Dehumanizing the Enemy

In my novel Last Song of the Swan, Helen and her exchange-student friend Dervinder go for a run. As they run, they talk about their assignment: writing a research paper based on the Old English Epic Poem Beowulf.

Helen becomes convinced that Beowulf is far older than people think it is. She believes that it is a story retold through multiple generations: a story about a conflict early in man’s existence:

I say that if this story is old as the cavemen, like I think it is, Grendel’s no tyrannosaurus because they were all dead already. Mr. Reed said that. I don’t think he was a saber tooth tiger either. The Beowulf writer’s idea that the evil creatures of this world are not really monsters, but corrupted sons of Cain, the evil son of Adam and Eve who murdered his own brother. But what lived back then that might have been considered monstrous, a fallen man? Were there orcs back in the Stone Age?
And that’s when Gurvinder says that maybe Grendel was a Neanderthal.
I stop in my tracks. “What?” I gasp.
“A Neanderthal,” Gurvinder says. He stops too, but leans forward, hinting that we’re supposed to keep going. I start running, but slowly. My mind’s racing.
“What makes a Neanderthal like a fallen man?” I ask.
“T’ink about it,” he says. “We depict Neanderthals as brutes. Half monkeys with stooping shoulders who drag their clubs on the ground. We make them look stupid. But they weren’t.”
“How do you know that?” I wheeze. This talking and running at the same time isn’t easy.
“I’ve read about them. National Geographic. Discovery. They were smart, like us.”
“So why do we make them look like morons?”
Gurvinder shrugs. “Maybe they’re too much like us. We need to make them look like they weren’t smart so we can explain why we survived and they didn’t. Make ourselves feel better.”



I wish that the Weders’ dehumanizing of the Berigizon was the only time one group of people have used this tactic to make themselves feel superior. Unfortunately, it's not.

I just finished watching Schindler’s List, a movie about how one German industrialist managed to save thousands of Jews from the Holocaust. Nazi propagandists had insinuated that Jews were less than human, and that they were dangerous because they seemed so much like people. While talking with his Jewish housemaid, Helen Hirsch,




Amon Goeth, the superintendent of Plaszow work camp, says “I realize that you're not a person in the strictest sense of the word. . . I mean, when they compare you to vermin, to rodents, and to lice,” reiterating the Party line than Jews were subhuman. In other propaganda, such as this poster, Jews looked like monsters with long claws and fangs, much like Grendle the monster is depicted in Beowulf.

We continue to dehumanize our enemies. We call them uncivilized monsters so that we have justification to fight them. And they return the favor, calling us and our way of life monstrous as well.

Perhaps this is the human condition, but perhaps one day we will stop using this ploy and recognize everyone as fully human, regardless of skin color, religion, or place of origin. Only then will humans be truly humane.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a retired middle school social studies teacher and the author of several books for middle grade readers. The Last Song of the Swan is her first adult novel.