Dehumanization and Alienation Essay

For generations society has been separating and categorizing homophilekind into stereotypes. Every bingle and anyone on earth has been laid within a prospective category. If not by race, consequently appearance, income, or by social standing. Although sometimes mankind takes these separations to an extreme, like trying to dispose of a thousands of people, just because of their religion and beliefs. These separations and categorizations can wreak butchery on the homosexual mind. Some even hallucinating in order to cope with the stress of what common life has caused them. Feeling trapped in a label you cant come out to befuddle no matter how hard you work to change can be infuriating, and that constant battle of clog and forth within the mind can do dangerous things. Although Wiesel writes a memoir and Kafka writes an expressionist novella, two stories use symbols to further their themes of alienation and dehumanization.Night is a memoir by Elie Wiesel. Within his enthralling narration he depicts his period spent within Auschwitz during World War two, and how he managed to endure and offlive the campys ill-treatment. He describes his first experience in Auschwitz, upon his entrance into the camp. Men to the left Women to the right Eight words intercommunicate quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words I didnt know that this was the moment in time and dumbfound where I would be leaving my m early(a) and sister forever (Wiesel, 29). As soon as you yard foot in that appalling camp it is no longer of anySt. Germain 1 importance that you sire a family. The guards dont affect themselves with the inseparability of you and your loved ones. All that is of any concern to them is that they dispose of the weak. They check into who is deemed fit tolive and will be of appropriate use to them. The S.S soldiers alienate the weak from the rest of the camp in order to uphold the highest level of functionality.After spending months in Ausc hwitz, Elie and his fellow prisoners atomic number 18 relocated. objet dart on the train transporting them to their unkn stimulate location they are forced to fit 100 prisoners per car for days, without nourishment or water. During a stop at a local train station the German citizens skylark themselves by throwing postingiors of bread onto the train and watching the prisoners fight for any scrap of bread they can obtain, for one scrap of bread ensures one more day of survival. Elie watches in horror as a man attacks his elderly set out in order to steal his bread. Elie recalls the terrifying events Meir, my little Meir Dont you complete meYoure killing your scramI have breadfor you tooThe old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. nix cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it (Wiesel, 101).Being in the camp dehumanizes you. Not just in the good sense of stripping you of your basic rights, but also of your basic morals. Being dehumanize d is more than your lack of human rights, its also about the numbing of your feelings and emotional connections. The notwithstanding thing that separates humans from any other animal on earth is our ability to form emotional bonds with others and to allow our morals to come forward our basic instinct of survival. Being in the situation where you kill your father without hesitation shows the true magnitude of the dehumanization within the camps. Still within the tightfisted hands of the S.S soldiers, Elie and the other prisoners are forced to process involuntary to a new hidden camp. Elies father has aged a great deal so the strenuous and aiming route to the new camp is more exertion than his body can handle. Once they make it safely to the campSt. Germain his fathers health began to diminish rapidly. It wasnt long until his father pull in his extend laborious breath and died in his sleep. Upon waking the next morning Elie was alarmed to start another inmate sleeping on his f athers live. He soon discovered that his father had died the night before and was taken to the crematorium. By this time, he had already endured somuch that he says I did not weep, and it throeed me that I could not weep, but I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like free at last (Wiesel, 112). Elie had already experienced so much turmoil within the confines of the camp, that he was unaffected by the death of his own father. He was relieved that he no longer had the responsibility of keeping his father and himself alive. Elie had once been appalled at the men who abandoned their loved ones in order to ensure their own survival.He had watched in horror as a man killed his elderly father for a crumb of bread, and vowed he would never become one of those appalling men. Yet when he thinks of his fathers unmerited death, he feels relief. In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, a successful busi ness man named Gregor awakens one morning and finds himself transformed into a devil roach bug. He responds to his change in appearance relatively calm, for his biggest concern is being late for his door to door salesmen job. magic spell trying tirelessly to get out of bed Gregors mother knocks on the door to remind him of his tardiness to work. He assures her that he is okay and that hell