Imagine a time when there was no dehumanization occurring in the world. It is difficult to think of one because all throughout history there have been multiple cases of dehumanization.Some examples of dehumanization in history are the assimilation of the Native Americans, the Holocaust A few examples of texts that contain the topic of dehumanization as one of the main themes are The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Grapes of Wrath is the story about a poor farming family, the Joads, that get kicked off their land during the time of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. They move to California because their belief in the American Dream; they have high hopes that they will find work and have
…show more content…
In The Great Gatsby, Tom takes advantage of Wilson by how he acted like they were friends, but secretly he was hooking up with Wilson’s wife, Myrtle. Also Tom, indirectly, uses Wilson to do his dirty work of getting rid of Gatsby, the man who is his competitor for Daisy. In The Grapes of Wrath, the rich people have no regard for the poor people. They just plow over the land that they have been on for years. Muley Graves, a neighbor of the Joad’s said, “‘My pa came here fifty years ago,” (Steinbeck 64). He is an example of how multiple generations of farming families have been on the Oklahoma farmland for many years. It was extremely hard for people to have their land, and essentially their lives, taken away. These people have to get up and leave their old lives behind to move off their land. The poor families are dehumanized by the rich people because the rich people are unable to see that the poor were people too who have families and feelings. The wealthy do not take into account that the farmland is the only income for these people. Because they had homes and money, they cannot relate to the poor . The poor people were bothered by this, but their motivation from the American Dream kept them working hard. The lower class people thought that America was a land of opportunity and they had a good chance of making a name …show more content…
The poor are taken advantage of by the rich. It is not very difficult for one to see that neither of the social classes come without their flaws. Both classes characterize the other in a negative way that cause them to create a picture in their mind or someone who is less than human. A quote from the narrator in The Great Gatsby is, “It eluded us then, but that 's no matter-to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out arms out farther….,” “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the part,” (Fitzgerald 180). Nick is talking about the unwillingness of people to give up. They will struggle and not win, but they do not care they will just keep trying. That is the concept of the American Dream that both Fitzgerald and Steinbeck are trying to show in their novels. This quote relates to society by how even today immigrants still try to come to America to try and create a better life for themselves. The migrant workers then and now put up with a lot because they hold on to the hope that maybe one day they will be successful in reaching the American Dream, but for now they are relentless and will keep fighting until
In The Great Gatsby, Tom takes advantage of Wilson by how he acted like they were friends, but secretly he was hooking up with Wilson’s wife, Myrtle. Also Tom, indirectly, uses Wilson to do his dirty work of getting rid of Gatsby, the man who is his competitor for Daisy. In The Grapes of Wrath, the rich people have no regard for the poor people. They just plow over the land that they have been on for years. Muley Graves, a neighbor of the Joad’s said, “‘My pa came here fifty years ago,” (Steinbeck 64). He is an example of how multiple generations of farming families have been on the Oklahoma farmland for many years. It was extremely hard for people to have their land, and essentially their lives, taken away. These people have to get up and leave their old lives behind to move off their land. The poor families are dehumanized by the rich people because the rich people are unable to see that the poor were people too who have families and feelings. The wealthy do not take into account that the farmland is the only income for these people. Because they had homes and money, they cannot relate to the poor . The poor people were bothered by this, but their motivation from the American Dream kept them working hard. The lower class people thought that America was a land of opportunity and they had a good chance of making a name …show more content…
The poor are taken advantage of by the rich. It is not very difficult for one to see that neither of the social classes come without their flaws. Both classes characterize the other in a negative way that cause them to create a picture in their mind or someone who is less than human. A quote from the narrator in The Great Gatsby is, “It eluded us then, but that 's no matter-to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out arms out farther….,” “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the part,” (Fitzgerald 180). Nick is talking about the unwillingness of people to give up. They will struggle and not win, but they do not care they will just keep trying. That is the concept of the American Dream that both Fitzgerald and Steinbeck are trying to show in their novels. This quote relates to society by how even today immigrants still try to come to America to try and create a better life for themselves. The migrant workers then and now put up with a lot because they hold on to the hope that maybe one day they will be successful in reaching the American Dream, but for now they are relentless and will keep fighting until