Introduction:
Recognition of human features is a natural process and it affects thinking and how others perceive the world. By removing these human features, the brain cannot process what usually stops one from treating others with dehumanizing disrespect. In 1961, Stanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, conducted the Milgram experiment which was a test based on dehumanization and the rates of obedience and was a very important experiment with extremely troubling results. In these tests, there was a teacher and learner where the teacher inflicted pain upon the learner if they did not get an answer right. Obedience was tested and showed how far one would go to dehumanize another just to “follow the rules”. A scientist was the authority figure who pressured the teacher to shock the learner. Similar to the scientist, Hitler, and the Shah were two prominent figures of authority who were able to manipulate thousands to follow their steps in dehumanization through propaganda techniques and the removal of identity. Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, and Marjane Satrapi’s Memoir, Persepolis, connect to this experiment and show just two of the dozens of occurrences where this manipulation occurred. These memoirs follow two young adults both suffering in their ways. Night follows Elie Wiesel, a Jew living in Sight, who was taken to a concentration camp where his dreams and happiness were shattered before his own eyes. Nazis continue to take control of him and he just waits to be picked up and tortured like the Teacher and the Learner in the Milgram Experiment. As he was dehumanized to the point of a corpse, he learned to sacrifice, and survive on nothing, and he was truly alone in a group that looked the same. Similarly, in Persepolis, Marji fits in a group without special characteristics. Persepolis describes Marji Satrapi, a young girl who lived during the Iranian Revolution. During this Revolution, the propaganda and enforcement of living the same life as others change her. She learns how she is alone in the world and that she will never be the same. Both of these adolescents question and later answer what led them to this hopelessness and how their lives were controlled as if they were puppets on a string. Wiesel and Satrapi suggest that during a time of crisis, the removal of individuality was necessary alongside propaganda for the acceleration of dehumanization faced by the victims, leading to some seeing themselves as superior to others.
Body paragraph 1:
Elie and Marji propose that removing individual characteristics from a large population influences the rate of dehumanization. Even at the commencement of the dehumanization in their memoirs, Elie and Marji’s individual qualities began to be removed. Nazis were ordered to begin transitioning the Jewish to concentration camps, where Elie would later end up. They gradually began to increase the dehumanization enforced on the prisoners: “Jews were prohibited from leaving their residence for days, under penalty of death...But new edicts were already being issued. We no longer had the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogues, to be on the street after six o’clock in the evening” (Wiesel 10). At this point, the Jews were still oblivious to what would crumble their lives in the next several weeks. By beginning to remove several individual qualities from them, it was easier to treat them worse and worse until they were viewed as objects. They were forced to stay inside, and if they disobeyed they were shot and killed. By removing a simple right of leaving one’s house, Jews lost a natural right of a person. But, they accepted this, and “Little by little life returned to ‘normal’’(Wiesel 11). This statement is continuously repeated throughout the novel and shows their oblivion to the removal of individuality which made dehumanization even easier. Then, their right to go to synagogues was taken away. By not going to synagogue their religion was removed, which was what Hitler and the Nazis hated most. Without their religion, they were missing an aspect that most differentiated them from others. By not letting them go out, they could not socialize which was a key social interaction the brain needed. By removing these characteristics. they were closer to objects than people. They got used to being treated like objects which made it even easier for them to be dehumanized. Soon the Jews were moved into mass homes as if they were filthy dogs in a shelter: “The ghettos were created in Sighet. We gave some of our rooms to relatives who had been driven out of their homes(Wiesel 11).” Ghettos were areas where minorities were permitted to live in but could not leave. Usually, a family lives in a home with a specific address. An address is a unique quality of a unique family. By removing these specific qualities, they all shared one home. They were now one group, one people. Not only that, by not having everyone in separate homes, they were much easier to send to concentration camps like cattle waiting to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Similarly, Marji in Persepolis was stripped of her individual qualities until she was simply a skeleton made of only general qualities that identified her as a population. Before the