Chapter 9 "The Drowned and the Saved," Summary and Analysis

Elsewhere in the autobiography Levi uses the phrase "on the bottom" to describe an inmate's lot in Auschwitz. In this chapter, he examines the individual mental state of that cadre of unfortunate men who are on the bottom. Some, the lost and destroyed, he refers to as the "drowned;" those who retain their personality he refers to as the "saved." Levi notes that within the camp, the term muselmann was usually used to indicate an individual was one of the "drowned." In ordinary life, there are a few men in leading positions and a few men on the bottom of society, but the bulk of men form the dominant middle class, those capable of average action but not possessed of either extreme laziness or extraordinary capacity. In Auschwitz, only...