author website, with blog, social media integration and other cool features, is the best marketing tool you can have. You can list each of your titles and link them to buy from various online stores.

Google / Facebook / Youtube Adverts

We can help you in creating ad on Google, Facebook and Youtube to reach your target audience using specific keywords and categories relevant to your book.

With our help you can narrow down your ads to the exact target audience for your book.

For more details mail us at [email protected]

The Bookish Elf is your single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of literary life. The Bookish Elf is a site you can rely on for book reviews, author interviews, book recommendations, and all things books. Contact us: [email protected]

Quick Links

• Privacy Policy

Recent Posts

The solution for the eastern seaboard by alexander kessler, e-reader vs. paperbacks: the ultimate showdown for bookworms.

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor e. frankl, about the author.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think? Rate this book Write a Review

Friends & Following

Community reviews.

Join the discussion

Can't find what you're looking for.

• Forgiveness
• Resurrection

• Progressive Christian

Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning

Dating back to 1946, this short text is an incredibly gripping autobiography and theo-philo-psychological masterpiece from the vantage point of not only a landmark psychotherapist, but a Holocaust survivor. Frankl pioneered “logotheraphy” which is all about striving towards a meaning. Far from being abstract or impersonal, he lived and witnessed logotheraphy in concentration camps – crediting this mindset as the difference maker for his survival (and others). For those that lost their compass or meaning, death was not only certain, but predictable in time and fashion. For Frankl, the loss of will to endure was like clockwork. First, the vision/compass/meaning is lost. Next, the spirit breaks and immanent death was soon to follow. Giving up in a concentration camp is effectively pronounced suicide.

Part I of the book is biographical, and offers these personal and professional experiences that are the basis of Frank’s logotherapy – that a focus on the future goal – a “will to meaning” is man’s “primary motivation in his life” (page 99). Part II of the book provides a detailed overview of logotherapy, and is contrasted to other philosophical and psychological viewpoints.

Part I jumps right into Frankl’s loss of freedom and new reality faced in Auschwitz. Forced labor itself is a horrific idea. Even more harrowing though, is that those as able-to-labor were few and far between. As Frankl vividly recalls:

“For the great majority of our transport, about 90 percent, it meant death. Their sentence was carried out within the next few hours. Those who were sent to the left were marched from the station straight to the crematorium. This building, as I was told by someone who worked there, had the word ‘bath’ written over its doors in several European languages. On entering, each prisoner was handed a piece of soap, and then – but mercifully I do not need to describe the events which followed” (page 12).

He noticed three phases of those taken captive, specifically, “the period following his admission; the period where he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation” – shock being the symptom for the first phase, in many instances, even before arrival at the camp (page 8). His vividly laid out his own horrific train ride that ended in Auschwitz. Though all knew only horror lay ahead, denial and the “delusion of reprieve” (page 10) is an overwhelming response. As Frankl noted, “nearly everyone in our transport lived under the illusion that he would be reprieved, that everything would yet be well” (page 11).

After the shock/denial wore off, perhaps after witnessing countless death and cruelty, and coming into the full reality of the situation, Frankl saw prisoners enter the second pyschological phase: “the phase of relative apathy, in which he achieved a kind of emotional death” (page 20) which forced a primitive level of existence, thinking only about self-preseveration and surviving the day. This allowed emotional survival of the ongoing murders, beatings, and living conditions. As Frankl describes:

“When the last layers of subcutaneous fat had vanished, and we looked like skeletons disguised with skin and rages, we could watch our bodies beginning to devour themselves. The organism digested its own protein, and the muscles disappeared. Then the body had no powers of resistance left. One after another the members of the the little community in our hut died. Each of us could calculate with fair accuracy whose turn would be next, and when his own would come. After many observations we know the symptoms well, which made the correctness of our prognoses quite certain.” (page 30)

It’s immensely difficult to even imagine such an experience. First, the weak are marched off to die. Then, a core of those selected for labor succumb to starvation or illness. In watching the many around him die, he also got a closer profile of the few that survived. Those with a strong spiritual compass fared much better. As Frankl describes, “they were able to retreated from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy make-up often seemed to survive camp life better than than those of a robust nature” (page 36). In the midst Frankl’s despair came this revelation:

“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.” (page 37)

To Frankl, the highest level of being, of human existence, is love. Thoughts of his wife kept his soul alive and yearning and he realized even in the midst of unspeakable suffering, we all have a choice. How will we respond? In Frankl’s words, “in a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way-an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carriers of his beloved, achieve fulfillment” (37-38).

The deepening of one’s “inner life”, in the midst of such desolation, would be enabled by the contemplation of the memories of the past. Frankl also noted a marked awareness of art and nature that was acutely intensified. And for him personally, in the darkest of moments, an inner and spiritual ressolve:

“In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of immanent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victories ‘Yes’ in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose.” (page 40)

In Frankl’s despair, he reached a new level of spiritual maturity. As a Holocaust survivor and psychologist, he’s quite opposed to the idea that we are just a byproduct of our biological, psychological, and sociological constructs. We always have a choice. In his words, “man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress” (page 65). Even in the midst of losing everything, the last of human freedom remains: “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” (page 66).

Some prisoners would give up and die, some would steal and cause death, some would comfort other prisoners and give them their last piece of bread. But there was always a choice . In this, Frankl’s realization that “it is this spiritual freedom-which cannot be taken away-that makes life meaningful and purposeful” (67). And for life to be meaningful, death and suffering are part of that reality – it amounts to a choice in now one lives, suffers, and dies. And so we come upon the ultimate realization of virtue and moral character:

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, he way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity-even under the most difficult circumstances-to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified, and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make sue of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him.” (page 67)

It is this “spiritual freedom”, states Frankl, “that makes life meaningful and purposeful”. This can never be taken away (page 67). It is this conscious free will, this “spiritual freedom”, that ultimately separates us from other animals. The result of the “prisoner’s inner self”, Frankl asserts, “was not so much the enumerated psychological causes as it was the result of a free decision” (page 69). Further, it’s those who cease, in Dylan Thomas’ famous words, the “rage against the dying of the light” – the ones who give up further purpose, would ultimately cease finding it – the conscious awareness and spiritual freedom that is humanity.

“Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or would could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of these prisoners.” (page 72)

Those who gave up mentally would soon die physically. But for those that continued, back to Thomas, the “rage against the dying of the light”, Frankl noticed that the key to this inner strength for prisoners, was to point them to a future goal. This rage against the dying of the light , this commitment to strive for something, this hope – this was life-saving, mentally and physically. In Frankl’s words, “in this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although sometimes he has to force his mind to the task” (page 73) and the “prisoner who had lost faith in the future-his future-was doomed” (page 74).

For those that did survive, then came the reintroduction into society – and a bitterness and disillusionment for a great many as the world now looked much different. For many, the vision or future they had hoped for – whether to be a person or place – was now gone. And so the challenge is the same, to cast a new vision, to continue raging against the dying of the light,  to discover a new meaning. And while there is still breath in our lungs, while we still remain freely conscious creatures, so we are still offered this choice.

In this section, logotherapy is further defined as “will to meaning” and contrasted to “will to pleasure” and “will to power”. For mental health, “what man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the struggling and striving for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task” and it’s not the “discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him” (page 105). All have an existential vacuum to fill, what will be our stories?

For enthusiasts of Aristotle (of which I am), I am particularly persuaded by both the ontology and description of such a teleological or goal-oriented metaphysics and psychology. It is in this pursuit where virtue is found, as opposed to excess or deficiency. To these deep Aristotelian themes, lie the ideas of teleology and of potential and actualization for everything in nature. For humanity, “well-being” is not power, money, or the flagrant pursuit of pleasure, rather the virtuous fulfillment of the social and rational animal. Logotherapy sees responsibility, actualizing this potential, “at the very essence of human existence” (page 109).

Frankl continues:

“By declaring man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic ‘the self transcendence of human existence.’ It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself-be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love-the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” (page 110)

Such philosophical and psychological picture is quite contrary to nihilism or relativism. We do not create meaning, we discover and actualize it, according to our nature as social and rational animals, with the capacity to love. To the level we achieve this potential (objectively), to that is our level of “well-being”. As responsibility, free-choice, and the will to meaning (actualizing our potentials) are the essence of humanity, a mechanistic view of humanity that denies free will would be the farthest from his view. Surely, our freedom is restricted by our surroundings, but we always have a choice. In Frankl’s words, “as a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent in which man is subject to biological, psychological, and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps – concentration camps, that is – and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable” (page 130).

Whatever life throws our way, there always exists a choice. Perhaps summated more eloquently by Frankl:

“What he becomes – within the limits of endowment and environment – he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades beehive like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.” (page 134).

This book is an epoch masterpiece in history, psychology, philosophy, and religion, and a must read for enthusiasts of any.

• Book Reviews

• Library of World Religions
• Advertise With Us
• Write for Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• Do Not Sell My Data
• Radiant Digital
• Manage Newsletter Subscriptions
• Unsubscribe From Notifications

Benjamin McEvoy

Essays on writing, reading, and life

7 Lessons Learned From Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (Book Review)

September 20, 2016 By Ben McEvoy

Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) by Viktor E. Frankl is one of the most life-changing books I have ever read. 

There are only a handful of books that have permanently changed the way I view the world, the way I view life, and my constant state of mind. Man’s Search for Meaning is one of those rare books.

If you could only read one book for the rest of the year, Man’s Search for Meaning  should be it. 

I stayed up late over three nights and got up early just so I could read this book. And since reading it, I have found myself questioning everything about my normal thought patterns and my responses to the ebbs and flows of day-to-day life.

I wonder how different my life would have been if I had read this book years ago when it first came on my radar. 

I was visiting a friend who had just had a baby. He was my age and he was young. Very young to be having a baby and having to cope with the cold reality of single fatherhood before he had even graduated college. I wondered how my friend coped with it all. How did he cope with his life changing so drastically? With his future being altered forever?

He seemed so calm, so mature, so confident and full of purpose. While he was feeding the baby, I noticed a well-thumbed copy of Viktor Frankl’s  Man’s Search of Meaning ( Amazon ) on the kitchen counter. He noticed me looking and implored me to read it. I nodded, said I would, and added it to my ever-growing mental book recommendation list. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Just a few weeks ago, I saw the book again. I was browsing the spirituality section of a bookstore. None of the books looked particularly inspiring. Then I noticed  Man’s Search for Meaning and remembered my friend. I remembered how dutifully and purposefully he had adapted to life’s sudden turn. So I picked it up.

I wasn’t able to put it down for three days.

For three days I was completely immersed in Viktor Frankl’s life moving from concentration camp to concentration camp (including Auschwitz) during the 1930s. I was immersed in his theories of life and logotherapy.

I wasn’t able to talk until I had finished it.

Now, 3 months after reading, the book is still with me on a day-to-day basis.

Here are 7 lessons I learned.

1. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how .”

This is the refrain of the entire book. If you had to distill logotherapy, Frankl’s own brand of psychotherapy, into one sentence it would have to be this one. 

Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a  why to live for can bear with almost any  how ,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygenic efforts regarding prisoners. whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why – an aim – for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible  how of their existence. Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, “I have nothing to expect from life any more.” what sort of answer can one give to that?

Throughout the book, Frankl speaks deeply about his own ‘why’ and its power to help him endure his situation.

He also speaks of many prisoners who had completely lost their ‘why’ and quickly lost their life as a result.

Frankl and his fellow prisoners had to endure atrocities that many of us cannot even imagine. Prisoners had to survive on one small piece of bread a day and maybe some thin soup. They had to work 20 hours each day, digging and laying railroads and so on. If you looked weak, you were beaten. If you stopped working, you were beaten. And you didn’t get much of a second chance after that. You could be killed for any reason.

There are three ‘whys’ that stand out from Frankl’s writing:

• Dignity in suffering

We have likely heard many people utter these words from a concentration camp prisoner: “I have nothing to expect from life anymore”. In fact, we have probably uttered these words ourselves. Many of our own darkest moments look positively radiant when compared to that which POWs like Frankl had to endure. And yet we still have the gall to say such things. 

Frankl asserts that it doesn’t matter if we have nothing to expect from life. We can still find meaning:

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that  it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

How’s that for a remedy against depression?