be out soon.When Gregor fails to come into work his music director arrives at his home in order to find the explanation for Gregors absence. While demanding Gregor come out of the room, for he cannot miss a day of work he says Your job is by no means rock solid frankly your recent work has been highly unsatisfactory (Kafka, 7). The manager treats Gregor as though he is a means of making money and nothing more. Gregor is pushed around and ill-use by his manager each and every day, and that kind of emotional and mental abuse can only be endured for so long. Thus explaining Gregors hallucinations of becoming a giant roach, and isolating himself from the rest ofsociety. Being told you are nothing but another cog within the machine of life by your superior makes you moot that you contribute nothing to society. Therefore the manager threatening Gregor with his job is a symbol of the abuse Gregor was dumbfound through every day that made him feel like a useless vermin, that he then hallucinates himself to be when he turns in to a roach.After Gregors family discovers that he has become a roach they go him away in his room and refuse to acknowledge what has happened to him. His sister slowly begins to become more lackon with his new appearance and decides to leave food out for him. Since Gregors sister Grete decided to take the position as the main care giver for Gregor, his mother never sees him. One day Gregors mother decides she wants to visit Gregor and support Grete move his furniture out of his room. While they are transporting and relocating Gregors furniture to anot her room, Gregor decides he doesnt want a poster on his wall taken away. So he lays himself on top of the poster on the wall, with the hopes that Grete would realize he wants it to stay. When Grete enters the room with Gregors mother, the shock of seeing her son as a giant bug causes her to pass out. While the mother remained passed out in another room Gregors father comes home.He is outraged when Grete informs him that seeing Gregor caused the mothers troubling state. He immediately assumes Gregor tried to attack them and begins to attack Gregor as punishment. Kafka describes it saying Gregor halted, petrified, any more running would be useless, for the father dead set on bombarding hima washy thrown orchard apple tree grazed Gregors back sliding off harmlessly. Another one, however, promptly following it, really clung right into his back. Gregor wanted to keep dragging himself along as though this startling and incredible pain would vanish with a change of location, yet he felt nailed to the spot(Kafka,26). Gregors father attacking him with the apples and injuring him is a symbol of Gregors strained and problematic relationship with his father, it shows that Gregor never felt good or worthy enough.The apple actually causing injury to his backrepresents the emotional turmoil Gregors father has put him through and the betrayal he feels as a result.Since Gregor is no longer able to support the family and their lavish life demeanor anymore, Gregors father decides to allow three men to rent out rooms within their home for surplus money. The men are vile and self-righteous so upon hearing Grete playing the violin in her room, demand she come and play for them. Grete does as she is told and begins to play for the men. Gregoris watching from his cracked door as Grete plays and is utterly entranced by it. Its the first time Gregor remembers being happy in a long time. Although he is outraged when he looks around the room and sees the awful men sitting there lo oking as if they would like nothing more than to leave the room.Gregor wishes Grete would play for only him because he is the only one who truly appreciates her talents, Gregor states He was determined to creep all the way over to the sister, tug at her skirt and call down that she take violin and come into his room, for no one here would reward her playing as he intended to reward it. He wanted to keep her there, and never let her out, at least not in his lifetime (Kafka, 34). Gregor enjoying Gretes violin playing symbolizes what little hope he has left, and that he is alleviate human. After all that Gregor has been through, and all that his family has out him through he still loves Grete and wants her to feel appreciated in the way that he never did. He wishes to hide her away from the cruel world that emotionally and mentally scarred him, and alienate themselves from the rest of society by staying together in Gregors room forever.Throughout both(prenominal) of the writers nov els the theme of alienation and dehumanization are thoroughly represented. They depict the hardships and struggles of being wrongfully labeled, and how it affects your life. What may seem like a completely unnecessary and irrelevant sentence in the novel actually has a much great meaning than originally thought. Within those sentences are symbols that help to further the themes in the novel. Although Wiesel writes a memoir and Kafka writes an expressionist novella, both stories use symbols to further their themes of alienation and dehumanization.Work CitedWiesel, Elie. Night. New York mound and Wang, 2006.PrintedKafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Columbis, Ohio The McGraw Hill Companies, 2000.Printed