Struggle to maintain humanity when confronted with social change Anonymous 12th Grade

Utilizing multidisciplinary knowledge gained from analysis of both George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Fritz Langs’ Metropolis grants the individual the ability to better understand the ways in which both texts portray that a major concern is the struggle to maintain what makes us human when confronted by overwhelming social change. Both Orwell and Lang explore this confrontation in light of their differing contexts. Behind Metropolis, Lang foregrounds his own Christian values as the counter to economic pragmatism, ultimately reflecting the influences of his own Catholicism along with the emerging technological advancements of the Weimar Republic. Whilst, Orwell advocates the values that make us human in the face of social changes in political powers, reflecting his fears regarding totalitarian regimes emerging out of WWII.

In Metropolis, Lang presents this confrontation through specific reference to the implications of a social change that privileges values that make the struggle to maintain what makes us human difficult. Maria, being the ultimate depiction of the values that makes us human, foretells to the working class, revealed in the inter-titles, that ‘the mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart’. By...