Primo Levi’s If this is a man, is a book about his personal experience at a concentration camp in poland during the second world war. It is very interesting but at the same time horrific because of what he had gone through.

Margaret Atwood’s Handmaids Tale is a fictional novel about a woman living in a distopia in the near future. Their world is in that state because of nuclear war. The women who are able to give birth are called handmaids whose soul job is to give birth to children which aren’t theirs. It is also an interesting book but it does have a less realistic feeling to it.

One of the main themes in If this is a man is the ‘demolition of a man.’
It is also a theme in The Handmaids Tale, but it is not discussed.

During the rule of hitler, the regime would confiscate all of the prisoners possessions, which in my opinion could make them feel almost inhuman.

Primo Levis character in this incredible story has a very strong personality.
At one point he tells himself and believes that he has no chance of survival and he does not grasp on any chance of hope that comes along, compared to what many others did. He stays strong and is tries not to lose himself without any of his possessions etc.
At first he is documenting exactly what happened to him, and gives no apparent emotion to what is happening. His use of the third person when describing events that occur and emotions make his writing more objective.
He tells the reader that from what he has seen loss of possession does affect a persons identity.

But later on he does start thinking deeply, and gives his opinion about the loss of a man and how being at the camp ‘hollows’ a man.