# Dehumanization by Technology in Metropolis

> Theme guide for Metropolis by Thea von Harbou.

The machines in Metropolis are depicted as god-like entities that enslave workers, reducing them to mechanical parts. Workers are described as 'mangled souls' and 'slaves of the god-machines,' performing repetitive tasks until they collapse, highlighting the loss of humanity in an industrial society.

## Where it surfaces

- [Metropolis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/metropolis): The city's mechanized environment reduces workers to mere cogs in a machine, highlighting the loss of humanity.
- [The New Tower of Babel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/i): The workers are described as having 'the same faces' and being 'one thousand years old,' reduced to 'food' for the machine. The city's relentless rhythm erases individuality.
- [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/ii): Freder's vivid description of workers as hollowed-out beings, their brains sucked dry by machines, exemplifies the theme of technology stripping away humanity.
- [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/iii): The Paternoster machine reduces workers to automatons, with Georgi reciting a mechanized Lord's Prayer and Freder feeling the machine's 'sucker' bore into his brain.
- [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/iv): Rotwang's android is described as a 'tool'—cold, obedient, and faceless—highlighting the reduction of humanity to mechanical function.
- [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/v): Freder is described as a 'mangled man-creature' before the machine, and the machine's eye smiles 'softly and maliciously,' illustrating the dehumanizing power of technology.
- [VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/vi): Georgi's trance, where he believes himself a machine and forces others to worship him, illustrates the dehumanizing fusion of human and machine.
- [XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/xv): The false Maria's cold, mechanical smile and her sabotage of the Heart-machine illustrate technology's capacity for destruction and dehumanization.
- [XVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/chapters/xvi): The machines, left unattended, become raging god-like entities, symbolizing technology's失控 and its threat to humanity.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/themes/dehumanization_by_technology
- Themes index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/metropolis_se/themes