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Dehumanization: a psychological process whereby opponents view each other as less than human and thus not deserving of moral consideration. (Maiese, 2003) Dehumanization has a massive potential to bring out the worst in humanity. Be it the Jews in Nazi Germany or the Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, one thing remains constant, It’s a lot easier to harm and kill someone if you don’t consider them a person. Sylvia Likens was a girl who knew the effects of dehumanization more than most of us. Unfortunately, Sylvia died on October 26th, 1965 after being excruciatingly tortured for nearly a year. The Sylvia Likens case was considered so atrocious that the accounts earned the title of “The most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana”. …show more content…
As morbid as it is to say it, at a first glance, this case may seem just like any other torture account, hardly worth of it’s earned title. What makes the Sylvia Likens case so intriguing, however, is that it wasn’t a single abuser that was responsible for the torture. Rather, the number of abusers was actually closer to 18, with some being as as young as 10 years old. Torture: Fun for the whole family? How could that many people have been involved in the torture of a single girl?
Why didn’t anyone try to stop this tragedy from occurring? Didn’t they know that what they were doing was wrong? What could possibly motivate all of these people to treat an innocent girl with such ferocity and barbarity? These questions may spring to mind immediately after looking into Sylvia’s case, and the answers to these questions are interesting to say the least. Yes, Gertrude Baniszewski, her children, the other kids in the neighborhood, and all of the other abusers knew what they were doing was wrong, but specifically, they knew that what they were doing was wrong to do to a person. Through objectification, all restraints and moral conflicts were null and void. By dehumanizing Sylvia, they were no longer harming a person, they instead viewed her as an object, something not deserving of their compassion or their remorse. In their eyes, they weren’t torturing a poor girl to death, they were giving a “whore” the treatment that they believed she deserved, Sylvia’s abuse became so natural in their eyes, that Sylvia became a human stress ball for the Baniszewskis and the rest of the neighborhood. In fact, Sylvia’s exploitation and torture became so common throughout the neighborhood that it became an evening past-time. Children would get off of school, do their homework, play baseball with their friends, and torture an innocent girl all in time to be home by
dinner!
Throughout the Holocaust, the Jews were continuously dehumanized by the Nazis. However, these actions may not have only impacted the Jews, but they may have had the unintended effect of dehumanizing the Nazis as well. What does this say about humanity? Elie Wiesel and Art Spiegelman both acknowledge this commentary in their books, Night and Maus. The authors demonstrate that true dehumanization reveals that the nature of humanity is not quite as structured as one might think.
Churchwell, Sarah. "The Death of Innocence." New York Times 18 Aug 2008, n. pag. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
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.
In the novel, Night, by Elie Wiesel, there were numerous examples of dehumanization. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than things, which were trouble to them. The first example is found in the third chapter, “I was a body. Perhaps less than even that: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” This reveals how the characters are completely ripped apart from the world, so much so that they are no longer even refer to themselves as humans. A German officer told the Jews “There are eighty of you in this wagon…if anyone is missing, you’ll be shot, like dogs…” (Weisel 22). This shows that the Germans thought nothing and had little to no respect for the Jews. The subject continues as they are split up by sex as an SS officer announces to a pack of Jews, Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 27). They were treated like animals instead of humans. Dehumanization of the camps is added to the novel to allow the reader to get a more in-depth and realistic look into the tragic times for many Jews.
How can inhumanity be used to make one suffer? The book Night by Elie Wiesel is about a young Jewish boy named Elie who struggles to survive in Auschwitz, a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Throughout the memoir, there are many instances where inhumanity is portrayed. The theme seen in this novel is inhumanity through discrimination, fear, and survival. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy, lived in Sighet during World War II with his mother, father, and two sisters, and he is very religious and wanted to study Judaism.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
“Dehumanized” by Mark Slouka explores the issue of our nation’s education and how science and math are being used to primarily teach students about business and capitalism. Although I believe that students should have a good understanding of economics for the sake of their future. I, like Mark Slouka, believe that the humanities should be taught and accepted in our schools to help students further their education.
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.
Cruelty: the Double-edged Sword “Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell” (Francois Mauriac, Brainyquote 2016). These statements posed by French novelist Francois Mauriac can be applied to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The novel centers around Sethe, a former African American slave, who lives in rural Cincinnati, Ohio with her daughter named Denver.
When the author of Night, Elie Wiesel, arrives at Auschwitz, the Jewish people around him, the Germans, and himself have yet to lose their humanity. Throughout the holocaust, which is an infamous genocide that imprisoned many Jewish people at concentration camps, it is clear that the horrors that took place here have internally affected all who were involved by slowly dehumanizing them. To be dehumanized means to lose the qualities of a human, and that is exactly what happened to both the Germans and the Jewish prisoners. Wiesel has lived on from this atrocious event to establish the dehumanization of all those involved through his use of animal imagery in his memoir Night to advance the theme that violence dehumanizes both the perpetrator
Dehumanization has been around for many years and seen all throughout our world’s history. Dehumanization means to deprive of human qualities, personality, or spirit. In history, people had been dehumanized for all types of reasons, whether it be because of race, gender, age, sex, or any other characteristics. One of the most brutal and memorable examples of dehumanization was the holocaust which took place in many different locations in Europe. Hitler was ruling German at the time and started this disturbing holocaust. Many Jews were dehumanized in this time. The Germans were horrible to the Jews and treated them like they were animals. The Germans had animalized the Jews as shown in the book Maus I and Maus II. Spiegelman depicts the Germans as cats and the Jews as mice because
...hich is about 238,000 people a year. Of all of these cases, 60% are never reported. A shocking two-thirds of these accounts of rape were committed by someone the person knew. As well as abuse, child abuse is an issue of today. About 70% of these children are under four years old about many never receive the help they need. There is also a tie between physical, sexual and emotional abuse in families that have a lower income of less than $1,500 a year. Over the last few years, abuse and murder have started to decrease, but they are no where closer to ending. However, while Joyce Carol Oates wrote a majority of her books from the 60’s to the 2000s, murder and abuse were at their peak. In reading Oates’s novels from this time period, one can see the real tragedy of so many Americans have faces, many who were unable to find a voice to express what was happening to them.
Margaret, like Sethe, greatly adored her children and had no intention of seeing them suffer the life she did. The trial that continued afterwards obtained nationwide awareness and was a focal point of attention for many apart of the anti-slavery movement. To entirely comprehend what provoked her to execute such an immoral crime, Toni Morrison endeavors on a journey to write a novel based on the troubles Margaret similarly faced as Sethe. It is vital to inspect the circumstances of enslavement that she and many were forced to serve. In this novel, the main character takes the most severe route to avoid slavery when she attempts to kill her children.
In 1984, George Orwell presents an overly controlled society that is run by Big Brother. The protagonist, Winston, attempts to “stay human” in the face of a dehumanizing, totalitarian regime. Big Brother possesses so much control over these people that even the most natural thoughts such as love and sex are considered taboo and are punishable. Big Brother has taken this society and turned each individual against one another. Parents distrust their own offspring, husband and wife turn on one another, and some people turn on their own selves entirely. The people of Oceania become brainwashed by Big Brother. Punishment for any uprising rebellions is punishable harshly.
Sylvia Likens (picture on the left) was born on January 3, 1949, Sylvia was a victim of slut shaming, public torture and later murder. Let’s start from the beginning, Sylvia Likens was the daughter of Betty and Lester Likens who were carnival workers. She