Ask yourself hour by hour whether you are staying true to what life expects from you. You may not be where you want to be in life right now but so what? It’s not all about you. What can you do for life? What can you do for others? 

Frankl also goes on to say that everybody’s ‘why’ is different:

No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. 

How did Frankl endure the horrors of the camps? How did he persevere where others perished?

One thing he did was to rewrite the manuscript that was confiscated from him. When he entered Auschwitz, his manuscript was ready for publication but it was taken and destroyed. Instead of despairing, Frankl rewrote that manuscript in his head. He wrote bits of it on scraps of paper. He imagined giving lectures on his very situation and his theory of logotherapy to lecture halls full of students in America.

when in a camp in Bavaria I fell ill with typhus fever, I jotted down on little scraps of paper many notes intended to enable me to rewrite the manuscript, should I live to the day of liberation. I am sure that this reconstruction of my lost manuscript in the dark barracks of a Bavarian concentration camp assisted me in overcoming the danger of cardiovascular collapse.

And here Frankl is giving one of his many wonderful lectures after surviving the horrors of the camps:

2. “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

In addition to thinking constantly about reproducing his manuscripts, Frankl also endured the camps by thinking constantly of his wife who had been separated from him long ago and sent to a female camp.

Even in the harshest parts of the day, exhausted, sleep-deprived, overworked, underfed, Frankl found salvation in the love that he had for his wife:

But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imaging it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

Frankl learned that love really does conquer all. The sadistic guards could do anything they liked to him. It didn’t matter. He had his loving wife’s image in his mind for company. Love was an antidote to pain.

I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart:  The salvation of man is through love and in love.  I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honourable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment.

Frankl managed this bliss despite not even being with his wife. Despite not knowing how she was enduring her own suffering. Despite not knowing if she was even alive.

I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying.

Read  Man’s Search for Meaning here .

3. You can get used to anything

The human body is tougher than you think.

Frankl talks of the terrifying journey into the camps. How he and his fellows were stripped and shaved completely. How all of their documents and personal possessions were confiscated and burned, including his life’s work of papers related to logotherapy.

The prisoners had everything taken away from them. Even their names. They were given numbers, which were tattooed onto their skin. 

90% of the Jewish POWs didn’t even make it into the camp. If you looked weak, you went straight to the gas chambers. Families were separated. Frankl himself was separated from his wife and would not know what became of her until after the war.

Then, once in the camps, curiosity took over as you learned the extraordinary amount of punishment that the human body is capable of resisting.

The medical men among us learned first of all: “Textbooks tell lies!” Somewhere it is said that man cannot exist without sleep for more than a stated number of hours. Quite wrong! I had been convinced that there were certain things I just could not do: I could not sleep without this or I could not live with that or the other. The first night in Auschwitz we slept in beds which were constructed in tiers. On each tier (measuring about six-and-a-half to eight feet) slept nine men, directly on the boards. Two blankets were shared by each nine men.

Who would have thought humans could actually endure hells as harsh as Auschwitz? After all, Auschwitz was so terrible that it prompted Theodore Adorno to state that, “Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”

And yet they did endure. The fact that many endured (keeping in mind that the majority did not) gives one overwhelming gratitude for not having to face the same situation. It also gives one overwhelming confidence in the capabilities of their own mind and body.

We were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, in spite of that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. We had to wear the same shirts for half a year, until they had lot all appearance of being shirts. For days we were unable to wash, even partially, because of frozen water pipes, and yet the sores and abrasions on hands which were dirty from work in the soil did not suppurate (that is, unless there was frostbite).

4. You can resist your environment’s influence

Many psychological studies, such as the famous Stanford prison experiments detailed in Zimbardo’s  The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil , argue that individuals are a product of their environment. Anyone can be coerced into perpetrating evil given sufficient environmental influence. Yet this is an issue that Frankl has a problem with:

In attempting this psychological presentation and a psychopathological explanation of the typical characteristics of a concentration camp inmate, I may give the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? […] Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

Frankl argues that we are not bound to our environments. Yes, the environment can be a harsh determiner of our actions but it is not fate. We do have a choice:

The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

Frankl saw the lowest parts of humanity while in the camps. He saw fellow prisoners promoted to be in-camp guards turning on their fellow prisoners. He watched as they beat their lifeless, malnourished campmates. He watched sadistic guards treating them as if they were lower than animals. But he also saw individuals rising up like saints above it all:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.

You may not have a choice in your circumstances and environment. But you always have a choice in how you react to those imposed upon you.

• Man’s Search for Meaning is available on Amazon here .

5. There is meaning in suffering

Many of us spend our lives in the desperate attempt to completely eradicate suffering, thinking (like Buddha) that happiness will come when suffering is gone. But Frankl, not arguing for happiness but for something greater, believes that there is great meaning in suffering. Suffering does not automatically make ones life void of meaning but can actually offer meaning:

An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize the values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfilment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.

How can suffering be meaningless if it is so intricately bound to life itself? Frankl’s assertion that we all can choose that which we wish to designate meaningful. Suffering can be meaningful if we want it to be, if we handle it as such: 

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

When suffering fills your life, what do you do? Do you take up your cross? Do you remain “brave, dignified and unselfish”? Or do you become “no more than an animal”? 

Most men in a concentration camps believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.

What a wonderful freedom to discover that you can choose your own meaning and that meaning with keep you filled with life.

6. Without hope, meaning, a future, death will come soon

We see this often enough in our own lives. We see people who admit to having no future, no purpose, no hope. And those same people are wallowing in self-pity. They are constantly ill and constantly complaining. They are going around and around in circles, waiting to die. Frankl saw this often enough in the camps:

The prisoner who lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.

Frankl talks about one inmate that had a dream that the war would be over on March 30th. He told this to Frankl at the beginning of the month and had hopes that his dream was a premonition that would come true. However, on the 29th, when no sense of an ending was coming, this inmate became ill. On March 31st, Frankl writes that “his prophecy came true and he died”. The war was over for him.

To all outward appearances, he had died of typhus.

It wasn’t typhus that had killed him. It was his loss of hope. 

Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man – his courage and hope, or lack of them – and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.

It’s no coincidence that cancer patients with strong religious convictions have a greater chance of surviving. This is hope, meaning, and a belief in a future saving them from their own illness. 

7. Logotherapy is a practical solution to your problems

As a therapeutic resource, I believe that logotherapy is infinitely more useful than many other psychotherapy techniques, particularly any that come from Freudian psychoanalysis. 

Psychoanalysis is backward-looking, self-indulgent, and unhelpful. It seems to encourage patients to put unnecessary amounts of blame on their upbringing without offering any practical solutions to dealing with their issues.

But logotherapy is all about constructing a future for oneself. It’s all about restoring one’s sense of purpose.

Frankl filled many big books with his theory so I can’t recount it in detail here but one aspect I find fascinating is the idea of “paradoxical intention”. Frankl describes this as such:

Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes […] In this approach the phobic patient is invited to intend, even if only for a moment, precisely that which he fears.

Frankl discusses the case of a patient who always perspired heavily when public speaking. The solution? Frankl advised the patient to tell the audience directly that he was going to see how much he could sweat. He actually told them he intended to sweat and would see if he could sweat more than last time. The result? His phobia of public speaking (and the sweating) disappeared. 

This is one of many such examples. I believe that writers can also use this technique whenever they are suffering from writers block. Simply telling oneself that you will see how bad you can write will suddenly free you from your fear of writing.

There is a lot to learn from  Man’s Search For Meaning .

For such a short book, I can barely begin to discuss the effect it has had on my mindset. This article is only just scratching the surface and really does Frankl’s work little or no justice. It’s a book that everyone must read. I’m rarely prescriptive with what people “should” read but this is one of those rare occasions where I will say you should read this book. You need to read this book.

You can buy  Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl here.

All quotes are taken from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, translated by Ilse Lasch, and published by Beacon Press, Boston (2006). 

If you find this kind of content interesting or insightful, you might enjoy my monthly book club newsletter .

Each month, I recommend a small selection of books that I’ve recently fallen in love with. This newsletter is built from hardcore curation. If the book hasn’t impacted me in a significant way, I won’t recommend it. Just great stuff here. Books that will move you, improve you, and make you think.

Join my newsletter today and I’ll get you started with 7 of my all-time favourite books. 

I’ll also give you my personal curated playlist of the best poetry readings by the best actors and personalities you will find anywhere online.

July 8, 2017 at 11:15 am

Mcevoy, you have wonderfully summed up what we can learn from Frankl’s book. I finished it a week ago. It was truly captivating and inspiring. I am at a point in my life where, I believe, a life full of despair is staring at me. My academic career is going nowhere, I am 31, girlfriend left me 2 years ago because she got bored. In fact, I changed my academic stream just to be with her and now I am stuck. Anyways, what I want to know from you is that do you know any more of such inspirational books? I am not looking for ‘get rich and successful’ kind of books that just say that life is going to be okay one day. I want to read something like Frankl’s book that can give a fresh perspective on suffering. Thanks.

July 8, 2017 at 11:03 pm

Thank you. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. You have likely already read or heard of the books I would recommend. If you haven’t, these are absolute must-reads and I’m sure will help you:

– How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie – The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

If you found Frankl’s book inspiring, the former should also be appealing. It’s crammed with true life stories of people up against the odds, staring into a pit of despair, and yet prospering. It is filled with applicable advice that I use every single day and the book is phenomenal for beating despair, depression, and anxiety.

The second can help you to eliminate despair by getting you out of your head. I wouldn’t say it’s inspiring because it’s less about filling your mind with wonderful ideas and more about helping you to eliminate negative thought patterns and to silence the negative silent movies of our lives constantly playing in our heads.

These two books are immensely valuable and, if applied (which it sounds like you will do), are life changing.

If you want more after those two, I’d recommend The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker – although that is pretty depressing most of the way through. However, I found it instrumental for completely changing my life path and perspective a few years ago. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations are also good for daily doses of inspiration and applicable philosophy.

Also, I know you just asked about books but you did mention a few things about your current situation and I hope it’s not an intrusion for me to offer some advice on that – from one guy to another who knows what you’re going through. I know you feel stuck because you’re in the center of the situation right now but maybe a perspective from someone outside your situation would be useful.

If your academic career is going nowhere, you feel stuck, and you changed it just to be with a girl who hasn’t been in your life for 2 years, why are you still there? Is it possible to change it? I know it may not be possible because of finance and social pressures but, in that case, how long do you have left? If it’s a matter of a year, for example, is there any way to power through to the end and become an underdog success story?

I personally had trouble in my last year of Oxford. I was failing across the board. I was depressed. I felt trapped. And the university wanted me to take a year off, then come back. I knew if I took a year off, I would not come back. So I fought extremely hard to overturn their decision to suspend me for a year and I worked my ass off to get my grades up and to graduate so I could move on with my life. Suddenly, overturning everyone’s expectations became my mission. It gave me a purpose and it showed me what I could do. It also filled me with hope for the future because I took control.

The situation with your ex sucks and I totally sympathise. We’ve all been there. It sounds like you’re heart-broken and still suffering from the fallout. But you probably know logically that 2 years is a long time to spend pining over someone who didn’t like you or care about you enough to stay. Again, I’m just guessing, I don’t know your specific situation, but I’d say you need to bury the memory of her in a far-off place in your mind and move on to better things. There are people out there who will like you for you. You’ve just got to find them. It takes work and it takes rejection and a thick-skin but I’d suggest lining up dates with as many girls as possible. You might not want to but you do need to. Maybe you live in a place where there is stigma about doing something like this (either from religion or just the culture) – if so, do it in secret if your morals allow. If you have access to any online dating sites (not the spammy ones filled with bots and escorts), get yourself on those.

Also – are you meditating? Wim Hof breathing + cold showers work wonders for remedying despair.

Are you working out regularly? We can change our negative mental patterns by simply getting sweaty and making our endorphins pump around our bodies.

It doesn’t surprise me that you feel like a life full of despair is staring at you. Two of the “Big 3” of life are completely out of alignment: your work and your love life. The other piece of the puzzle is health and I’m guessing that if the first two are suffering, your health isn’t in top shape either.

Definitely read those books but really try to apply them. Meditate (or pray) first thing in the morning. Lift weights. Go for runs. Eat vegetables. Meet pretty girls for coffee and have some nice conversations (see where it goes). And either strive to make the best of your academic career or change it completely.