Iranian revolution, there is a multitude of panels focusing on the children running around carefree (Satrapi 4). The background of the panel is white, depicting a lighter theme, specifically a light-hearted and cheerful tone. The white contrasts the dark strokes on the page that illustrate smiles on the children's faces, their eyes intertwined with each other mischievously. This contrast emphasizes the joy children should be allowed to feel, alongside the freedom that developing kids need to experience. Promptly after the Iranian Revolution began, all the girls were required to wear a veil along the closing of bilingual schools as seen in a row of panels(Satrapi 4). In these panels, the background is black, representing the aggravation and coldness on the government's part. It also proves the effects that these cold words had on the people. The darkness represents the void that would later suck away the joy and individuality of the women and in general, people of Iran. These panels show the impact on the students. Their faces are no longer smiling and are pale contrasting the darkness of the scenes. Many protested these new laws, especially women who were used to the freedom of showing their hair as well as other qualities. Including the protests is a panel depicting some women for and against the veil(Satrapi 5). On the left are women for the veil, with their eyes closed. The women on the right are women against the veil, with their eyes open, shouting for freedom. The way the women’s eyes are closed can symbolize how Marji thought of them. Closeminded and not open to the world. Not only that, their veils blend in the darkness and show how they were not individual bodies but one group, all the same. This contradicts the women on the right who were in white clothes as if to show they were in the light, as well as being outlined by thick lines which show they are individual. This individuality was removed as the laws became stricter and the government used fear to control the people as a group. Massacres had started. After black Friday, a panel shows hundreds of dead bodies, protestors who were murdered (Satrapi 40). In this panel, the same image of a person is repeated over and over again, their mouth open and eyes rolled to the back of their head. They all look the same. This depicts what happened to those who protested for individuality. They were dehumanized to the point of death as a result of wanting change. Not only that, the panel shows the horrific representation that they all look the same, and proves that to the government, at least they weren't individualized at death.
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Body paragraph 2:
The authors of the memoirs advocate that propaganda is needed for the process of dehumanization to occur with such large crowds of victims.
Pg 42 In Persepolis they celebrated, and their mouths looked like voids which represents they were filled with darkness and brainwashing.
Propaganda is extremely influential to students in Iran as school is a place where Marji and her classmates spend the majority of their day. Children expect schools to always tell them facts and by using propaganda in schools, they are more easily influenced. As hatred for the Shah became widespread, schools were required to make the future generation listen to the propaganda. A panel specifically encaptures this where it describes a teacher forcing her students to tear pictures of the Shah out of their textbooks(Satrapi 44). In this panel, all students are looking down except Marji who is making eye contact with her teacher. This can signify how all the other students were just trying to stick in and as a result, were listening to the propaganda. Marji, whose eyes were open represents how she was more open to other ideas. Similarly, in this panel, the teacher is depicted as larger than the students. This symbolized the social hierarchy within the school and how the teacher was a mass dispenser of propaganda to the students who had no choice but to follow her ideas. After occupying the US embassy and not allowing anyone to enter the United States, the government shows more and more propaganda through television. A large panel depicts Marji and her parents sitting in their room and watching the news on the television(Satrapi 73). This panel transitions straight to a television of the Ministry of Education discussing the closing of universities for two years. This transition can represent how the information goes from the television straight to the families listening easily. It also shows the effects the propaganda will have on families. Also, the TV in the scene is 2D and on one side. This can represent how the information is one-sided and biased. The information that the Ministry of Education is extremely untruthful and only shows one side of a story with many different views. The speech used also is extremely manipulative. The Ministry includes words such as, “Decadent” and “Future Imperialists” to describe what would happen to students if Universities were not shut down. By exaggerating word choice and also using a slippery slope technique to describe children’s careers, it influences parents to follow and accept the propaganda. Not only was propaganda heavily shown in schools, but students also repeated