February 25, 2013 | Theatre,

Who Are The Real Vermin?

 

In 1971, Stanford psychology professor Phillip Zimbardo randomly selected 24 white male students of the same age for an experiment, arbitrarily assigned each a role of “prisoner” or “guard,” and placed them in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. In the course of six days, the “guards” were transformed from decent, average students to power-hungry authoritarians who subjected the “prisoners” to psychological torture.

How did these seemingly normal, well-intentioned human beings find it acceptable to traumatize their fellow peers—to abuse them to the point of mental breakdowns? After all, they knew that their roles of “guard” and “prisoner” were assigned entirely by chance—before the experiment, they were all equal.

I find this vicious and terrifying side of human nature fascinating. Franz Kafka beautifully and tragically illustrates this in his famed novel, The Metamorphosis. When Gregor Samsa wakes up suddenly one morning to find that he has been transformed into a monstrous insect, his family turns their backs on him. Embarrassed and disgusted, at first they merely ignore him. But eventually they grow increasingly violent in how they treat Gregor, their own brother and son.

Gregor is not the only one who transforms in startling and horrific ways. Just as the students turned into cruel guards who abused the “prisoners,” so too does Gregor’s family, turning from loving to torturing him by ignoring him, exiling him to the confines of his room, cringing in his presence, and even resorting to physical violence. In my opinion, this is worse than the actions of the students in Zimbardo’s experiment, who had no significant emotional connection to each other.

Dehumanization is the common denominator between Zimbardo’s experiment and Kafka’s story, acting as a catalyst for such despicable behavior. The “guards,” desperate to exercise power over the “prisoners,” stripped them of their human identity— “prisoners” were forced to repeat numbers assigned to them until they were imprinted in their minds and forced to wear paper bags on their heads. Then it was easy to deny these non-humans proper sanitary conditions, fire at them with fire extinguishers and more. Gregor’s dehumanization takes a more literal form. Perhaps the demoralizing effects of his dead-end, monotonous, demanding job at the factory slowly stripped him of his humanity until one day he woke up as something subhuman. Unable to communicate with his family, they in turn become unwilling to glimpse the bit of humanity he holds inside. He becomes to them only what they can see with their eyes: a monstrous bug.

The “guards” were pressured by the need to assert their authority and feel superior; Gregor’s family, by society and the fear of being seen as different or inferior. Both blamed, ostracized and abused the seemingly lower,  weaker party. If this could happen to normal people like Stanford students or a poor family, we are certainly not immune to it. But I think these stories also teach us a lesson of compassion—of seeing the humanity in things and people completely unrecognizable to us. As we seek power, wealth and praise, it is all too easy to forget the affect we have on others. Even if we cannot relate to them, when we cease to view our neighbors as people with actual feelings, thoughts, flaws, hopes and dreams, we lose a bit of humanity ourselves. Gregor may have physically become something subhuman—a literal manifestation of a monster—but his family’s own transformation begs the question: who are the real vermin?

Andrea Gordillo is an Emerson BFA Acting’14 student and a Dramaturgy & Outreach Assistant at ArtsEmerson.