Lof And Lord Of The Flies Dehumanization Essay

The Dehumanization of the Individual Within a Novel To deprive a person or a group of human qualities of any sort is a crime in our society, but in many others it is a normality. This cruel dehumanization is presented in both Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, (BNW), and in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, (LoF.) In Brave New World many of the dehumanizing features of the society include the mass production of humans, the manipulation of thoughts by hypnopaedia, and the suppression of human emotion with soma. The Lord of the Flies also demonstrates dehumanization, but on the contrary, in much different ways. In the LoF, the boys wear masks to cover insecurities, call each other terrible nicknames, group together the children in a social system-like category called the littluns, and Jack hunts Ralph like he would a

Jack and Ralph began the name calling when Jack says, “Shut up, Fatty” and Ralph responds, “He’s not Fatty, his real name’s Piggy” (Golding 21). This name calling separates Piggy’s true identity with this persona that was assigned to him. A similar thing happens to a large group of the boys that are referred to as the littluns throughout the book. Although these boys are very young and not of much help, each of them have a separate personality that was not given a change to be shown. Because of this, creating deep connections that are vital for trust and survival in this type of situation is not allowed. When the talk about a beastie first began Jack was clearly furious as he talked to the group, “I’ll tell you what’s what. You littluns started this, with all the fear talk. Beasts? Where from?.. Anyway, you don’t hunt or build or help- you’re a lot of cry-babies and sissies” (Golding 82). The littluns are not given hardly any