I wish you all the best in the world, my friend. You can beat this situation if you want to. I promise. I know.

Eternalised

In Pursuit of Meaning

Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, originally titled “A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp” was released in German in 1946, becoming one of the most influential books in the United States, having sold over 10 million copies at the time of Frankl’s death in 1997, and continues to this day to inspire many to find significance in the very act of living.

He sees the success of his book as a symptom of the “mass neurosis of modern times” since the title promised to deal with the question of life’s meaningfulness.

Frankl’s writings have been called “the most important contributions in the field of psychotherapy since the days of Freud, Adler and Jung.” He is the founder of logotherapy , which he describes as a “school of psychotherapy in spiritual terms”, in which a search for meaning in life is the primary motivational force in man.

Frankl chronicled his experiences as a prisoner in concentration camps during World War II. Instead of giving up and accepting that he was doomed as most did, he decided to use his suffering as an opportunity to help others and himself.

While a man’s destiny in life is certainly affected by the circumstances in which he finds himself, he is ultimately free to choose his attitude towards life.

Part I “Experiences in a Concentration Camp” constitutes Frankl’s autobiographical account  of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part II “Logotherapy in a Nutshell” introduces his theory of logotherapy.

Part I. Experiences in a Concentration Camp

Frankl begins by telling the reader that his book is a compilation of his experiences and observations. He focuses on how the daily struggles of camp life affected the mental state of his fellow inmates.

There are three psychological stages experienced by the prisoners: (1) shock during the first few days in the camp, (2) apathy after being accustomed to camp existence, and (3) depersonalisation , leading to bitterness and disillusionment with life after being liberated.

Many experienced the phenomenon known as “delusion of reprieve” , a man sentenced to death becomes convinced that he might be set free just before his execution.

The prisoners were made to pass in front of a guard who pointed them to the right or the left. About 90% were sent to the left for execution, the remaining few were sent to the right, including Frankl. They then had all their possessions removed, being left with nothing but their own “naked existence.”

The second psychological stage of the prisoner is apathy , the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care anymore. Frankl writes that there is much truth in Dostoevsky’s definition of man as a creature that can get accustomed to anything.

Frankl often thought of his wife and he realised that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire , and that in a position of utter desolation, this intensification of inner life helped him seek refuge from the emptiness, and spiritual poverty of his existence. However, many prisoners suffered a loss of values in their personal ego, becoming part of an enormous mass of people, whose existence descended to the level of animal life.

Frankl argues that man is not just an accidental product of biological, psychological, and sociological nature, but that man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical distress.

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life. As Dostoevsky pointed out:

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”

The inmates lived a provisional existence of unknown limit, without a future and without a goal, intensifying the feeling of lifelessness. However, one could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did the majority of the prisoners.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

The sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect, weakening one’s power of resistance and making one vulnerable to illness. The death rate in the week between Christmas and New Year’s increased in camp beyond all previous experience, as many hoped to be freed and reunited with their loved ones. Man needs a future goal. Frankl approvingly quotes the words of Nietzsche:

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

“That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.”

What was really needed was a fundamental change in one’s attitude toward life.

“It does not really matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”

The third stage is the psychology of the prisoner after his liberation . Frankl was freed after 3 years, yet he and his inmates did not feel pleased.

“Freedom, we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. Its reality did not penetrate into our consciousness; we could not grasp the fact that freedom was ours.”

They had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly. This is known as depersonalisation , everything appears unreal, unlikely, as in a dream.

Many experienced bitterness . The superficiality and lack of feeling of one’s fellow men was so sickening that:

“one finally felt like creeping into a hole and neither hearing nor seeing human beings anymore.”

Others experienced disillusionment :

“Woe to him who found that the person whose memory alone had given him courage in camp did not exist anymore!”

Part II. Logotherapy in a Nutshell

The second section of the book, “Logotherapy in a Nutshell,” is devoted to explaining Frankl’s ideas about logotherapy in more detail.

He named his practice after the Greek word logos , which denotes “meaning.” His form of therapy is oriented around helping patients find meaning in their future, in contrast to the psychoanalytic practice of solving a patient’s problems by focusing on their past.

The most important force in a man’s life is his desire to find meaning. While Freud speaks of a “will to pleasure” and Adler speaks of a “will to power,” Frankl focuses on a “will to meaning” , as the primary motivational force in man.

An inability to follow the will to meaning gives way to existential frustration. This can in turn result in neuroses , which may be defined as a poor ability to adapt to one’s environment, an inability to change one’s life patterns and the difficulty to develop a richer, more complex and satisfying personality.

Unlike the neuroses dealt with in psychoanalytical practice which emerge from gratification and satisfaction of drives, in logotherapy one speaks of noögenic neuroses (from the Greek word noös or “mind”), which arise from existential issues and problems with the will to meaning.

A man’s concern over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. A misinterpretation of this may motivate a doctor to bury his patient’s existential despair under a heap of tranquilising drugs.

The logotherapist regards his assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life through widening and broadening the visual field of the patient, so that the whole spectrum of potential meaning becomes conscious and visible to him.

To be mentally sound, man must constantly be struggling and striving for a worthwhile goal.When people are haunted by their inner emptiness, with a feeling of ultimate meaninglessness, they exist in what is known as an “existential vacuum” .

Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognise that it is he who is asked. Thus, responsibility is the very essence of human existence.

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

Frankl claims that there are three ways to find meaning in life: (1) by working or doing a deed; (2) by love; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

The first is the way of achievement or accomplishment. The second way of finding a meaning in life is through love:

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.”

The third way of finding a meaning in life is by suffering. Suffering is in no way necessary to find meaning, but rather meaning is possible in spite of suffering, provided that it were unavoidable.

“Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”

Suffering may well be a human achievement. One of the basic tenets of logotherapy is that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

“Our current philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment. Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.”

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. A human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, through actualising the potential meaning inherent and dormant in every given situation.

Sign up and don’t miss out on the latest posts!

Enter your email address

Man’s Search for Meaning in 10 Minutes | Viktor Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning was published by Viktor Frankl in 1946. Frankl is the founder of logotherapy. The most important force in a man’s life is his desire to find meaning.

Support Eternalised

Buy Official Merch

“a room without books is like a body without a soul.” — cicero, discord community, follow eternalised on social media.

Related Posts:

Published by Eternalised

In Pursuit of Meaning. I hope to help as many people as possible who seek to enrich their lives with value and meaning. That is the ultimate purpose of Eternalised. View more posts

3 thoughts on “ Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl ”

Thank you for writing.

You’re welcome! Thanks for reading and commenting.

Always want to read this book, but …

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Discover more from eternalised.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Man’s Search For Meaning Book Summary, Review, Notes

Victor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist who lived through the Holocaust, wrote this simple but deep and thoughtful book. Frankl created Logotherapy, a type of existential psychology. 

His books and presentations have been called “the most inspiring on finding meaning in life and in suffering,” and he has received numerous awards for them. Frankl was forced to work in four separate concentration camps between the years 1942 and 1945, one of which was Auschwitz. 

During this time, Frankl’s parents, brother, and pregnant wife all perished. Frankl contends that while pain is inevitable, we have the power to choose how we respond to it, find meaning in our hardships, and go forward with renewed purpose, drawing from his personal experiences and those of the patients he treated later in his career. 

Frankl’s theory, called “logotherapy” after the Greek word for “meaning,” says that the most important thing in life is not pleasure, as Freud said.

Book Title— Man’s Search For Meaning Author— Viktor E Frankl Date of Reading— November 2022 Rating—   10/10

Table of Contents

What is being said in detail, part 1. experiences in a concentration camp.

There have been many stories about the horrible things that happened in concentration camps, but this book is about what people did every day in the camps and how it changed their minds.

Every day, the prisoners fought to stay alive physically, emotionally, and mentally. When the transport units got to the camp, they took the sick and weak prisoners to be killed or worked to death right away. 

They did everything they could to avoid being put on the list, even if that meant someone else would take their place. Officials didn’t seem to care about death because everyone looked the same to them. 

Survival meant that they didn’t have to think about morals or ethics. All they wanted was to stay alive for their families and to protect their peers.

After being admitted, while living in the camp every day, and after being released and set free are the three main times when people can talk more about how they feel about camp life.

Following Admission: Shock

In the first phase, people were shocked. Frankl and the other prisoners were shocked when they heard they were going to Auschwitz. Most people know about the gas chambers, crematoria, and killings at Auschwitz. 

After getting on the train cars, there was some grotesque humor, and Frankl thought right away that the prisoners looked good and seemed happy. He started to think that life in the camp might not be so bad after all. 

This was called a “fantasy of reprieve” because they thought and hoped that their lives would not be too bad. Prisoners stole the newcomers’ belongings, especially their jewelry.   

As new prisoners, they were shocked when they were split into two groups: those who could work and those who were too weak or sick to work. The weak and sick were sent to a special camp, which turned out to be the gas chambers. Ten percent of the healthier prisoners were sent to a real bath.

Even though the new prisoners had a dark sense of humor, their hopes and dreams were slowly shattered.  

When they had nothing left of their old lives, were always at risk of dying, and had no hope, suicide seemed like the only option. This became a sign that a prisoner was moving on from the first stage of shock and into the second.

Day-to-day Life in the Camp: Apathy

The most painful feelings that inmates have had to deal with are an overwhelming longing for home, family , friends, and their old lives, as well as disgust at their living conditions, both inside and out. 

Because the convicts had been through so much pain, their feelings had become so dulled that they had become apathetic. As a way to protect themselves, they learned to hide their feelings, which led to violence and death. 

At first, it disgusted them to see their friends get beat up, but after a while, they got used to it and stopped looking away. The worst kind of abuse was not physical violence or beatings, but the mental pain that came from being treated unfairly.

Frankl’s time in a concentration camp made him more spiritual, which showed up in the form of love when he thought about his wife. 

Even after being abused, Frankl kept coming back to the idea that love goes far beyond a person’s body. Each prisoner’s inner life grew, and they found new ways to enjoy the beauty of art and nature.

The character test was the most difficult part of being in prison for the inmates. They wanted some time alone to think. They only wanted to eat and avoid getting in trouble.

The prisoners could let camp life rob them of their inner selves and become victims of their situation, or they could rise above their situation and learn from it. 

In the end, it was clear that each prisoner’s personality was not only shaped by the camp but also by a choice they made on their own. What gives life meaning is being able to choose what happens to us mentally and spiritually. 

An active life lets a man shape and reach his goals through creative work, while a passive life lets him find happiness in art , beauty, or nature. Even if a man doesn’t have access to either of these things, he can still have “excellent moral behavior.” 

When you think about what life is all about, you can see that if there is a point to it, there must also be a point to suffering. Suffering even gives people the chance to add more complexity to their lives, as well as the chance to remember or lose their dignity and character.

For the captives to stay alive, they had to keep reminding themselves that their loved ones were waiting for them outside the camp. Others found that this helped them focus on their work or other activities. Their responsibilities to other people or to their jobs gave them a strong sense of purpose.

Release and Liberation

After they escaped, the survivors, including Frankl, had a period of complete rest. But they had lost some of their ability to feel pleasure and excitement, so they had to learn how to feel those things again.

On the other hand, the body was starving. The people who made it out were able to eat for hours at a time, enjoying the food they had missed. Frankl’s emotional breakdown didn’t happen until a few days after he ate and got back to normal life. He finally learned to be okay with being on his own.

When the survivors went back into society, they found that many people didn’t care what they had been through. Some would just shrug and say that they had been through similar things in similar ways. 

As a result, this made many of the survivors angry at their experiences and at society as a whole. They didn’t understand why they had to go through such pain, and they stopped believing in freedom when they realized that their suffering didn’t end when they were set free. 

Many people found out that they had lost family members or their homes, which were the only things that had helped them get through everything.

PART 2. LOGOTHERAPY IN A NUTSHELL

In contrast to psychoanalysis, logotherapy is less rigid and focused on the self. Instead, it focuses on what will happen in the future and how important it will be to make that happen. 

In other words, logotherapy is a type of therapy that focuses on meaning. Logotherapy helps people figure out what their lives are all about.

