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Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—The Latrines:
When Frankl uses visual imagery to describe the concentration camp latrines in Part I:
Between the huts in the camp lay pure filth, and the more one worked to clear it away, the more one had to come in contact with it. [...] If, as usually happened, some of the excrement splashed into his face during its transport over bumpy fields, any sign of disgust by the prisoner or any attempt to wipe off the filth would only be punished with a blow from a Capo.
This image presents in detail what the duties of one forced to clean the latrines entailed: Frankl describes the layout of the huts and the latrines between them as well as the excrement that soiled the prisoners'. Importantly, this passage appears immediately before Frankl introduces the second state of a prisoner’s psychological reaction to being in a concentration camp: apathy.
In presenting this scene before his explanation of apathy, Frankl emphasizes how a prisoner would feel unmoved by what has been described above. But the visual imagery of this passage portrays a rather inhumane scene, thereby heightening the contrast between the reader's revulsion and the prisoners’ lack of emotional response. By appealing to the reader’s own visual sense of the latrines, Frankl makes one understand the extent of the prisoners’ apathy.
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