Pathways to Darkness: Loss of Humanity in British and American Prose

Abstract

This diploma thesis explores the psychological and social factors contributing to moral regression and the loss of humanity. Specifically, it focuses on the combination of a narcissistic orientation with an authoritarian environment. It emerges from Erich Fromm's dialectic humanism, combined with the theories of Hannah Arendt, Viktor Frankl, and Albert Bandura. Through the characters of Dorian Gray, Coriolanus Snow, Alfred Frick, and Winston Smith from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023), Salt to the Sea (2016), and Nineteen EightyFour (1949), respectively, the analytical chapters illustrate a regression into evil and the use of moral disengagement strategies.