it outside to their families. Included in Mrs. Nasrines and Mrs. Satrapi's conversation on keys to heaven, was a specific panel where Mrs. Nasrine is holding the key describing what was said to her. In the panel, Mrs Nasrine states with emotion, “They gave this to my son at school. They told the boys that if they went to war and were lucky enough to die, this key would get them into heaven”(Satrapi 99). This quote describes how the schools are influencing the children with keys. These keys represent a key to heaven. The specific phrase, “Lucky enough to die,” is extremely influential. The specific use of euphemistic language is manipulative, especially towards young children. The word, “lucky” is typically presented as the situation of joy. Using such a positive word in an explanation to young children about forcing them to go to war, shifts it to a more neutral tone instead of depressing and dark. Additionally, Marji's culture revolves around faith and religion and it is extremely important to their daily lives. By saying that the key will bring them to heaven they are connecting faith into war. This is essentially lying to gullible children and parents by revolving the key not around dying in war but around god and heaven. This too shifts the language more positively and is extremely influential propaganda. Furthermore, the influence of this propaganda is seen right before Marji goes to a party. The panel depicts dead bodies flying as a result of a bomb explosion(Satrapi 102). The keys to heaven are around their necks. At the party, however, the panel similarly shows bodies flying(Satrapi 102). Except, their bodies are in the air due to the dancing and the children are smiling with excitement and joy. The contrast in these themes of panels shows how much of an impact propaganda has. While both show bodies in the air, the first one is from death. The panel is very large to show the reality of the war. It shows the impact it had on the boys themselves. But, at the party silhouettes in a similar fashion symbolize that the propaganda had worked. The tone in this panel of joy juxtaposes the tone of the panel of the boys. This difference in tone shows the harsh reality without anyone knowing. The boys had been convinced to willingly die for god but nobody else knew or cared. This shows how easily young boys can be dehumanized and killed without a thought from others. Like the propaganda in Persepolis, Elie was specifically targeted by propaganda because of being a young boy. Once at the concentration camp, all the younger stronger men were riled up, secretly the only ones with a slim chance of survival. The Nazis ordered them to start marching towards the crematorium. Eli remembers walking towards the flames thinking he was going to be killed when suddenly they turn. Elie describes, “My heart was about to burst. There I was face-to-face with the Angel of Death...No.Two steps from the pit we were ordered to turn left and herded into barracks. I squeezed my father's hand”(Wiesel 34).
Body paragraph 3:
Wiesel and Satrapi showcase how removing idiosyncratic qualities from prisoners and Iranians leads to some seeing themselves as predominant to others. In the memoirs, both Elie and Marji notice this phenomenon and they even follow it.
Conclusion
Elie and Marji were stripped to the core of their individuality. No longer were they people but moreover objects in the control of others. Like puppets, they were played with and laughed at. They were manipulated into acts like Stanley Milgram conducted in his experiments on the psychology of obedience connecting to individuality. In the Milgram experiment, the teacher was influenced because they saw the learner as an object. The learner did not have a name, neither were they in the same room as the teacher. No human interactions were present which was necessary for the obedience of the teacher to dehumanize the learners to the point of death. Originally, Elie and Marji were ignorant about the manipulation they endured by a slow removal of individual characteristics and propaganda which was so necessary for the rate of dehumanization to accelerate alongside other factors. However, as they begin to recognize the psychology behind the schemes, it is too late and they are only a skeleton of their bare needs. Night and Persepolis demonstrate personal encounters of what has happened over and over through multiple events, how mass crowds are played with like Barbie dolls. How they no longer have any qualities but are rather corpses. Rather than enduring these events again, these memoirs warn the world to never let these events happen again as they fight the different perceptions. “It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation”(Milgram). Like Puppets on strings, Elie and Marji were played with, under the brainwashing of a higher power, simply by the removal of essential qualities and control of crowds with false information. This was only a result of the treatment they endured. Therefore, Wiesel and Satrapi prove that during a time of crisis, the removal of individuality was necessary alongside propaganda for the acceleration of dehumanization faced by the victims, leading to some seeing themselves as superior to others.
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