Compare H.P. Lovecraft And W.E.B. Dubois Discussing Xenophobia

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Subject #1 Lovecraft’s “Facts concerning the later Arthur Jermyn and His Family” Most humans possess a somehow innate fear of unknown or foreign things and this is described as Xenophobia by Jeffrey Winters CITATION Jef02 \l 1033 (Winters, 2002). Lovecraft shows this strongly in Facts concerning the late Arthur Jermyn and His family. He suggests that if science uncovered the truths it has hidden, this knowledge would be the end of us all indicating just how humans are terrified of truths their minds cannot accept. It was termed as madness by the rational humans of the 18th century to hear one talk of unusual scenes encountered in Congo let alone the ‘rave of the living creatures’ that lived there. Xenophobia was publicly expressed without shame as we see most members of the Jermyn family were termed as mad. Sir Robert Jermyn strangled the explorer for the information he had shared with him and went ahead to kill his three children because he could not accept what the explorer shared. Most people who lived around the Jermyns treated the family with repulsion because of their peculiar physical looks and obsession with Congolese myths that was not acceptable by sane people CITATION HPL21 \l 1033 (Lovecraft, 1921). Hidden bias is lack of openly showing our fear of unknown or foreign things CITATION Jef02 \l 1033 (Winters, 2002). Arthur Jermyn was more accepting of all his bloodline and his mother affording him good education, he received honors from Oxford and was more intellectual than his ancestors. Yet when he burnt himself to death, no one buried him, neither did anything in his memory, confirming their hidden biases of this unusual human who had longer arms and different facial angle after striking a resemblance between him and the mummy. He was considered unworthy of a burial and his existence denied further proving hidden biases. Wade would not allow anyone to see his family not even care for his dying wife and led people to think he preferred solitude, it’s only later in the writing do we discover this was because she was an ape princess. This act of hiding her yet he spoke enthusiastically of the creatures in Congo shows his hidden bias to these apes. Social identity is the tendency of people of a group of people or even individuals thinking highly of themselves CITATION Jef02 \l 1033 (Winters, 2002) because of race, wealth or religion. Social identity is evident in this story as the people of 18th century condemned to madness anyone of learning to mention the catacombs and a forgotten city in Congo yet what Wade talked of existed. Robert wouldn’t accept that a family of his caliber intermarried with apes and went ahead to kill his three children and the surviving nephew burnt himself after seeing what M. Verhaeren had sent him. The Royal Anthropological Institute burnt what they found in the box and threw away its locket since they...