THE PROCESSES OF A HUMAN CATASTROPHE: DISCUSSIONS ON THE WORK THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED, BY PRIMO LEVI

Abstract

Commenting on Theodor Adorno's famous and impactful phrase, "to write poetry after Auschwitz is a sign of barbarity" (ADORNO, 1995, p. 119), Geoffrey Hartman proposes that art can create an effect of unreality that is neither alienating nor desensitizing. Art could offer a space for the affectivity and suffering of the victims of this barbarity. Thus, in his text "Holocaust, Testimony, Art and Trauma" (2000), the scholar reaffirms the necessity and importance of speaking and writing about the catastrophe of the Holocaust, not only by the survivors, but by everyone, so that history does not repeat itself. This catastrophe will be the theme of the works of Primo Levi, a chemistry graduate who was taken to the Auschwitz camp as a young man, around the age of 25, and published his first memoir about the Holocaust in 1947, *If This Is a Man*. In his work *The Drowned and the Saved* (2016), the Italian author fascinates with his well-crafted, reflective, and detailed writing, which indicates the existence of a common sense present in the social mentality within the context of Nazism. Starting from this context as an object of study, Walter Benjamin proposes the idea that the history that receives credit throughout civilizations is always the history of the vanquished, of the dominators. Therefore, the objective of this work is to interrelate Walter Benjamin's perspectives on history and catastrophe, present in the text "Theses on the Concept of History" (1940), with Primo Levi's work *The Drowned and the Saved* (1986). From this discussion, aspects such as human catastrophe, objectification, and the proximity to "animalization" addressed by Primo Levi in his work will be analyzed. The propositions of Márcio Seligmann regarding the aspects worked on by Walter Benjamin, such as testimonial literature and catastrophe, will also be correlated.