When Lincoln Six-Echo asks McCord what God is, McCord cleverly answers, “Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God's the guy that ignores you” (The Island). However, McCord forgot to add that in The Island by Michael Bay, God is also the “guy” that manipulates every action Lincoln Six-Echo has made in his life. It wasn’t a coincidence that McCord subtly referred to God as a “guy.” In The Island, Lincoln Six-Echo and all the other clones inhabit a manufactured world underground, unaware of their true purpose, one their God, Dr. Merrick, has already decided, death. Dr. Merrick has set up the institution to manipulate the clones to make them think they will eventually repopulate the only …show more content…
Merrick, from The Island is a futurist manipulating puppeteer-like figure created by Bay to represent his similarities to Hitler. In the film, the clones are manipulated and lied to by Dr. Merrick, the owner of Biotech, the company that makes the clones or so-called “products.” As an example of manipulation, Merrick uses the fear of a world wide contamination that has wiped out the entire population to manipulate the clones in many ways. One way is that this fear allows the clones to view Merrick as their savior. They believe he actually saved them from dying, even though ironically he is instilling their near death. This allows Merrick to increase his ego and power because the clones view him as a God-like structure. Also, these clones are told that they will get to go to The Island, the only non-contaminated area of the Earth left. This is a deliberate falsehood told by Dr. Merrick, to get hold of a clone when it needs to be harvested for its owner, and to keep the rest of the clones under a virtually tyrannical control. Mental manipulation is used by Merrick through his lies about the individuality of each clone. Each clone is told by Merrick countless times, so it is brainwashed into them mentally, “You're special. You have a very special purpose in life” (The Island). This makes the clones feel humane and a sense of pride and individuality, even though ironically Merrick tells all of them this statement only to gain support and trust from them. Merrick views …show more content…
In a physical sense Hitler and the Nazis would shave each person who entered the concentration camp, strip them of the their clothes, brand them with a number and give them a uniform. The mental repercussions of this are devastating, it makes each person feel as an animal, and also dehumanises one by taking away their dignity through looks and clothing. In a more subtle way Dr. Merrick and the workers of Biotech brand the clones upon creation and give them all a white jumpsuit to wear. Also, the prisoners of concentration camps and the clones at the institution were given hope. The words engraved at the entrance of Auschwitz are “Arbeit macht frei” this means “work makes you free” (Piper). Even though this statement was clearly false it manipulated the prisoners into thinking there was possible hope of freedom. The hope in The Island is through the false island, a place where they are told they can live free. Furthermore, the genetic engineering of the clones and the prisoners of The Holocaust are extreme parallels. The clones are stated to only be “products” by Merrick and a science project to create the superior person who can live an extended life. The brain of each clone is studied and Merrick will go to the extent of torture to study his “species” as shown when he puts the microsensors into Lincoln Six-Echo’s eye. Lincoln Six-Echo keeps saying, “It’s hurting” and Merrick
One of the most significant metaphors occurs at the end of the novel. Shortly after Eliezer is rescued from the concentration camp, he sees his reflection for the first time since he has been invaded by the Nazis. Wiesel states in his novel, “He looks in the mirror and sees the face of a corpse staring back at him” (Tackach 3980). This is an extremely powerful message as Wiesel is demonstrating how the soul of every Jew died from what they experienced during the Holocaust. Most Jews could never look at themselves as the same person again. Wiesel uses this metaphor to illustrate the significant change that the concentration camps caused to each victim
Kertesz, as an “other,” is forced by the Nazis to endure their mutilation process, based on what their ideals insist im/permissible. Nazi philosophy does not aim to assimilate Jews like Kertesz as “one of [them,]” but it forces embodiment changes to result in a discontinuance – a death. Kertesz does not become "one of [them]" in his embodiment but is indeed changed by them, and left virtually paralyzed by his experience.
The violent actions of the Germans during this event force an image upon them that conveys the message that the Germans had little respect for the life of a person, specifically that of a follower of Judaism, and their capability to act viciously. If the Germans are acting so cruel and begin to act this way as an instinct towards the Jews, they are losing the ability to sympathize with other people. This would be losing the one thing that distinguishes a human from any other species, and this quote is an example of the dehumanization of the victim, as well as the perpetrator. Later on in Night, all the Jewish prisoners discover their fate at the camps and what will happen to people at the crematorium. They respond by saying to the people around them that they “...can’t let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse” (Wiesel 31). This simile develops the theme by comparing the Jewish prisoners to cattle in a slaughterhouse and emphasizes what little value their lives had to the Germans, implying they are not worthy of human qualities. The Germans are once again not able to emphasize with the Jews that are around them and being murdered, which over the course of the novel leads to them being
Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps during World War Two, including Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. Many who were sent to the concentration camps did not survive but those who did tried to either forgot the horrific events that took place or went on to tell their personal experiences to the rest of the world. Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi wrote memoirs on their time spent in the camps of Auschwitz; these memoirs are called ‘Night’ and ‘Survival in Auschwitz’. These memoirs contain similarities of what it was like for a Jew to be in a concentration camp but also portray differences in how each endured the daily atrocities of that around them. Similarities between Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi’s memoirs can be seen in the proceedings that
Imagine the worst torture possible. Now imagine the same thing only ten times worse; In Auschwitz that is exactly what it was like. During the time of the Holocaust thousands of Jewish people were sent to this very concentration camp which consisted of three camps put into one. Here they had one camp; Auschwitz I; the main camp, Auschwitz II; Birkenau, and last is Auschwitz III; Monowitz. Each camp was responsible for a different part but all were after the same thing; elimination of the Jewish race. In these camps they had cruel punishments, harsh housing, and they had Nazi guards watching them and killing them on a daily basis.
