Manipulation in Blade Runner and Maus Essay

This paper discusses the issue of manipulation in Ridley Scotts, vane Runner, and maneuver Spiegelmans, Maus volume I and II. When used as a form of haughty control, manipulation lends itself to the dehumanization of the characters within these texts consequently enslaving them to an inescapable and fascist framework of control.Manipulation is an artful management used for the purposes of deception and control. The discerning and devious exertion of manipulation, as a tool of tyranny, gives those who propagate it the ability to engineer the movements of the masses. Within the texts, weather vane Runner, and Maus- volume I and II, the characters argon manipulated to glorify the genetically pure. When Deckert administers the Void-Comp run to Rachel he is presenting her with a scenario to test her purity.Deckert proposes to Rachel Its your birthdaysomeone gives you a calf-skin wallet to which Rachel replies, I wouldnt accept it similarly, Id report the person who gave it to me t o the police (Blade Runner 2238). Even as a replicant, Rachel has been influenced to idealize the genetically pure, like all of the other characters reserve in Blade Runner. The police force also manipulates Deckert to believe that he must retire the replicants. When Deckert says, Ive got no choice, huh? Tucker responds, No choice at all, pal (Blade Runner 1331). Perhaps when force and punishment support and sustain manipulation this typewrite of persuasion is inevitable.In Art Spiegelmans, Maus volume I and II, manipulation is more overtly used as a method of unconditional control by the Nazi regime. On page 54 in Maus II, a German solider begins talking to Vladek as they are marching. Vladek even describes him as having a little tone. Before long the guard yells for Vladek to shut up and Vladek becomes afraid anymore to speak. The guard has his declare ideals, but has been so influenced by Nazi rule that he is afraid to defy the beliefs that energise been press upon him. Si mply by initiating the conversation, the soldier inadvertently demonstrates that he doesnt fully accept what Hitler has influenced him to think of the Jews. His actions are derived from an appeal to ignorance.Within the texts, this type of manipulation ultimately lends itself to the dehumanization of those who are believed to be genetically dingy. In Blade Runner, the replicants are reduced to animals and as long as Deckert continues to see them as an middle-level or subhuman force, his effort to eradicate them is not done in vain. In seeing the replicants as animals Deckert can kill them without actually murdering them. After all, this is not execution its retirement (Blade Runner 310). In this sense, Deckert and the replicants are engaged in a perpetual struggle of being predator or being prey. haywire exemplifies this struggle when he howls like a wolf while in hobby of Deckert (Blade Runner 13804). When Priss says, but were stupid and well die in response to Battys plans of paradigmatic change, it becomes obvious that the way the replicants are treated has changed the way in which they view themselves. The replicants have been reduced to animals.Similarly, in Maus, the Nazis see the Jews not as humans but as animals. Spiegelman draws the Jews as mice in his graphic novel to conceptualize this fact. Vladek describes how the Jews were transported in cattle cars. It was such a train for horses, for cows. They pushed until there was no room left. We lay one on top of the other, like matches, like herrings (Spiegelman 254). This treatment was a form of manipulation attempting to change the way in which the Jews viewed themselves.The Nazis didnt treat the Jews as human and so they were influenced by this treatment to believe that they were non-human. Vladek describes how the German soldiers saw the Jews. We were below their dignity. We were not even men (Spiegelman 254). The dehumanization of the Jews helped the Nazis to justify their actions. The need for t he soldiers to separate themselves from the brutality shows their true beliefs. If they truly objectified the Jews, they would not have had to chip off themselves from them in order to carry out Hitlers visions. It was Hitlers visions that influenced the soldiers to carry out their actions. Hitlers visions had been manipulated into sightly their own.Eventually this type of manipulation has the ability to disseminate through society, successfully propagating misinformation as truth. It is evident, in two of the texts, that the characters become en break ones backd to an oppressive system built by manipulation. The characters are unable to free themselves from oppression because they have been surrounded by a fascist framework of authoritative control. In Blade Runner, when Rachel declares Im not in the business I am the business she has come to the realization that she is a slave to the system.Rachel goes from living with Tyrell to knowing shes a replicant, and having no other cho ice but to take on her designated role (Blade Runner 10409). When Rachel asks Deckert Would you come after me? and Deckert responds No but somebody would the characters realize the authoritative nature of a world, fostered by manipulation and controlled by surveillance (Blade Runner 10602). In the closing scene of Blade Runner, Batty affirms this notion Its quite an experience to live in carethats what it is to be a slave (Blade Runner 14512).In Maus, the dehumanization of his stick has enslaved Artie to Vladeks past. When Artie thinks of his parents history he is doomed to envision a pile of nonviable Jews under his desk (Spiegelman 241). Artie is unable to escape the terror of Auschwitz. This becomes clear on page 47 of Maus II, when Artie puts on the mask of a mouse. Artie signifies himself as the child of a survivor and, despite the fact that he has neer been there, Auschwitz will manipulate the way in which Artie lives forever. Artie has absorbed his fathers past to such a n design that he has begun to lose some of himself and adopt some of his father. Artie bleeds history, as the title of Spiegelmans book suggests.Ridley Scotts, Blade Runner, and Art Spiegelmans, Maus volume I and II, cooperate to reveal the effects of manipulation when it is used to formulate authoritative control. The propagation of misinformation dehumanizes the characters within these texts, making them slaves to a system that is created by manipulation and sustained by surveillance. deeds CitedBlade Runner (Directors Cut). Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Daryl Hannah. Warner Studios, 1982.Spiegelman, Art. Maus A Survivors Tale. 2 vols. New York Pantheon Books, 1986.