Metaphors of violence and survival: Primo Levi’s philosophy of chemistry

Abstract One of the principal dilemmas Holocaust survivors have faced is how to voice traumatic memories that haunt them. Although in his seminal Language and Silence George Steiner once claimed “the world Auschwitz lies outside speech as it reason”, Italian survivor Primo Levi was an obvious exception having been able trauma throughout life by writing about analysing what happened him. He has left us oeuvre which he unceasingly found ways express eleven months spent Auschwitz, from February 1944 until liberation Russian Army January 1945. This article demonstrates himself had experienced specifically employing language imagery derived myths such Tantalus Homer’s Odyssey, but primarily also through use metaphor. Close attention paid role chemistry Levi’s life, philosophy chemistry, influenced literary career, face persistent silence chemical metaphors The Periodic Table (1975) provided with a means translate harrowing year Auschwitz.