The Dehumanization of the Outcast
Identity VS Identification!
Dehumanization of the Outcast!
- The process of dehumanization is to be deprived of human personality, spirit, or qualities. An outcast is someone who has been rejected by society or a social group.
- The superior species dehumanizes the inferior race as an outcast and creates the outcasts physical appearance, social class, and religious belief as the inferior species.
- The superior species determines what is right or wrong, and creates a barrier between the two species so it will be impossible for the inferior species to become part of the superior species community.
Identity VS Identification!
Identity is the make up of one.
- ones personality, beliefs, likes, dislikes, culture, or lifestyle.
- ones skin color, physical attributes such as; lips, eyes, or hair texture, or the clothes they wear.
- He or she is instantly categorized for his or her identification, and his or her identification is created by a stereotype that has been determined in society.
Wide Sargasso Sea: Jean Rhys
- The main character, Antoinette, is a white Creole girl who lived in Jamaica.
- She was made an outcast because:
- She is a female.
- She is a daughter of an ex slave owner.
- She is poor.
- She is not excepted in the white community because she had "one drop" of black in her, and she is not excepted in black community because she is seen as a white citizen.
- "Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money. They didn’t look at us, nobody see them come near us. Old time white people nothing but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger" (Rhys, 24).
The Pagoda: Patricia Powell
- Lowe is the main character who is dehumanized and made an outcast.
- He is made an outcast because he is an immigrant from China to Jamaica, and he had to change his gender from female to male when he was on his voyage to the Caribbean.
- He was pressured and made inferior by Cecil and Miss Sylvie because they made him believe if he was female that he would never survive and be force into a horrific life, such as prostitution, so he maintained the identity of a male.
- The society dehumanized Lowe because he was only identified as an immigrant, rather than for his ideas or beliefs.
- "The Chinese shopkeeper is the middleman, a position that puts him in a precarious position…Economically he is a member, but culturally he is not, and it is this, which lies at the root of the peasants’ ambivalent and often violent, attitude toward him. The peasant needs him, but dislikes him" (Wilson, 85).
A Tempest: Aime Cesaire
- Caliban is a black slave that is dehumanized by his slave owner and society.
- In society the white race is superior and the black race is inferior and many were forced into slavery.
- The white race dehumanized the black race, viewed them as animalistic and only useful to serve the white race.
- Caliban was forced to hide his true identity and forget about his culture. His master banned Caliban from speaking his native language.
- “Prospero: Mumbling your native language again! I’ve already told you, I don’t like it. You could be polite at least; a simple “hello” wouldn’t kill you” (Cesaire, 17).
The Kingdom of this World: Alejo Carpentier
- Macandal is a black slave in the novel that is viewed to have animalistic tendencies and seen as the bottom pit of society.
- He is suspected to have magical powers to morph into other insects, such as a mosquitos.
- "And Macandal, transformed into a buzzing mosquito, would light on the very tricorne of the commander of the troops to laugh at the dismay of the whites” (Carpentier, 45).
- Macandal is never allowed to express his true identity and the white race just identified him as an outcast because of his skin color, and deemed him a beast once he lost his arm in a work accident on the cane field.