The Will to Meaning

The desire for meaning is put at the center of a person’s life, not just as a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual wants. Each person’s meaning is different, and only that person can live up to it. 

According to Frankl, “Man is capable of living and even dying for the sake of his beliefs and principles.” A recent survey found that 89% of respondents said they needed “something” to live for, while 61% said they had something or someone they would be willing to sacrifice their life for. 

In a survey of almost 8,000 students in the United States that was done by Johns Hopkins University, 78 percent said that their main goal was to “find a purpose and meaning in their lives,” while 16 percent said that making a lot of money was very important to them.

Existential Frustration

When a person can’t meet her need for meaning, she will feel existential frustration. This term can be used to talk about: Existence itself, as shown by the human form of being, and the meaning of existence. 

The “will to meaning” is another name for the desire to find meaning in one’s life. This kind of frustration can lead to “noogenic neuroses,” which come from the Greek word noos, which means “mind.” They are the exact opposite of the psychogenic neuroses that are usually seen in Freudian psychoanalysis.

Noögenic Neuroses

Existential problems can lead to noogenic neuroses, and logotherapy, which is different from psychotherapy, focuses on the human side of things.

From this point of view, existential frustration is neither a mental illness nor a disease. Logotherapy tries to help people find meaning in their lives by revealing the hidden “logos,” or meanings, in their lives. Logotherapy is different from psychoanalysis because it tries to find out what people really want from the inside out.

Noö-Dynamics

Logotherapy doesn’t try to find balance; instead, it pushes the person to move from a state of laziness toward a goal they want to reach. 

This conflict is also referred to by its other name, noö-dynamics, which means “existential dynamics in a polar field of tension,” where one pole stands for a meaningful goal and the other for the person who achieves it. 

Frankl said that his love and duty to his wife were what gave his life in the camp meaning and helped him get through it.

The Existential Vacuum

An individual is not bound by any predetermined set of actions, dictated either by instinct or by precedent. And most of the time, people don’t know what they really want to do with their lives. 

As a result, individuals would either conform to what other people do (conformism) or do what other people want them to do (totalitarianism).

Boredom can be a sign of a lack of meaning in life. Then, it’s up to each person to figure out what’s important to them and how to spend their free time on this work. 

Pensioners who think they don’t have a purpose in life without work may show this in a number of ways, such as depression, addiction, or a will to power that shows up in the form of making money . 

People seem to use traditional neuroses when they have an unsatisfied will to meaning. Classic psychogenic neuroses will result from attempts to fill this emptiness with primitive urges and emotions.

The Meaning of Life

You can’t think of the meaning of life in general terms because it’s different for each person and at different times. The goal is to figure out what matters to a person. 

Because of this, a person’s meaning becomes something that only they can fulfill. It is only then that a person can answer back and take responsibility for their own meaning, which is the very core of human existence.

The Essence of Human Existence

If you’re going to live as if it’s your second chance, you have to face the fact that it’s your job to figure out what your life is all about. 

So, the logotherapist helps patients see all the ways they could find meaning in their lives and encourages them to choose the meaning for which she wants to be responsible. 

Because of this, it is very important to realize that the real meaning of life lies in the world, not in your own head. 

This is called the “self-transcendence of human existence,” and it means that people can only find meaning in their lives by interacting with things other than themselves. 

In other words, you have to forget about yourself and focus on your responsibilities to others if you want your life to be worth living. In three ways, logotherapy helps a person find out what their life is all about:

• By completing a task or participating in an activity
• As a result of meeting something or someone. One’s knowledge of nature and culture, or one’s love for and appreciation of another person’s uniqueness.
• How they react to pain they can’t avoid.

The Meaning of Love

By loving another person, you can get to know your deepest self, and by loving another person, you can get to know their uniqueness and essence. This will help them see the potential they still haven’t reached. 

The loving person is then in a unique position to help and encourage their loved one to reach their full potential by making them more aware of what they can and should be. 

In logotherapy, love is more than just getting what you want sexually. But love can be shown in more ways than just through sex.

The Meaning of Suffering

Realizing that suffering has value is the most difficult thing to do, yet it reveals humanity’s extraordinary capacity to turn a personal tragedy into something positive . 

Unavoidable circumstances will push you to grow as a person. Frankl talked about an old patient who couldn’t get out of his deep depression after the death of his wife. He told the patient that she would have been in so much pain if he had died first. 

And that by staying alive, he had spared her this pain, even though it had cost him something. Even though it wasn’t typical therapy, he had a big impact on how the old man saw life and what he saw as the point of his pain. 

Logotherapy says that there is still meaning in your life even if you can’t avoid suffering. It does not say that you have to go through pain to find meaning.

The Super-Meaning

With the aid of logotherapy, sufferers are able to see that their pain is unknowable by any human being. To make his point, Frankl used the example of a stabbed monkey in an intravenous drug experiment. 

The monkey can’t understand its pain because it doesn’t have a lot of mental capacity. A person, on the other hand, can understand why it’s important to make medicines that save lives. Then he wonders if our pain might have a deeper meaning that we don’t know about.

Life’s Transitoriness

Aside from sadness, death may seem to take away the purpose of life, but in hindsight, possibilities are just temporary parts of life. Even though people only live a short time, that doesn’t make death meaningless. 

Instead, we should think about the options we have and decide what we want to be kept after we die. So, logotherapy is optimistic instead of pessimistic. The person then notices how quickly the days go by and realizes that each day is richer because of how happy they are.

Logotherapy as a Technique

Psychodynamic interpretation and philosophical understanding are not enough to get rid of fears like death and agoraphobia. In such instances, logotherapy appears to be a unique technique. 

Think about anticipatory anxiety, which is the fear of what might happen in the future. When someone walks into a room, she is more likely to fall if she is afraid of falling. 

People with sexual insecurities often can’t feel pleasure or orgasm because they are too focused on making it happen. Sexual pleasure is a side effect that goes wrong when it becomes the main goal. Instead of hyper-intention, logotherapy also looks at “hyper-reflection,” which means paying too much attention. 

Logotherapy helps people want what they fear by making it impossible for them to want what they don’t want. The patient can then use his or her sense of humor to get away from the situation. It has been shown to help with both insomnia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The Group’s Nervousness

Every generation has a group neurosis that needs to be treated in its own way. The current one is the existential vacuum, which is defined as a private and personal form of nihilism in which people think that their lives don’t matter. 

The correct method of administering psychotherapy, then, must be outside of the prevailing collective mentality in order to avoid supporting the patients’ preexisting worldview. 

Saying that existence is nothing in and of itself is risky because it could make people feel like they are nothing more than the result of biological, social, or psychological influences from the outside world. 

But as a neuroscientist, Frankl knows how much things can affect a person. He could see that men were able to deal with and survive what seemed to be the worst things that could happen.

Critique of Pan-Determinism

One of the most destructive ideas , in Frankl’s view, is pan-determinism, the concept that human beings are destined to succumb to any situation they face. 

Self-determination is the idea that a man can choose whether to give in to his circumstances or fight against them. Because of this, we can change at any time, no matter what our physical, mental, or social circumstances are.

Psychiatry Rehumanized

Frankl saw that the biggest problem with modern psychiatry was that psychiatrists focused on how a patient worked and saw the mind as something that could be changed. 

They lost sight of the person behind the illness they were trying to cure. Humans, on the other hand, are a mix of different traits that can change on their own. The qualities that define a man are those that he cultivates inside himself.

THE CASE FOR TRAGIC OPTIMISM

The three main characteristics of human existence that can be summed up in the words “suffering,” “guilt,” and “death” are known as the “tragic triad” in the field of logotherapy. One who maintains optimism in the face of these three factors is said to exhibit tragic optimism. 

So, it’s up to each individual to make the most of their circumstances by turning their problems into opportunities. 

The tragic triad, which states that one must transform suffering into a human success or accomplishment, change oneself for the better from guilt, and obtain a cause to behave responsibly from the knowledge that life is short and death is unavoidable, is considered by tragic optimists.

The tendency to give up is especially strong when someone is hyperintentional but still cannot locate their target. For example, they can refuse to work and prepare themselves mentally for death in a concentration camp. 

In today’s society, this might show up as a form of existential anxiety, which could be reflected in people’s willingness to experiment with substances. The current sort of apathy will result from humans having enough to live on but nothing to live for; they will have the means but no meaning. 

Depression, anger, and addiction are just some of the neuroses that can result from an empty sense of purpose in life. Frankl found that giving the patient purpose in life was often all that was needed to prevent suicide attempts.

A person’s moral compass serves as a guide for making decisions in all aspects of life, and it should be used in the same manner that a ruler is used. 

One’s own values serve as a standard against which to evaluate the given circumstances; these values are inherent to the person and are therefore not applied deliberately, but are instead an integral element of one’s biological inheritance as a human being.

Even at the worst of times and in the midst of unavoidable suffering, it is possible to find a reason to keep going.

Most Important Keywords, Sentences, Quotes

“The central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and a purpose in dying. 

But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes.”

“On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, has lost all scruples in their fight for existence. 

They were prepared to use any means, honest or otherwise, even brutal force, theft and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles—whatever one may choose to call them—we know: the best of us did not return.”

“In spite of the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of live in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. 

They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom.”

“This intensification of the inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of existence, by letting him escape into the past.”

“Psychological observations of the prisoners have shown that only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp’s degenerating influences.”

“Often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man, the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.”

“Thus, it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, a tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.”

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. 

For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”

“Once an individual’s search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering and what happens if one’s groping for a meaning has been in vain? This may well result in a fatal condition.”

“Logotherapy teaches that there are three main avenues which one arrives at a meaningful life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone. In other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love.”

“Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself and by so doing, change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.”

Book Review (Personal Opinion):

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is an extraordinary book and really gave me a sense of encouragement. 

It demonstrates that despite our hardships, we can each find our own unique purpose in life and, in doing so, understand our place in the world and the reasons we should keep striving to improve it. 

Even though it may take some time to fully appreciate it, you are loved, worthy, and a warrior. The book is not just sugarcoated but makes arguments about all the points it’s claiming.

In the book it is stated the importance of self-care is on all fronts of our life (emotional, physical, and spiritual) and how is crucial for us to feel at peace. In today’s fast-paced, always-connected world, it’s simple to feel disoriented, overburdened, and inadequate when compared to others. 

In this situation, you must prioritize your own needs over those of others. Do what makes you happy, not what others think you should do. Don’t let little, insignificant, or self-centered concerns get in your way.

Rating : 10/10

If You Want to Learn More

Here is an interview with Viktor Frankl on Finding meaning in difficult times (Interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl)

How I’ve Implemented the Ideas from The Book

Since I read the book, I reflected about my life and the importance of being resilient in crucial times of our life’s’. Our happiness not only depends on the things happening in our life, but it is mainly ruled by mentality and the way we see life. 

That´s why, since reading the book when things do not go as planned on a bad sense, I always ask myself what this situation can teach me. I try to stop myself from victimizing myself and just embracing that life has many ups and downs and the bad moments will always pass.

One Small Actionable Step You Can Do

After finishing this book and becoming aware that even in the midst of difficulty or anguish, it is possible to perceive the best that life has to offer, the first thing you can do is give careful consideration to the positive things that are already in your immediate surroundings. 

We need to direct our attention on the positive aspects of our lives, including our friends, our families, and even our pets. It doesn’t have to be about people. It can also be about things. Possibly eating your favorite dish or simply sitting outside and watching the sun shining. 

Every day presents a fresh chance to show affection for the people in your life and to connect with the world around you. We need to keep in mind, in a constructive way, that life is a gift, and that no matter how much suffering or sorrow we experience, there is always something to be gained from it.

Bruno Boksic

Recent posts.

• The Awakening Book Summary, Review, Notes
• Blood Meridian Book Summary, Review, Notes
• The House on Mango Street Book Summary, Review, Notes
• The Midnight Library Book Summary, Review, Notes
• Their Eyes Were Watching God Book Summary, Review, Notes

The official student newspaper of the University of Glasgow, independently informing since 1932.

Review: Man’s Search for Meaning

• February 2, 2021
• No comments

Man’s Search for Meaning by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl tells of the horrors of the Holocaust and by doing so, reflects on the importance of maintaining a degree of hope in the face of adversity. 

