The act of dehumanization entails the degrading or demeaning of one person by another. This may entail holding beliefs that other people were less human and possessed few human characteristics or carrying out acts that treat other people as if they were not humans. Dehumanization greatly features in the two stories-“Metamorphosis” and “Heart of Darkness” under highlight in the Norton anthology.Kafkas’ “Metamorphosis” features the theme of dehumanization in the setting of the industrial revolution. The story depicts how it is like to be under the constant control and surveillance of one’s own family members that keep one from any interaction with other people or the normal world.
This story portrays the theme of dehumanization through the narration of Gregor’s metamorphosis story-which may be metaphorical of a person acting like a drone in the revolution of industry. The main character-Gregor-transforms into a bug and his family have to keep him in seclusion where he is always locked up in his room-not even his mother is allowed to see him. Prior to his transformation Gregor had been loyal to his family and he carried out his work well even though he had limited communication with his family. He always provided for his family and they loved him for that, because there main concern was his provision to them.
However, after the transformation that inexplicably made Gregor a bug, his family lost their concern for him. They cared least about him and their attitudes towards Gregor became negative and bitter by the day.After transforming into a bug Gregor’s family locks him up in his room never allowing him to get out to the world. Throughout the story the family members treat Gregor as though he were not human anymore. The family’s view of Gregor as a human gets lost because of their fear for him and the fear of exposure to other people. The beginning of dehumanization is perhaps best alluded by the visiting manager that visits Gregor’s home to inquire about his whereabouts.
This can be inferred from the conversation between the manager and Gregor’s parents in the following quote: “Did you hear Gregor speak just now?” “That was an animal’s voice,” said the manager, remarkably quiet in comparison to the mother’s cries (Franz n.pag).” After the transformation Gregor became unreliable and he could not provide for his family anymore and the transformation coupled with his inability to provide made his family to despise him further. The whole family avoided him, but for a few occasional visits by his sister Crete who came to clean and offer him food.
His father and sister denied Gregor’s mother entry into his room, because they did not want her to experience shock and fright after realizing the truth. As depicted in the following quote the family was totally repulsed from Gregor: “In any event, his mother comparatively soon wanted to visit Gregor, but his father and his sister restrained her…. “Let me go to Gregor. He’s my unfortunate son! Don’t you understand that I have to go to him? (Franz n.pag)” Gregor’s disfigurement causes his family to dislike and feel repulsed because of a total lack of communication.
In turn, this causes Gregor to lose his self worth. He gets torn between his simplistic, repulsive looks as an insect and his older emotional and loving self that was being denied a chance in humanity. The family worsens the delineation and dehumanization by taking in lodgers and takes Gregor’s room as a store of miscellaneous household items and furniture. This act of taking up his room serves to further the dehumanization because he gets reduced to living in a room that serves like a store. At some point his further violently forces Gregor back into his room by hurling apples at him-an act that lives Gregor with extreme injuries.
The display of this cruelty portrays not only Gregor’s dehumanization, but also his family’s dehumanization. The family also gets dehumanized because they lose their loving and caring touch with Gregor and finally result to treating him like a roach rather than a son or brother.The “Heart of Darkness” on the other hand portrays dehumanization at a racial level. The book mainly features Marlow’s story on his voyage on the upstream course of the Congo River. The novel’s story has its setting at a time in which the British Empire was in its helm of conquer and control of colonial territories in many continents including Africa.
As it was popularly said then the “sun never sets on the British Empire.” Through the exploration of imperialism exerted by European forces by means of economic, political and military coercion the natives in most African colonial territories were tortured, enslaved, killed and treated as savages with no culture. The novel depicts the treatment of colonialists as utterly demeaning and degrading because it denied native African’s culture and language simply because their languages and culture could not be comprehended by the white colonialists. The colonialists treated the blacks as if they had no culture, even though in actual sense they had a culture, and whenever they showed any acceptance of it they termed it savage and backward.
The Africans were reduced to metaphorical expanse of dangerous and dark jungle of animals into which the European colonists venture. In the work distinctions like savage and civilized, outward and inward, light and dark, serve to express the opposites with which the white people regard the black natives. Marlow’s narration is clearly critical about imperialism, but the reasons behind his critique are more on what imperialism does to the Europeans rather than the colonized natives. In this regard he states that partaking of imperialism degrades the civilized Europeans by extracting them from a ‘civilized’ context and exposing them not only to an uncivilized context, but also allows them to participate in savage-like acts that dehumanize their civilized personality.
Marlow portrays how the bid to civilize the black natives is greatly misguided. His discomfort in the idea is expressed by his statement as departs as a reaction to his aunt’s talk: “She talked about ‘weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,’ till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable.” His aunt’s words: “weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways” did not resonate well with Marlow because he already knew the company’s main interests were profit and not improvement or civilization of humanity (Conrad 74).
Marlow is horrified by the violent treatment accorded the natives and he states that it is un-deserving because there is a kin-ship between black and white even though it is distant. Apart from a violent treatment, the blacks that get contact with the white colonialists are treated with least regard which can be depicted by the poor payment they are accorded and no care nor concern. This can be inferred from the quote concerning their payment in form of pieces of wire: “So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don’t see what good their extravagant salary could be to them (Conrad 81).”
This was surely no “extravagant” salary because it could accord the natives no comfort to them. The natives offered services for the pay of a piece of wire which according to their context was least valuable than be given food for example. Through his narration Marlow cites the Belgian example in which King Leopold of Belgium took Congo from the natives as his personal treasure. The natives are treated likes animal and savage occupants of their own territory which other take up for exploitation and possession without their regard.
This is the kind of dehumanization that the story serves to portray. Brussels is referred to as the “white sepulcher” perhaps to show the theme of hypocrisy in reference to the Biblical book of Matthew. Despite the Belgians’ boosting of the civilizing advantages of colonial occupation-“We whites…must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings….By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded”-their occupation was marred with inhumane and bloody encounters with the natives (Conrad 65).
Works Cited/Bibliography
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness, Electronic Text Center; University of Virginia Library, retrieved on 14th March, 2011 from http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=ConDark.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all, 1992, Web.
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis, Vancouver Island University, retrieved on 14th March, 2011 from http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-e.htm, 2009, Web
