Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
A thesis on dehumanization
Acts of dehumanization in night
Acts of dehumanization in night
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: A thesis on dehumanization
Night Work Sample The process of dehumanization is a process which has been repeated throughout history. Dehumanization takes place in the book Night, in which the author of the memoir, Elie Wiesel, is exposed to its effects. He is taken from his family and home, sent to a concentration camp in which he first comes in contact with people who have gone through the process of dehumanization. Most mistake the noun “dehumanization” as the verb “to dehumanize.” Dehumanization is a process, a twisted art; while to dehumanize someone is to persecute in one’s mind and actions whilst the subject being dehumanized still acts and thinks humanly. In a basic summary, to dehumanize is just a step in the process of dehumanization. Dehumanization is a process in which the subject/s are prosecuted (dehumanized), thieved of their family needs, and then stripped of their physiological needs. To dehumanize is to no longer think of someone as human. With this in mind, it is safe to say dehumanizing has several levels of intensity, one high intensity level being what happens in Night. An example of a low level of intensity is when people dehumanize celebrities or sports stars. All you ever hear about celebrities or He had seen him. And he continued to run in front, letting the distance between them become greater and greater.” (Wiesel 91). In the book it mentions that they had been together for three years, “side by side they had endured the suffering, the blows; they had waited for their ration of bread and prayed.”(Wiesel 91). This event shows how devastating the effects of dehumanization are. A man who killed his father for just a scrap of bread, a small chance of surviving another minute. A child who abandoned his father who he had been with for three entire years, without a thought or tear. This stage of dehumanization is the final stage, the final solution come to an
One might treat others like beast, but is the treated consider human? The novel Night is an autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. He explains the dehumanization process of his family, Elizer, and his fellow Jews throughout WWII. Throughout the novel the Jews changes from civilized humans to vicious beings that have behavior that resembles animal. The process of dehumanization begins after the arrestation of the Jew community leaders.
Dehumanization is shown when Wiesel was in Auschwitz and a guard “looked at us as one would a pack of leprous dogs clinging to life.” (Wiesel 38). This shows dehumanization because the guard is not looking at them as humans but as sick dogs. Another example of dehumanization is when the Jews were on the cattle cars and a German officer says “If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.” showing that the officer does not think of them as human beings but as dogs. The stage of genocide, polarization, is shown in the book when the Germans created the ghettos for the Jews, “Then came the ghettos.” (Wiesel 11). This shows polarization because it separated the Jews into two separate ghettos. Another example of this is when the hungarian police made the Jews leave the ghettos to go to the death camps and concentration camps “The time has come… you must leave all this…” (Wiesel 16). This shows polarization because it splits up the ghettos even more thinly because they are moving them to different locations and splitting the ghettos at different times. Dehumanization and polarization were shown in the book and are quite obvious stages of
Dehumanization Through Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations.
Dehumanization was a big part of these camps. The Nazis would kick innocent Jewish families and send them to concentration or death camps. The main way they dehumanized these Jewish people is when they take all their possessions. In Night they go around taking all there gold and silver, make them leave their small bags of clothing on the train, and finally give them crappy clothing. All this reduces their emotions; they go from owing all these possessions to not having a cent to their name. If I was in that situation I would just be in shock with such a huge change in such a short amount of time. The next way they dehumanized the Jewish people were they stopped using names and gave them all numbers. For example in Night Eliezer’s number was A-7713. Not only were all their possessions taken, but also their names. Your name can be something that separates you from another person. Now they are being kept by their number, almost as if that’s all they are, a number. If I was in their place I would question my importance, why am I here, am I just a number waiting to be replaced? The third way they were dehumanized was that on their “death march” they were forced to run nonstop all day with no food or water. If you stopped or slowed down, you were killed with no regards for your life. The prisoners were treated like cattle. They were being yelled at to run, run faster and such. They were not treated as equal humans. If the officers were tired, they got replaced. Dehumanization affected all the victims of the Holocaust in some sort of way from them losing all their possessions, their name, or being treated unfairly/ like animals.
Night dramatically illustrates the severe dehumanization that occurred under Hitler’s rule.
”Lie down on it! On your belly! I obeyed. I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip. One! Two! He took time between the lashes. Ten eleven! Twenty-three. Twenty four, twenty five! It was over. I had not realized it, but I fainted” (Wiesel 58). It was hard to imagine that a human being just like Elie Wiesel would be treating others so cruelly. There are many acts that Elie has been through with his father and his fellow inmates. Experiencing inhumanity can affect others in a variety of ways. When faced with extreme inhumanity, The people responded by becoming incredulous, losing their faith, and becoming inhumane themselves.
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
The movie Gattaca and the novel Never Let Me Go, both display a form of dehumanization and the relationship between those who have been dehumanized and those who are brought up in a more ‘ideal’ way. Gattaca and Never Let Me Go, try and show an alternative future based on the advancement of genetics and how they affect our world in a possible future. They do this by genetically cloning individuals for organ harvesting and attempting to create a perfect world by creating “perfect” humans.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
Why do humans dehumanize each other? Because it makes it easier to impose suffering and punishment to none humans. It is that simple, governments come up with terms such as collateral damage to describe the innocent civilian lives that are taken during warfare. Terms like “Illegal Aliens” to describe undocumented human being immigrants so that they can strip away all humanity out of that community and make them appear to be out of this world, savages, and prove that they are not worthy to have the chance of seeking survival. Or, as history tells, the use of pigmentation, assigning colors to groups of people and claiming one to be superior over the rest. All these terms are design and executed with the objective to take the humanity out of people.
According to Dictionary.com the definition of dehumanization is to deprive of human qualities or attributes. In the late 1930's and early 1940's Nazi Germany was thriving by dehumanizing people who had different ideas or beliefs, such as: gypsies, homosexuals, war criminals, and the Jewish population. In the novel, Night, by Elie Wiesel the author explains the harsh conditions people had to go through whilst living in the concentration camps run by Nazi Germany. A few examples of this is when the people in these camps were no longer actual humans, they just became workers with numbers for names, as well as when they became vicious beasts and attacked each other in order to get food, and how the sight of family members, friends, neighbors and communities' dead bodies did not phase a single soul.
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.
In the second world war, the Nazi and Jewish populations went through a great deal of things. One of these things being relentless dehumanization; for the Jews it was by the Nazis and for the Nazis it was more so mentally, being brainwashed and forced to believe the Jews were enemies. The differences between these two was dire in the sense of how it happened. These two are very relevant in the book Night by Elie Wiesel and in Schindler’s List, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Dehumanization often begins with the removal of personal identification. An important language technique that Levi utilizes to mark this stage of dehumanization is listing. The use of listing can be seen in the quote, “nothing belongs to us anymore; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair”. The use of listing effectively highlights the involuntary elimination of the physical possessions that help one define oneself or express self-identity t...
The author was good about including the definition of dehumanization because most Americans will participate in certain activities without really understanding what they are doing. For example, college students in this generation will listen to music from a specific genre without knowing the message that the song is trying to get across. The article raises the point that Germans saw their discriminatory action towards the Jews as “reasonable.” This was being emphasized to school children who most likely did not understand what these negative connotations meant. Hearing this made me reflect on why society feels the need to shut out their peers based on skin color, religion, etc. “Superior” group assumed that Jews were individuals that could