As Covid-19 deprived people of any control of their lives, many of us sought to regain at least some of it in the form of a daily routine, like Patrick Bateman’s beauty ritual in American Psycho . I also developed a morning routine, although not as extreme, to start my day on a positive note: with a cup of black coffee in one hand and a light-hearted book in another, to counteract the bitter taste of both Nescafe and reality. However, recently my mornings have been slightly different. With no more deadlines looming, I found myself deprived of any reason to wake up and get out of my bed – a feeling that has been clinging to me like a limpet even with a crazy amount of coursework. Consequently, the choice fell on Man’s Search for Meaning , a 1946 book written by a psychiatrist Viktor Frankl that chronicles his experience in Nazi concentration camps. Little did I know how relevant to the current situation I would find it. 

Now, let me get this straight first: in no way am I suggesting that our struggles are comparable or, perish the thought, identical to these narrated in the memoir – the horrors that Holocaust victims had to go through can hardly equate to anything we’ve experienced. Yet, as the author himself suggested, he aimed to describe “the multitude of small torments” instead of the great ones discussed often enough already (“though less often believed”), as well as the small pleasures, like humour, nature, cabaret performances and friendships that the prisoners could not be robbed of. No matter the context, Man’s Search for Meaning is, then, a tale of hope. And as the battle against hopelessness has gotten harder with the pandemic, it is a tale that can radically change our attitude towards our experience of it.   

With over 4 million printed copies sold worldwide in the English language alone, Man’s Search for Meaning consists of two parts: Experiences in a Concentration Camp and Logotherapy in a Nutshell , both of which speak for themselves. In the first part, it’s hard to avoid dreadful topics such as cannibalism, illness, apathy, extreme hunger, depersonalisation and depression, as well as working in cold temperatures and enduring all the more chilling cruelty of those who were at the core of all the suffering. And suffering, as a phenomenon, is central to the book’s main idea. Not only is it vividly discussed as a personal and, occasionally, intimate experience (Frankl claims that his initial plan was to publish it anonymously for this very reason), but also in reference to such philosophers and poets as Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Rilke, and, naturally, Nietzsche, whose veracious words “ Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich starker, ” (That which does not kill me, makes me stronger) are no longer taken seriously thanks to Kelly Clarkson. 

Even more fundamental is the message about “the will to meaning”. According to Frankl and his theory of logotherapy that is explored in the second part, it acts as the main incentive to keep going in the face of adversity, whatever shape it takes, and can be found in any circumstances (in Nietzsche’s terms, it is the why to your how). When bringing up his memories, Frankl writes that “the most depressing influence of all was that a prisoner could not know how long his term of imprisonment would be,” that “in time, it was the limitlessness of the term of imprisonment which was most acutely felt; in space, the narrow limits of the prison,” and that “everything in a way became pointless,” an obvious analogy can be drawn to the latest lockdown rules (the how that is getting tougher). Furthermore, when to his own question, “what did the prisoner dream about most frequently?” he answers, “of bread, cake, cigarettes, and nice warm baths,” I can’t help but think of how my most frequent dreams recently have been about hanging out with friends I haven’t seen in ages, going to the movies or a gig, and carelessly dancing all night long (the why that still persists). Frankl’s later words that “one could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners,” remind me of the “vegging out” that I have been observing in myself and others lately. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with being a “couch potato” and doing nothing. That is, if we do it consciously and have a positive outlook on it; if the potato that we are is still fresh. Before I even get to formulate an opinion, I find myself agreeing that “what was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life.” At this moment in time, it is needed all the more. Making plans is not an option, but picturing a positive future is. And it is achievable as long as there is the why – a small win – which can be as simple as waking up in the mornings to read a book and have a delicious cup of coffee (even while staying in bed).

View all posts

Share this story

Follow us online.

Europe’s farmers are protesting

EU ambassador visits the University to talk Brexit, mobility, and dialogue

The miners’ strike: forty years on.

The Rise of Darts

SWPL Season So Far

© 2024 The Glasgow Guardian

Man’s Search for Meaning Review Essay (Book Review)

What the book has taught me, other lessons from the book.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” is a book written by Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, and a doctor. The man’s work has left an immense impact on the literary scene and has been highly regarded by critics and the general audience alike. Detailing the author’s personal philosophy and way of life, it has offered readers a fresh and hopeful perspective on human existence. The purpose of this paper is to review the book’s contents, discuss some of its major themes and points, as well as to provide a personal perspective on its messaging and presentation. Starting with the general summary, this essay hopes to relay an honest opinion on Frankl’s work.

Being a physiological non-fiction story, the book describes the author’s pers journey to survival and self-discovery. The man tells his audience about the experiences of people living through German concentration camps, allowing strangers a glimpse into the horrors of that time. The man does not linger on the minute details too much, however, as his real-life experiences are mostly a tool to justify and contextualize his beliefs in a broader framework. The main purpose of the book is in outlining Frankl’s philosophy of Logotherapy, a process of finding meaning in human life. He contends that a singular individual is incapable of grasping the true meaning of their existence, a grand plan written for them by the universe. Instead, Frankl beliefs that people ought to find their own meaning in life, creating it as a result of their views on the world and experiences within it. By actively participating in life, acting in one’s interests, and building relationships with others, a person can find meaning in their existence. In his eyes, human purpose is self-made, regardless of an individual’s life circumstances or events they had to overcome.

Frankl believes that by understanding the meaning behind their life, a person is able to overcome any hardship and persevere against difficulties. Recontextualizing the events of one’s life and having a positive outlook is crucial here, as it allows one to control their feelings about any particular event. There are, however, three major driving factors behind human life, he contends: love, work, and courage. Love is the highest desire and goal to strive toward, finding meaning through creating relationships with other people and spreading kindness with others. Love is what has helped Frankl himself survive, as he continued to think about his wife in the concentration camp. Work can also become a driving factor if a person is truly invested in what they are doing. A passion to accomplish a challenging task, make one’s dream come true, or derive enjoyment from a satisfying activity can all fill a person’s life with meaning. A desire to cement one’s accomplishments in history through work can also be a motivating force, bringing significance even to momentary suffering. Courage, the last source of meaning, allows people to overcome difficulty and seek self-improvement in its stead. By facing the tide and coming out as a better person, one can find their calling. As much effort as it takes to find meaning, a person’s reasons to live are also specific to them and cannot be accomplished by anyone else. This outlook further highlights the importance of human life and shows that in the eyes of the author, every individual is special and valuable.

Frankl explains that the journey to self-fulfillment is difficult, and feelings of tension arise as a result of inner struggle. The human being is instinctively aware of the differences between their ideal self and the current self, which creates discomfort inseparable from the human experience. The mental gap between what one is and what one should become in the future is a crucial part of any person’s mental state.

The author also talks about the “Existential Vacuum”, a state of being that comes from a discrepancy between people’s instinct and the journey for meaning. The basic animalistic instinct that command lesser creatures have lost their power over humans, who are left unable to supplement the absence of meaning. Likewise, the diminishing traditions of the past become increasingly incapable of giving people a purpose in life, who are starting to struggle with finding a place to belong. These factors create an internal vacuum that results in feelings of meaninglessness and boredom. An increase in automation of work, people are left to ponder on their existence even further, making them dissatisfied and unproductive.

The book’s contents were extremely informative in shaping my understanding of resilience and coping mechanisms. When faced with challenges, pain, or great trauma, the human mind can often struggle to understand and recover from the experience creating long-term problems for an individual and their mental health. The need to ensure one’s wellbeing and health is what drives many people, including myself, to develop better coping mechanisms and strategies to overcome adversity and grow as individuals. This book, in particular, has taught me the ways to adjust my outlook on events to better process them. Frankl outlines that many of life’s challenges can be understood through a different lens, as an inevitable part of life that can and should be conquered. The author highlights the importance of finding a calling of some sort and reminding yourself of its importance to gain a better sense of context. This approach allowed me to establish a perspective on harmful events and understand that they do not ultimately define my life or my existence and that finding self-fulfillment in love, occupation, and connections with others are much more important. By reminding oneself of the future, the goals one desires to accomplish, and the things they want to experience, a person can survive a great many challenges.

Importance of Love

In my personal life journey, I have never been able to find a meaning of life for certain. In always seemed like my goals were too small and insignificant, and the boredom or disinterest I felt was overwhelming. For a long time, I thought that finding meaning was not that important, that I could continue living without it, satisfying some of the more trivial desires I had and quietly spending the rest of my days. Love, similarly, never really interested me, in a romantic sense at least. Building connections with other people is complicated and contrived, with the thousand different ways an individual can behave. I often felt that finding love was something I did not need or want, to do, as it seemed more like a societal expectation that a genuine benefit to my life as it is.

These feelings are still a big part of my being, and I cannot simply choose to feel differently about the things that are not ingrained into my being. However, I feel that this book has provided me with some of the much-needed perspectives on the question of love, a position that is different from my own in a distinct way. The author often speaks of the importance of love, how much of a role it played in his ability to survive horrible events and give his life a purpose. Frankl’s words on the subject seemed hopeful and inspiring, in a way that not many other forms of media can be. I feel that his word may make me want to reconsider my views and put more effort into finding self-fulfillment. Maybe creating genuine connections with other people will be beneficial to be mental well-being in ways I cannot currently imagine.

Changes in the World Climate Contribute to People’s Boredom and Lack of Purpose

In his writing, Frankl has noted an interesting trend that grows with the growth and the development of civilization. As technology develops and civilization becomes more and more separate from its origins, people are starting to feel increasingly displaced from their more basic roles in society. The simple worldview of old generations and the minimalistic outlook on the roles of men and women in society becomes unable to accommodate the diverse and ever-growing population of people. With the traditions of old being unable to support contemporary society, and new norms not having the ability to form, individuals, are left to figure out their place in the world by themselves. Many of the jobs humans have traditionally filled are being overtaken by automation, leaving people even fewer opportunities to find their calling in labor.

The boredom and a large discrepancy this phenomenon creates spreads boredom and harms the mental wellbeing of the many. While having thought about the issue previously, I have not been able to aptly put all my thoughts into words, and the book has allowed me a broader perspective on the issue. I think that understanding the need to redefine an individual’s role in society and allow people more opportunities for self-realization and fulfillment could make many people’s lives a lot more enjoyable, including mine. By giving this issue more attention, I think I will be able to combat the systematic boredom I, like many others, feel on a daily basis.

How the Book Connects With the Topics of The Course

As discussed previously, the book deals with many themes central to ensuring a person’s mental well-being and finding the meaning behind their existence. The author talks at length about some of the tactics he used to overcome the horror of concentration camps, connecting with the topic of coping mechanisms and managing stress. Frankl has persevered against suffering by deriving meaning in its existence and making its presence and invaluable part of his personal growth. He also used things dear to his heart both a motivation and a distraction to dull the emotional impact the event had on him. He teaches how to manage one’s grief and not lose hope in the face of great tragedy. His writing can also be connected with the notions of self-care and human wellness. Finding a purpose for life, in Frankl’s eyes, is what gives people the highest level of fulfillment and satisfaction. Devoting one’s time to another person, sharing affection and love, as well as working on something you enjoy are all important aspects of self-care that are recognized as valid reasons to live by the author.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 27). Man’s Search for Meaning Review. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mans-search-for-meaning-review/

"Man’s Search for Meaning Review." IvyPanda , 27 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/mans-search-for-meaning-review/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Man’s Search for Meaning Review'. 27 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Man’s Search for Meaning Review." March 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mans-search-for-meaning-review/.

1. IvyPanda . "Man’s Search for Meaning Review." March 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mans-search-for-meaning-review/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Man’s Search for Meaning Review." March 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mans-search-for-meaning-review/.

• “Man's Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl
• Vocation in Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning"
• Originality and Value in “Man’s Search of Meaning”
• The Mystery of God and Human Being in “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Frankl
• "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl
• The Life of a Human Being in C. S Lewis “The Great Divorce” and “Man’s Search for Meaning” a Book by Victor Frankl
• Do we Have Meaning?
• Comparison of Jean-Paul Sartre's and Viktor Frankl's Theories
• Religious Studies. Kushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" and Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning"
• “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Tolstoy: The Main Characters
• Brothers and Their Riches: "The Rich Brother" by Tobias Wolff
• Connie’s Character in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
• The Making of a Hero: Jefferson in A Lesson Before Dying. Ernest J. Gaines
• Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
• “The Most Dangerous Job” by Schlosser

• Science & Math
• Biological Sciences

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Man's Search For Meaning Paperback – Standard Edition, December 1, 1997

There is a newer edition of this item:.