In the first chapter of God Behaving Badly, David Lamb argues that God is unfairly given a bad reputation. He claims these negative perceptions are fueled by pop culture and lead many to believe the lie that the God of the Old Testament is angry, sexist, racist, violent, legalistic, rigid, and distant. These negative perceptions, in turn, affect our faith. Ultimately, Lamb seeks to demonstrate that historical context disproves the presumptuous aforementioned. In addition, he defends his position by citing patterns of descriptions that characterize God throughout the Old Testament. “Our image of God will directly affect how we either pursue or avoid God. If we believe that the God of the Old Testament is really harsh, unfair and cruel, we won’t want anything to do with him” (Lamb 22). Clearly, they way Christians choose to see God will shape their relationship with Him.
His idea of a god is akin to the character or Ishtar, a goddess who takes whatever she wants from others. “You loved the speckled allallu-bird, but struck him down and broke his wing: / now he stands in the woods crying, "My wing!" / You loved the lion, perfect in strength, / but for him dug seven pits and seven / You loved the horse, so famed in battle, / but you made his destiny whip, spur, and lash. / You made his destiny a seven league gallop, / you made his destiny to drink muddy water, / and doomed Silili his mother to perpetual weeping." Ishtar was a homewrecker of a goddess; finding love and then crushing that person she adores. Like Gilgamesh and his narcissism, Ishtar only cares about her needs and takes pleasure in other's suffering. Ishtar makes the mothers of the men she loves weep as much as the mothers of the brides Gilgamesh defiles. The only difference between those two events is how the woman in Gilgmesh’s town still had enough ability to call on the gods for help. The men Ishtar woos are doomed to their fate the moment Ishtar sees them. In their time together, Gilgamesh sees his own future in the best way possible; someone who has already headed too far down the same road he’s on. He does not realize that in its own way, Ishtar's appearance was a warning that he did not heed. Ishtar gained more greed and evil by being immortal and not choosing to help
Primo Levi recollects his intense experiences after being sent to a German death camp (Auschwitz) in his book Survival in Auschwitz. The Nazis had been collecting Jews and others to lock inside concentration camps; there the Nazis used extreme tactics in keeping the prisoners under control in an inhuman state. For example, the prisoners would dig holes at random times during the day then have to fill them up later, they were stripped from there names and given a six-digit number for which they were referred to, and they were fed just enough to work, but not enough to resist the guards. Levi and many others were able to, in some degree; hold on to there humanity during this outrageous time.
The phrase “Arbeit macht Frei” is formed in iron above the gates to many concentration camps including the camp of Auschwitz in Poland, where Elie Wiesel was held by the Nazis during the Holocaust. While this statement is often met with cynicism, there was an ironic truth to this phrase to those who shared in Wiesel’s position. The most straightforward example of the ironism of this statement was the hard labor they did within the camps at the direction of the guards that ultimately led to them escaping selection. Alternatively, there are less direct interpretations of this expression such as extreme exertion freeing the mind from feeling pain or thinking about the horrible conditions and working to preserve someone's life only to be free from the role of caretaker. In the end, the truth of the saying “Arbeit macht Frei” rings true throughout Elie Wiesel’s Night and can be interpreted as an underlying theme to his book.
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
...lyzes man’s internal and external issues which conveys mankind’s human condition. Survival in Auschwitz conclusively depicts how mankind reacts to the deepest and most torturous oppression within our past. He proves undoubtedly that the majority of man will fall to corruption or fail completely and give up hope altogether in the struggle for survival. His rather alluring account on how to truly survive in the camp and “documentation...of certain aspects of the human mind” relay the process of their dehumanization (Survival 9). Levi ultimately deems man’s reaction to oppression and the backlash of their means.
A 40 acre piece of land is attributed for over 2 million deaths, this is more than the total number of British and American soldiers combined that died in World War II. This small acreage was called Auschwitz and to the prisoners who stayed and died there it caused both mental and physical inhumanity to them. Mental inhumanity is an act against someone or a group of people, which is considered immorally wrong, on which affects their thoughts or feelings. Physical inhumanity is an act against a person or people which is considered immorally wrong, on which affects their body and health. Both of these acts of inhumanity were committed not only at Auschwitz but at every death camp established during the Holocaust. Edward Bond a playwright that lived through WW2 says that, “Humanity's become a product and when humanity is a product, you get Auschwitz” (BrainyQuote 1). This means that when humanity becomes a privilege to some and not a natural right to all then things like Auschwitz and in turn the Holocaust happen. The Holocaust death camps were considered both mentally and physically inhumane; the total effect of them shows the true level of inhumanity they installed.
The Auschwitz camp was incredibly big and horrific that it was known as a “death factory.” The death rate of this camp ranged from three to four million people. Closely by the camps, one witnessed the horrors, the guard towers, the barracks, the barbwire fences, gas chambers, furnaces, and even...
Prisoners and Jews taken during the war were forcibly relocated to areas with “no prepared lodging or sanitary facilities and little food for them” (Tucker). Often said the people were simply being held prisoner, many of them died; some from the brutality of the German soldiers and others through methods for mass killing (Tucker). The labor camps in the novel are based off of this concept; people being taken to an area with poor treatment and then being killed. Towards the beginning of the novel, June believes students who fail the trial go to labor camps and are never seen again (Lu 8). Later in the novel, Day enlightens June about the labor camps by telling her “the only labor camps are the morgues in hospital basements” (Lu 205). In both the labor camps featured in Legend and World War II prison camps, the people are told they are being taken away when in reality they are killed. Furthermore, in the Nazi Germany prison camps the people were living in poor conditions up until their death, similar to the individuals in the novel who were experimented on for the benefit of the military. The portrayal of labor camps as similar to wartime prison camps points out the brutality of the government towards its citizens, as well as, the way leaders tell lies to cover their unethical