11 & 12 "The Canto of Ulysses" & "The Events of the Summer"

Goals for today 
Concepts and literary concepts to consider in this memoir
The Canto of Ulysses background and intertextuality
Levi in the circles of hell
The beginning of the end - events in Europe 
What is a man and Lorenzo

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Slide 1: Diapositive
EngelsUpper Secondary (Key Stage 4)GCSE

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Goals for today 
Concepts and literary concepts to consider in this memoir
The Canto of Ulysses background and intertextuality
Levi in the circles of hell
The beginning of the end - events in Europe 
What is a man and Lorenzo

Slide 1 - Diapositive

Concepts Literature HL
    Concepts to consider in the memoir:
    Identity, control, humanity, language and morality 
     


    Slide 2 - Diapositive

    Literary concepts Literature HL
      Concepts to consider in the memoir:
      Structure, tone, stylistic choices, rhetorical devices

       


      Slide 3 - Diapositive

      Conceptual question
      How does loss of humanity through control affect our identity and morality?

      Slide 4 - Diapositive

      The Canto of Ulysses (Odysseus) 
      • Ulysses (Odysseus) was the hero of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey. 
      • He was king of Ithaca and was portrayed, in the poem, as a  man of outstanding wisdom and shrewdness, eloquence, resourcefulness, courage, and endurance.
      • Odysseus's most famous ruse is that of the Trojan horse that was used to recapture Troy. 
      • Odysseus’s wanderings with his army and the recovery of his house and kingdom are the central theme of the Odyssey. 

      Adapted: Britannica.com

      Slide 5 - Diapositive

      Dante Alighieri 1265 - 1321
      • Italy’s most famous writer: the father of the Italian language, as he refused to write in Latin.
      • His masterpiece is Divina Commedia, an epic narrative poem where the author is guided through Paradiso, Inferno and Purgatorio* by his beloved Beatrice and the Roman writer Virgil.

      • * Paradiso = paradise, Inferno = hell, Purgatoria = purgatory 
      • During his long journey, Dante meets all kinds of people who have been punished or rewarded depending on how they behaved in life. In the 8th ring of hell he meet Ulysses.

      Slide 6 - Diapositive

      Dante Alighieri 1265 - 1321
      Inferno is the most famous due to its imaginative punishments for the souls of sinners: 
      Flatterers were immersed in a ditch filled with human shit, to mimic what came out of their mouths in life 
      Blasphemers (heresy) had to walk through a scorching desert while fire rained down on them, feeling the punishment of the God they had denied in life 
      The lustful were whirled around in a tornado, mimicking the violence of their passions when alive 
      Dante’s Ulysses is in the eighth circle of Hell (for flatterers) because of his cunning and sharp mind which caused the deaths of so many Trojans.

      Slide 7 - Diapositive

      Intertextuality 
      In what ways can you see parallels between Primo Levi and Ulysses in The Odyssey and in the eighth circle of hell? 
      Write down your findings. 
      Both are sent to a kind of Hell against their will
      Both endure terrible abuse and cruelty but survive
      Both are tormented by powerful forces beyond their control (gods/guards)
      Both lose their comrades, often violently
      Both have almost unbelievable stories that they retell to the world
      Both have to sacrifice their pride and dignity to survive
      Both go on a long journey, literally and metaphorically
      Both are far from home
      Both have to fight to survive

      Slide 8 - Diapositive

      Response 
      make notes in your class notebook on how you think Levi has encountered each of the Nine Circles of Hell in his time at Auschwitz.
      Research the Circles  to help with this task.
      Give examples from the text.

      Remember, there may be more than one way to interpret the sin:
      e.g. ‘lust’ doesn’t necessarily imply just sexual desire, what other kinds of lust are there?

      Slide 9 - Diapositive

      Slide 10 - Diapositive

      What does this mean? Why is it so important for Levi? 
      'Think of your breed; for brutish ignorance 
      Your mettle was not made; you were made men ,
      To follow after knowledge and excellence.' 

      Slide 11 - Diapositive

      "The Events of the Summer" - the beginning of the end. 
      • In 1944, the tide of war turned against the Germans
      • The Russians were slowly advancing from the Eastern Front; they had a 5:1 superiority in soldiers over the Germans.
      • In reaction to this, German camp commandants evacuated the camps, sending prisoners on death marches west.
      • The Death marches were designed to exhaust prisoners to death, and destroy  evidence for the camps
      • The Red Army finally pushed west into Poland and almost made it to Berlin, liberating the camps by spring of 1945.
      • Normandy landings - D-Day - June 1944
      • On 20th July 1944, members of Nazi high command made an assassination attempt on Hitler's life – it failed.

      Slide 12 - Diapositive

      Lorenzo 
      .dd


      Lorenzo is an Italian civilian worker. He gives us a glimpse of humanity and hope amidst the cruelty:
      “there still existed a just world outside our own…a remote possibility of good”
      “he neither asked nor accepted any reward, because he was good and simple and did not think that one did good for a reward”
      "Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man." 

      Slide 13 - Diapositive

      Lorenzo 
      .dd


      " The story of my relationship with Lorenzo is both long and short, plain and enigmatic: it is the story of a time and condition now effaced from every present reality, and so I do not think it can be understood except in the manner in which we nowadays understand events of legends or the remotest history." 

      Slide 14 - Diapositive

      Goals for today 
      Consider what is a man and Lorenzo


      Slide 15 - Diapositive

      What is a man? Levi considers this question in this passage. What is his conclusion? 

      Slide 16 - Diapositive

      What is a man? 
      .dd


      Levi circles back to this question, applying it evenly to everyone.
      He considers all the people involved in the machinery of the camps and to what extent they have lost their humanity: it seems that none of them are men anymore. He seems to suggest that everyone involved feels “desolation”. Even the Nazis, who are in control, cannot see that they have lost something they value.
      The camp has brutalised the prisoners and the guards. Everyone has lost their morality and therefore their humanity, except Lorenzo.

      Slide 17 - Diapositive