• Print length 224 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Pocket Books
• Publication date December 1, 1997
• Dimensions 4.25 x 0.75 x 6.75 inches
• ISBN-10 0671023373
• ISBN-13 978-0671023379
• See all details

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review, from the back cover.

Cited in Dr. Frankl's New York Times obituary in 1997 as "an enduring work of survival literature," Man's Search for Meaning is more than the story of Viktor E. Frankl's triumph: it is a remarkable blend of science and humanism and "an introduction to the most significant psychological movement of our day" (Gordon W. Allport).

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pocket Books; Revised, Updated edition (December 1, 1997)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0671023373
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0671023379
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.25 x 0.75 x 6.75 inches
• #5 in Cell Biology (Books)
• #1,279 in Psychology & Counseling
• #2,535 in History (Books)

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

• We Need to Talk About That Wild A Man in Full Ending

As the headline suggests, spoilers about the ending of Netflix limited series A Man in Full lie ahead.

If you clicked on this article, I can only assume that you have recently finished watching the sixth and final episode of A Man in Full . Right now you are probably feeling shocked, flabbergasted, disgusted, profoundly confused, or some combination of all of these emotions. That is okay. That is normal . If you watched the last ten minutes of A Man in Full and thought, Well, that was a completely understandable way to end a television show and I have no further questions about what I just saw , then I can only conclude that you fell asleep and missed the part where a smirking Tom Pelphrey shows his naked, erect penis to Jeff Daniels in what has to be the weirdest instance of full frontal male nudity in the history of the medium. Those of us who actually saw that scene, then watched it again to make sure we didn’t hallucinate the entire thing, need a place to process what we have witnessed. This, my mildly traumatized friends, is that place.

A Man in Full , written entirely by the perpetually busy David E. Kelley, is an adaptation of the gargantuan 1998 Tom Wolfe novel of the same name that examines race, elitism, and politics in late-’90s Atlanta. Kelley’s version moves the story to the present day and, though it borrows basic storylines from Wolfe’s narrative, also deviates wildly from the original text. And no deviation is wilder than those last ten minutes.

Having resolved the plot surrounding Conrad Hensley (Jon Michael Hill), a Black man who unjustly winds up in prison after assaulting a white police officer — his case is dropped after a blatantly racist judge becomes suddenly and conveniently reasonable in the last episode — the finale turns its attention back to its central conflict: the one between Pelphrey’s Raymond Peepgrass and Daniels’s Charlie Croker. The series has already established that Raymond, a man with a sad apartment and a sad, beat-up BMW, has built his entire life around achieving the satisfaction that will come when the bank he works for finally brings down the famously wealthy Charlie Croker’s real-estate empire. Charlie, who has always seen Raymond as some little peon who helps push around his money, is meanwhile doing whatever he can to avoid financial ruin even though he owes more than $1 billion in unpaid bank loans. On that front, he receives some bad news in the finale: that Raymond has created a new financial entity, Big Red Dog LLC, which is in the process of gaining a majority interest in the Concourse, the skyscraping jewel in Charlie’s real-estate crown, thanks to a partnership Raymond has formed with Charlie’s ex-wife, Martha (Diane Lane). Enraged, Charlie speeds to Martha’s mansion.

Via the magic of montage, we viewers are well aware that at this moment, Raymond is already at Martha’s house and in the middle of railing her into mid-next week. It’s worth noting that in Wolfe’s novel, Raymond does not pursue a romantic relationship with Martha and never has sex with her. But in the Netflix version, Raymond seems to be leveraging whatever genuine attraction exists between the two of them for his own personal gain, and also so that, eventually, Kelley can make an extremely obvious point using Raymond’s dick. (Side note: The series tells us that, prior to this tryst with Raymond, Martha has not had sex or even been kissed in 20 years. While this is far from the series’ most unbelievable detail, it is still pretty far-fetched considering that Martha is played by Diane Lane and we can all see what she looks like!)

Charlie shows up and starts banging on the front and back doors, but Martha and Raymond can’t hear it over the sounds of their own banging, so Charlie uses the spare key, walks in, and finds Raymond in the process of absolutely going to town on Martha. After she screams for him to leave to no avail, Martha runs off to call the cops, leaving Raymond and Charlie alone, behind a locked door, where they finally have the big confrontation A Man in Full has been clumsily leading up to for five and three-quarter episodes. “You think you’re gonna take my building, Mr. Big Red Dog?” drawls Daniels, who infuses Charlie with the accent of Foghorn Leghorn and the anger-management issues of Yosemite Sam.

The whole “big red dog” thing is a callback to something that Raymond says in episode four to Sirja, a woman with whom he (accidentally) fathered a child. “Charlie used to have this expression,” he tells her, because Charlie is constantly quoting dumb expressions. “‘At some point a man needs to let out the big red dog.’” Does that qualify as an expression? If so, is it a good expression? Because on first listen, all it does is remind me of Clifford the Big Red Dog. But given how frequently A Man in Full likes to mention male genitalia — “At the end of the day, a man’s gotta be able to shake his balls” is something Charlie says not once, but twice, during the course of this series — I should have known where all that “big red dog” business was headed.

After an outraged Charlie drops a “How dare you?” in Raymond’s face, Raymond responds with, “It’s time I dare. If not now, when?” Then he whips off the bed sheet draped over his lower region and reveals his penis with an expression on his face that absolutely says, “Ta-da!” even though he doesn’t say it out loud.

Charlie gazes down at the man meat before him, then says, “Big red dog indeed,” and for a half-second it seems like maybe they will have sex. But instead Raymond launches into a bunch of talk about Scottish traditions, including one that involves “fucking the landowner’s wife.” At this time I would just like to point out that David E. Kelley spent many hours writing this show when he easily could have just spent that time chilling with his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer.

Charlie then grabs Raymond by the throat and begins to choke him, at which time his right hand, which often freezes for reasons he still hasn’t gotten diagnosed, seizes up around Raymond’s neck. He can’t let go of his enemy even though he seemingly wants to. Then, just when you think this whole scenario can’t get any more preposterous, Charlie has a heart attack at the same moment Raymond loses access to oxygen, causing them to literally tip over together and die. Again: they just fall over sideways and croak!

In the final moments of A Man in Full , Raymond is taken out of the house in a body bag and Charlie is dead on the floor of his former bedroom, his recently installed bionic knee allowing him to get in one final kick. Like so much of A Man In Full , that mechanical twitch of Charlie’s leg almost registers as intentionally comedic, but not quite. If this ending leaned into its own ridiculousness and was played more obviously for comedy, it might have worked. Other TV shows, specifically The Righteous Gemstones , have done this kind of thing successfully before, and given the number of extremely talented people involved with A Man in Full (Regina King and television vet Thomas Schlamme directed all the episodes, and other members of the cast include Bill Camp, Lucy Liu, and William Jackson Harper), there’s reason to believe the series would be capable of pulling off such a feat. But the tone of everything leading up to this moment falls much too far on the side of the serious — and the self-serious — to allow it to land as anything other than a misguided and bizarre way to end a limited series that wouldn’t recognize subtlety if it walked up and waved its penis in its face.

In an interview with Newsweek , Daniels warned that this conclusion might be polarizing and offensive to some viewers. “It’s the ending that you don’t see coming, and you can’t believe it,” he said. “But it’s plausible.” I am not sure “plausible” is the best word to describe it. “Ridiculous” is a better word. “Disappointing” is another good adjective, and one that applies to the whole series. It’s easy to understand why Kelley thought Wolfe’s novel would be a relevant work to revisit at this point in time. In Charlie Croker, a blustery, conservative real-estate mogul trying to downplay his diminished wealth, there are vague shades of Donald Trump. The police-brutality storyline involving Conrad, another departure from the novel, seems designed to sync up with the post-George Floyd era. And there are moments that speak to the idea that the white male patriarchy is in decline. “World’s gonna make men like me extinct, that’s what they’re gonna do,” Charlie declares during a speech in episode five that in theory foreshadows what’s to come in the finale but in practice sounds like every other tortured aphorism that comes out of his mouth.

But Kelley never tugs hard enough on these threads to convey a coherent message about the present moment, or any moment, for that matter. The ending of A Man in Full simply and bluntly tells us that egocentric men who get caught up in literal dick-swinging contests will eventually be the death of each other. But in addition to being just plain dumb, that conclusion also seems like a cop-out. In the real world, men like Raymond Peepgrass and, especially, Charlie Croker, usually don’t die at a narratively convenient moment. They keep sticking around longer than they should, making life miserable for themselves and the people around them. But an ending that gets at that idea wouldn’t be as shocking or provocative as a penis unveiling that leads to two men finishing (in a manner of speaking) at exactly the same time. If Kelley’s goal was shock and awe, I suppose his conclusion is successful. But if he wanted to make people think, then he has failed here almost as spectacularly as Charlie Croker and Raymond Peepgrass did in the last, embarrassing moments of their lives.

• vulture section lede
• a man in full
• david e. kelley
• big red spoilers

Most Viewed Stories

• A Complete Track-by-Track Timeline of Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s Feud
• Let’s Just Hope Drake and Kendrick’s Kids Aren’t Listening
• Kendrick’s Drake-Villain Origin Story Begins With DMX
• Um, Is NewJeans Okay?
• Cinematrix No. 51: May 6, 2024

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Exclusive: We have 30% off Alicia Keys' skin care line – and it's selling out fast

• TODAY Plaza
• Share this —

• Watch Full Episodes
• Read With Jenna
• Inspirational
• Relationships
• TODAY Table
• Newsletters
• Start TODAY
• Shop TODAY Awards
• Citi Concert Series
• Listen All Day

Follow today

More Brands

• On The Show

The shocking ending of 'A Man in Full' explained

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for "A Man in Full."

After six episodes of scheming and plotting, Netflix's "A Man in Full” reaches an epic climax that might have you hitting the rewind button to figure out what, in tarnation, happened in the final moments of the series.

Directed by Regina King and based on Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel by the same name, the new Netflix show centers on Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels), a swaggering Atlanta real estate mogul who’s faced with bankruptcy after his lenders decide to call in his nearly billion-dollar debt.

Viewers are first introduced southern businessman at his 60th birthday party, a glitzy, country-club affair with a sequined-clad Shania Twain as the night’s entertainment, leaving no doubt that at Croker’s level, you don’t bother with DJ’s, you just hire the hitmaker instead.

Croker’s point one-percenter life is suddenly threatened when, during a bank meeting, when he’s informed his loans are due, stat, by Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey) and Harry Zale (Bill Camp), two overzealous bankers who are only too happy to take him down.

“A loan is not a gift, and when we make loans, we actually expect to be paid back,” Zale smugly tells Croker.

It isn’t long before Croker begins sweating, displaying “saddlebags,” or giant rings of perspiration that soak his shirt, the telltale sign he’s nervous according to Peepgrass, whose consuming desire to see the tycoon get his comeuppance develops into full-blown obsession.

The implications of Croker losing everything affects the lives of everyone around him, including his wife Serena (Sarah Jones) and ex-wife Martha (Diane Lane), his angsty teenage son Wally (Evan Roe) and well as Croker's assistant Jill Hensley (Chanté Adams). She's got problems of her own after her husband, Conrad (Jon Michael Hill), gets tossed in the slammer for assaulting a cop over a parking violation.

To argue the case, Croker enlists the help of his corporate lawyer, Roger White (Aml Ameen), who must spring Hensley before he’s murdered in prison. Like the others, White, too, becomes entangled in the whole mess.

Similar to Wolfe’s other bestseller, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” it’s a story of greed, corruption, wealth, morality and justice, with each of the characters more or less getting what they deserve in the end.

Speaking of which, let’s break down what exactly went down in the final episode of “Man in Full,” because there’s a lot to unpack, starting with what happened to Charlie Croker and Raymond Peepgrass.

Who dies in the end of ' A Man in Full'?

In the final moments of "A Man in Full," Croker and Peepgrass face off in Martha's bedroom after Charlie discovers his ex and Peepgrass in the throes of passion.

With Peepgrass fully nude (and displaying his impossible-to-miss “big red dog”) the argument turns violent ending with Croker angrily gripping Peepgrass' throat in a stranglehold.

Just when it seems Croker is about to let go, a look of surprise crosses his face and his hand suddenly locks in place and try as he may, he can't let go. Before long, his other hand clutches his heart in what appears to be a heart attack brought on by the stress of it all.

The pair slide to the ground together where they're discovered by Martha, whose perspective viewers don't get to see.

But what actually happened? Did one or both of them die?

It's obvious that Croker's a goner given he's discovered lifeless on the floor, eyes staring blankly into oblivion (but his robotic knee still totally functioning). His eyes are gently closed by his lawyer, Roger White, who shows up and comforts Martha after all is said and done.

The bigger question is Peepgrass.

His fate is seemingly answered in the previous scene in which a black body bag is wheeled out of Martha’s house on a gurney. Upon close inspection, the bag has what appears to be quite a large protrusion sticking out midway between the head and the feet, presumably, Peepgrass’ “big, red dog,” standing at full attention, even post-mortem.

So, both men die, with greed and obsession leading to their ultimate demise.

Does Conrad Hensley get out of prison?

The subplot of “A Man in Full” follows expecting parents, Jill and Conrad Hensley, as they deal with the fallout of Conrad’s arrest and subsequent charge of assaulting a cop after Conrad gets into a dispute over a parking ticket.

Tasked with representing Hensley in court, White, Croker’s lawyer, a corporate attorney who doesn’t have the chops to navigate the criminal process, develops a conscience and, in the process, inadvertently provokes a cantankerous judge into sending Hensley to Fulton County prison, a lockup reserved for the most violent of criminals.

Once inside, Hensley acts as a good samaritan after a fellow inmate is stabbed, drawing the ire and death threats of the perpetrators. From there, it’s a race against time to free Hensley before a gang of thugs can get to him.

Entitled “Judgement Day,” the final episode of “A Man in Full” shows White, who’s finally done the hard work necessary to be the kind of lawyer he needs to be in order to spring Hensley, squaring off against the judge (Anthony Heald) and proving his case beyond a reasonable doubt.

With little choice, the judge rules in his favor, dropping the charges and declaring Hensley free to go.

Does Charlie Croker end up being a good guy?

Despite Croker's boorishness, which includes bringing potential investor Herb Richman and his wife to his expansive ranch and insisting they watch two horses violently mate, not to mention wrangling a rattlesnake, it's hard not to want him to succeed in his desperate bid to hang on to his money, private jet and fancy houses.

In a chess game of strategic moves, Croker conspires with Atlanta mayor, Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper), to smear his campaign opponent with an old allegation of sexual assault committed against socialite Joyce Newman (Lucy Liu), a close friend of his ex-wife Martha.

Croker tries to convince Newman to come forward with her story, but she refuses. So, instead, Croker promises to unearth the claims during a live press conference with the scheming mayor, in which Croker's honored for his former glory days as a football player at Georgia Tech.

In return, Mayor Jordan agrees to tell Croker's bankers to table his $800 million loan repayment indefinitely.

However, when the moment comes to reveal the dirt, Croker locks eyes with son, Wally, who's sitting in the audience alongside Serena, and has a change of heart, choosing not to reveal the secret and taking the high road instead.

While he might not be an angel, Croker ultimately dies with redemption in the eyes of the people who matter the most to him.

How does the end of 'A Man in Full" differ from the book?

The series "A Man in Full" wraps up with Croker and Peepgrass having killed each other off, Conrad Hensley freed from prison and presumably happily preparing for fatherhood with pregnant wife Jill.

Croker's lawyer, Roger White, has transformed from cushy corporate lawyer into an earnest attorney and it seems that Croker's ex and their son, as well as his current wife, Serena, will all get to keep their mansions and high-society lifestyle.

Having gotten Croker's genuine endorsement, even Mayor Jordan is better off and poised to win re-election.

But what about the book "A Man in Full," does it end the same way?

It doesn't. In fact, the Netflix series and Wolfe's 1998 novel couldn't be more different.

Far from dying at the end of the book, Charlie Croker finds a new guiding philosophy and walks away from his corporation and fortune to become an evangelist in the Florida Panhandle.

Converting to Stoicism, Croker preaches about "Zeus and the Manager," ultimately inking a major TV deal — on Fox — to broadcast his new show "The Stoic's Hour."

As for Conrad Hensley, instead of going free, he remains locked up in California jail until escaping after an earthquake. While on the lam, he becomes a homecare attendant at a home care facility, where, ironically, he takes care of none other than Charlie Croker, who's recovering from knee surgery.

Eventually, he turns himself in and after professing to be "completely tranquil" with his fate, the sentencing judge gives him two years probation and finally sets him free.

Much like Croker, Peepgrass doesn't die in Wolfe's "A Man in Full." Instead he ends up married to Croker's ex, Martha, and the couple live off the money Croker had to fork over in his divorce settlement.

And Mayor Jordan? He wins re-election.

Sarah is a lifestyle and entertainment reporter for TODAY who covers holidays, celebrities and everything in between.

The Straits Times

• International
• Print Edition
• news with benefits
• SPH Rewards
• STClassifieds
• Berita Harian
• Hardwarezone
• Shin Min Daily News
• Tamil Murasu
• The Business Times
• The New Paper
• Lianhe Zaobao
• Advertise with us

Book review: Lisa Ko’s Memory Piece is a tender, three-part search for meaning

Memory Piece

Fiction/Riverhead Books/Paperback/304 pages/$30.51/Amazon SG ( amzn.asia/d/fNR66EQ ) 4 stars

Three lonely girls, three separate social circles, three divergent ambitions. They are brought together by a Fourth of July barbecue in 1983 and a yearning for a greater purpose. 

Even as the narrative swells and splinters, following these Asian-American girls as they careen down different paths – to a cemetery, into one temporary home after another, through the turn of the millennium and then four decades into the future – their stories remain threaded together by an enduring childhood bond. 

American novelist Lisa Ko’s second novel, Memory Piece, is a time capsule of friendship, romance, queerness, Asian-American identity, gentrification, capitalism, the tech boom and bust. 

It is a lot to pack into 300 pages and the only reason the story does not crack under the weight of its own ambition is because Ko is able to craft three fully fleshed-out, chaotically human vessels through which to explore this cornucopia of ideas. 

Each protagonist has a stylistically distinct section.

Performance artist Giselle Chin’s journey out of obscurity is punctuated by her artistic manifestos. The omission of quotation marks thrusts readers into coder Jackie Ong’s stream of consciousness. Social activist Ellen Ng’s first-person chapters are short and assertive. Like her, they do not linger in one place for long. 

Giselle and Jackie are shaped, in part, by their complex familial relationships, which are explored at some length in the novel.

Giselle’s subdued home life forces her to seek excitement elsewhere – by pushing the boundaries of creative expression. Jackie, an only child, grew up privileged but lonely, turning to computers for company. Both grapple with integrity and the faltering promise of their youthful passions as they get sucked into the more sinister side of their industries. 

Meanwhile, Ellen flits in and out of their orbits: To Giselle, she is an elusive presence, dropping in only occasionally to interrogate her art-making process and tease her for being a “Bad Asian”. She concretises in Jackie’s section – first as a friend, then roommate, lover, stranger and friend again. 

By the time Ellen’s first chapter arrives 170 pages in, readers have a vague idea of who she is, but not enough to pick up where the plot left off 40 years earlier. Having to get reacquainted with her ever-expanding cast of friends this late into the novel feels like a bit of a slog.

On top of that, readers are suddenly plunged into a dismal future world overrun by gentrification. In contrast to the detailed, lived-in tapestry Ko weaves of the 1980s and 1990s, her exposition-heavy approximation of 2040s New York feels tedious and hollow.  

Giselle and Jackie appear then only in memories, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Friends grow distant over time and Ko consistently confronts the vicissitudes of friendship with unflinching frankness.

For instance, Giselle muses about “feeling guilty around Jackie for some reason” and being unable to reach Ellen. Later, Jackie wonders if her friends will abandon her for being withdrawn, reflecting that there are “rules for relationships and she doesn’t know them”.

Yet, when they do meet, they slide back into their old camaraderie with the ease of lifelong friends.

Still, this reviewer never quite gets a sense of what binds the women together as a trio. Apart from a brief prank-calling session at the introductory barbecue, they do not spend any time together as a group until they raid an abandoned warehouse midway through the story.

Perhaps it is enough that their lives unfold in tandem, through snatches of gossip exchanged at two-by-two meet-ups, such that when the reader stands back and squints, he or she can vaguely make out the impression of a whole. 

Perhaps there was simply not enough time. While Giselle can spend a year on each project, Ko does not have that luxury. Like an archivist, she straddles past and future, shaping these memories into a tale of grit and girlhood that at once disturbs, resonates and warns. 

If you like this, read: Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Knopf Publishing Group, 2022, $21.59, Amazon SG, go to amzn.asia/d/9JoHAkA ). This story, set over the course of several decades, follows three friends as they enter the world of video game design.

This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

• Book review

Read 3 articles and stand to win rewards

Spin the wheel now

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Joseph Stiglitz and the Meaning of Freedom

By John Cassidy

In the early days of the COVID -19 pandemic, when there was no vaccine in sight and more than a thousand people who had contracted the virus were dying each day in the United States, Joseph Stiglitz, the economics professor and Nobel laureate, was isolating with his wife at home, on the Upper West Side. Stiglitz, who is now eighty-one, was a high-risk individual, and he followed the government’s guidelines on masking and social distancing scrupulously. Not everyone did, of course, and on the political right there were complaints that the mask mandate, in particular, was an unjustified infringement on individual freedom. Stiglitz strongly disagreed. “I thought it was very clear that this was an example where one person’s freedom is another’s unfreedom,” he told me recently. “Wearing a mask was a very little infringement on one person’s freedom, and not wearing a mask was potentially a large infringement on others.”

It also struck Stiglitz, who had served as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration, that the experience of the pandemic could provide an opportunity for a wide-ranging examination of the question of freedom and unfreedom, which he had been thinking about from an economic perspective for many years. The result is a new book, “ The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society ,” in which he seeks to reclaim the concept of freedom for liberals and progressives. “Freedom is an important value that we do and ought to cherish, but it is more complex and more nuanced than the Right’s invocation,” he writes. “The current conservative reading of what freedom means is superficial, misguided, and ideologically motivated. The Right claims to be the defender of freedom, but I’ll show that the way they define the word and pursue it has led to the opposite result, vastly reducing the freedoms of most citizens.”

Stiglitz’s title is a play on “ The Road to Serfdom ,” Friedrich Hayek’s famous jeremiad against socialism, published in 1944. In making his argument, Stiglitz takes the reader on a broad tour of economic thinking and recent economic history, which encompasses everyone from John Stuart Mill to Hayek and Milton Friedman— the author of the 1962 book “ Capitalism and Freedom ,” which has long been a free-market bible—to Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump . The going can get a bit heavy when Stiglitz is explaining some tricky economic concepts, but his essential argument comes across very clearly. It is encapsulated in a quote from Isaiah Berlin, the late Oxford philosopher, which he cites on his first page and returns to repeatedly: “Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.”

Stiglitz begins not with pandemic-era mask mandates but with the American plague of gun violence. He notes that there is a simple reason why the United States has far more gun deaths than other countries do. It has far more guns, and, thanks to a tendentious reading of the Second Amendment by the courts, including the Supreme Court, many Americans now regard owning a gun, or even a closet full of semi-automatic rifles, as a constitutionally protected right. “The rights of one group, gun owners, are placed above what most others would view as a more fundamental right, the right to live,” Stiglitz writes. “To rephrase Isaiah Berlin’s quote . . . ‘Freedom for the gun owners has often meant death to schoolchildren and adults killed in mass shootings.’ ”

Gun violence and the spread of diseases by people who refuse to abide by health guidelines are examples of what economists call externalities, an awkward word that is derived from the fact that certain actions (such as refusing to wear a mask) or market transactions (such as the sale of a gun) can have negative (or positive) consequences to the outside world. “Externalities are everywhere,” Stiglitz writes. The biggest and most famous negative externalities are air pollution and climate change, which derive from the freedom of businesses and individuals to take actions that create harmful emissions. The argument for restricting this freedom, Stiglitz points out, is that doing so will “expand the freedom of people in later generations to exist on a livable planet without having to spend a huge amount of money to adapt to massive changes in climate and sea levels.”

In all these cases, Stiglitz argues, restrictions on behavior are justified by the over-all increase in human welfare and freedom that they produce. In the language of cost-benefit analysis, the costs in terms of infringing on individual freedom of action are much smaller than the societal benefits, so the net benefits are positive. Of course, many gun owners and anti-maskers would argue that this isn’t true. Pointing to the gun-violence figures and to scientific studies showing that masking and social distancing did make a difference to COVID -transmission rates, Stiglitz gives such arguments short shrift, and he insists that the real source of the dispute is a difference in values. “Are there responsible people who really believe that the right to not be inconvenienced by wearing a mask is more important than the right to live?” he asks.

In 2002, five years after he left the White House, Stiglitz published “ Globalization and Its Discontents ,” which was highly critical of the International Monetary Fund, a multilateral lending agency based in Washington. The book’s success—and the Nobel—turned him into a public figure, and, over the years, he followed it up with further titles on the global financial crisis, inequality, the cost of the war in Iraq, and other subjects. As a vocal member of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, Stiglitz has expressed support for tighter financial regulations, international debt relief, the Green New Deal , and hefty taxes on very high incomes and large agglomerations of wealth.

During our sit-down interview, Stiglitz told me that, for a long time, he had cavilled at the negative conception of freedom used by conservative economists and politicians, which referred primarily to the ability to escape taxation, regulation, and other forms of government compulsion. As an economist accustomed to thinking in theoretical terms, Stiglitz conceived of freedom as expanding “opportunity sets”—the range of options that people can choose from—which are usually bounded, in the final analysis, by individuals’ incomes. Once you reframe freedom in this more positive sense, anything that reduces a person’s range of choices, such as poverty, joblessness, or illness, is a grave restriction on liberty. Conversely, policies that expand people’s opportunities to make choices, such as income-support payments and subsidies for worker training or higher education, enhance freedom.

Adopting this framework in “The Road to Freedom,” Stiglitz reserves his harshest criticisms for the free-market economists, conservative politicians, and business lobbying groups, who, over the past couple of generations, have used arguments about expanding freedom to promote policies that have benefitted rich and powerful interests at the expense of society at large. These policies have included giving tax cuts to wealthy individuals and big corporations, cutting social programs, starving public projects of investment, and liberating industrial and financial corporations from regulatory oversight. Among the ills that have resulted from this conservative agenda, Stiglitz identifies soaring inequality, environmental degradation, the entrenchment of corporate monopolies, the 2008 financial crisis, and the rise of dangerous right-wing populists like Donald Trump. These baleful outcomes weren’t ordained by any laws of nature or laws of economics, he says. Rather, they were “a matter of choice, a result of the rules and regulations that had governed our economy. They had been shaped by decades of neoliberalism , and it was neoliberalism that was at fault.”

Stiglitz’s approach to freedom isn’t exactly new, of course. Rousseau famously remarked that “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” In “ Development as Freedom ,” published in 1999, the Harvard economist and philosopher Amartya Sen argued, in the context of debates about poverty and economic growth in developing economies, that the goal of development should be to expand people’s “capabilities,” which he defined as their opportunities to do things like nourish themselves, get educated, and exercise political freedoms. “The Road to Freedom” falls in this tradition, which includes another noted philosopher, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Stiglitz cites Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, delivered in January, 1941, in which the President added freedom from want and freedom from fear to freedom of speech and freedom of worship as fundamental liberties that all people should enjoy.

“A person facing extremes of want and fear is not free,” Stiglitz writes. He describes how, at a high-school reunion, he spoke with former classmates from the city he grew up in—Gary, Indiana, which had once been a thriving center of steel production. “When they graduated from high school, they said, they had planned to get a job at the mill just like their fathers. But with another economic downturn hitting they had no choice —no freedom—but to join the military . . . . Deindustrialization was taking away manufacturing jobs, leaving mainly opportunities that made use of their military training, such as the police force.”

Among the hats Stiglitz wears is one as chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank. He doesn’t claim to have a surefire recipe for reviving rusting American steel towns. But in the second half of “The Road to Freedom” he calls for the creation of a “progressive capitalism” that would look nothing like the neoliberal variant he has spent the past two decades excoriating. In this “good society,” the government would employ a full range of tax, spending, and regulatory policies to reduce inequality, rein in corporate power, and develop the sorts of capital that don’t appear in G.D.P. figures or corporate profit-and-loss statements: human capital (education), social capital (norms and institutions that foster trust and coöperation), and natural capital (environmental resources, such as a stable climate and clean air). Not-for-profits and workers’ coöperatives would play a larger role than they do now, particularly in sectors where the profit motive can easily lead to abuses, such as caregiving for the sick and elderly.

In political terms, Stiglitz started out as a self-described centrist. Over the years, he has shifted to the left and become ever more gimlet-eyed about how policies and laws are made and upheld, and whom they benefit. In “The Road to Freedom,” he inveighs against the Supreme Court for adopting the perspective of the “white male slave-owning drafters of the Constitution,” and reminds us that conservative billionaires and major corporations underwrote the neoliberal policy revolution, which bestowed upon big corporations what Stiglitz refers to as “The Freedom to Exploit.” He writes, “We cannot divorce the current distribution of income and wealth from the current and historical distribution of power.”

Given this conjuncture, and the rise of authoritarian populists like Trump, Orbán , and Bolsonaro , it is easy to get fatalistic about the prospects for creating the “good society” that Stiglitz describes, in which “freedoms of citizens to flourish, to live up to their potential . . . are most expansive.” He’s under no illusion that winning the battle of ideas would be sufficient to bring about such a transformation. But he’s surely right when he writes that, if “we successfully dismantle the myths about freedom that have been propagated by the Right,” and reshape the popular conception of human liberty in a more mutual and positive direction, it would be an important first step.

And how likely is that? In his book, Stiglitz lists a number of reasons to be pessimistic, including the fact that “neoliberal ideology runs deep in society,” and that people stubbornly “discount information that runs counter to their preconceptions and presumptions.” On the positive side, he points to a widespread rejection, particularly among younger people, of the neoliberal approach to issues like inequality and climate change. During our conversation, he cited the Biden Administration’s industrial policy, which provides generous incentives to green-energy producers and purchasers of electric vehicles, as an example of a “sea change” in views about economic policymaking. “Neoliberalism is on the defensive,” he said. However, he also noted the enduring power of simplistic slogans about freedom and averred that he didn’t want to sound like a Pollyanna. “I am optimistic, over-all,” he said. “But it is going to be a battle.” ♦

New Yorker Favorites

The day the dinosaurs died .

What if you started itching— and couldn’t stop ?

How a notorious gangster was exposed by his own sister .

Woodstock was overrated .

Diana Nyad’s hundred-and-eleven-mile swim .

Photo Booth: Deana Lawson’s hyper-staged portraits of Black love .

Fiction by Roald Dahl: “The Landlady”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

News & Politics

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Erik Baker

By Zadie Smith

By Kelefa Sanneh

By Louis Menand

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘A Man in Full’ Review: Regina King and David E. Kelley’s Netflix Miniseries Is Wild, Sloppy Satire

Ben travers.

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Share on LinkedIn
• Show more sharing options
• Submit to Reddit
• Post to Tumblr
• Print This Page
• Share on WhatsApp

Take Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels), an ex-college football star and prevailing real estate mogul. He’s both a man of the people and a man often described as an ass hole, possibly because guests at his country estate are forced to watch horses have sex. There’s also his latest rival, Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey), a wimpy loan officer who screams at his neighbors for fornicating too loudly while he’s being sued for half-a-million dollars by a woman eager to expose his “shameful” kinks. Raymond’s boss, Harry Zale (Bill Camp) , isn’t much better. He touts the importance of “being able to kick another man’s ass” as a prerequisite for a business meeting (and no, he’s not speaking figuratively). Hell, even the mayor of Atlanta (William Jackson Harper) has no qualms about publicizing an innocent woman’s rape if it means he can secure reelection. Related Stories Inside the Prosthetics for Robert Downey Jr.’s Multiple ‘The Sympathizer’ Roles David Lynch’s Producer Confirms His Netflix Series ‘Unrecorded Night’ Was Unrelated to ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Cancelled When the Pandemic Hit’

These are the men of “ A Man in Full ,” and each one of them is a piece of shit. …save one. Conrad Hensley (Jon Michael Hill) is happily married. He’s about to be a father, and he’s excited to be a good one. He works 9-to-5 on the factory floor, while his wife, Jill (Chanté Adams), serves as an executive assistant for Charlie. Technically, Conrad also works for Charlie (at Croker Industries), but his story is rooted elsewhere. When coming out of the grocery store, Conrad sees his car getting towed and, like any of us, tries to get out of it. The parking enforcement officer sees a Black guy running and immediately calls for backup, the backup arrives ready to bust heads, and Conrad’s head does indeed get busted.

Despite man after man mocking the weakness of others (and railing against their own), “A Man in Full” ends up sapping what little strength it has as a blunt sendup of excess machismo.

Part of the issue is tone. Conrad’s experience is a harrowing, unrelenting nightmare, and it’s portrayed as such. But the rest of “A Man in Full” is loud-and-proud satire. Aside from Conrad, the bulk of the show revolves around white guys screaming vulgar threats at one another. Raymond and Hank want to destroy Charlie, and Charlie wants to fuck them over in return. They hold multiple meetings just to shout fresh insults at each other. They are powerful and evil, but they’re also silly and laughable.

Which brings us to another problem: awareness. Jill’s connection to Charlie results in Charlie’s highly touted chief counsel, Roger White (Aml Ameen), serving as Conrad’s attorney. On the one hand, Roger is a great attorney. Why else would Charlie rely on him? On the other hand, he’s not a criminal attorney, a point that gets made repeatedly as Conrad’s situation steadily deteriorates. For a while, it seems like this is meant to be part of the show’s broader point about men: They’re selfish. They’re proud. They let their personal ambitions get in the way of the greater good, and that usually means other people suffer for it.

When “A Man in Full” leans into its blaring contempt for men whose pursuit of whatever they want tramples anyone in their way, it can be entertaining, even distressingly fun. With the blubbering Southern drawl of an unwell Frank Underwood, Daniels seems to savor every second playing Charlie, a Trump-coded property tycoon — you can almost see his hair turn orange when, after being told he’s $1 billion in debt, he yells, “I am a legitimate and good businessman!” Pelphrey is equally amusing as his opposite, a trembling dummy trying to seize his one shot at one-upmanship by limply imitating Charlie, whose cutthroat nature he loathes and envies in nearly equal measure. Diane Lane and Lucy Liu give it their all, but the series has little interest in women beyond how they affect men. Harper, fresh off his first Tony nomination , is more measured as a desperate mayor trying to wield Charlie’s influence before it fades away, but the supporting role really only allows for two opportunities: to show people he can play the opposite of his principled “Good Place” character just as convincingly as he played Chidi, and to work with two icons: Thomas Schlamme and Regina King , who split directing duties.

It’s the latter intention that runs the series afoul. Wolfe’s book may have been written decades prior to 2016, but the Netflix adaptation still exists in the here and now. It can’t be a post-Reagan sequel to “Wall Street” because there already was one , and it can’t be a sequel to “The Wolf of Wall Street” because its imitation is too inept. At one point, Charlie is told — without a trace of self-awareness — “Liars and crooks are electable. Rapists not so much.” Um, excuse me? What world are you living in? Certainly not the one where a former president has an entire Wiki page dedicated to his alleged sexual assaults. Trump and his GOP cronies have proven time and time again they won’t let their long-dormant humanity get in the way of their power, money, or personal interests, and to watch their stand-ins pretend otherwise dulls the series’ satiric edge down to nothing.

It doesn’t help that many of the complaints about these guys are vague, which allows them to be both anyone and no one. Charlie is a hero, a villain, and an antihero. He’s irredeemable and on the path to redemption. He’s a piece of shit, and he used to be a piece of shit, but he’s not  total  piece of shit. A man in full that may be, but he still ends up empty.

Most Popular

You may also like.