Makayla Stevens

Wind

December 6th, 2016

Huxley and Orwells Dystopian Futures

Between the end of the first world war and the beginning of the second, Fascism, a

political movement based on the attitude of giving full interest in economic, social, and military

power to a dominant race or state lead by a single dominant leader1 gained popularity in Europe.

Specifically, Spain and Germany adopted fascism into their governments. In Spain, the fascist

party was founded by Benito Mussolini, the prime minister. They spread anti-communist and

anti-democratic ideals through acts of violence and hatred as well as government regulation and

censorship. They banned other political parties and unions, censored media and literature, and

altered many aspects of Italian life and culture in order to protect their power. In Germany,

fascism was adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Once he was elected chancellor of

Germany, he used his platform to promote ideas of ethnic/racial superiority which eventually led

to the genocide of millions of Jews, Serbs, Gypsies, mentally ill and homosexual people2.

Aldous Huxley lived from 1894-1963, mostly in England, so he witnessed Fascism being

adopted by other countries in Europe.3 He saw the censorship and violence it brought about in

Italy, the genocide in Germany, and the countless other effects it had on other European

countries. The terrors of totalitarianism and fascism he saw in his own lifetime inspired his

novel, Brave New World. In a letter to George Orwell, he said that he wrote the novel because

1
"Fascism - King's College." 2005. 26 Nov. 2016 <http://departments.kings.edu/history/20c/fascism.html>
2
"Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution." 2015. 30 Nov. 2016
<https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008193>
3
"Aldous Huxley - Author, Screenwriter, Writer - Biography.com." 2011. 6 Dec. 2016
<http://www.biography.com/people/aldous-huxley-9348198>
within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning

and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and

that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their

servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.4 Brave New World is about a society

where everyone is bred to fit into a caste in the social hierarchy, and constantly conditioned and

drugged into fitting that role. Conformity is valued highly, and most forms of art, religion, and

literature are banned. The protagonist is named John, and he is taken from the savage tribe,

who live without the technological advances of the modern world. He is introduced to the ways

of the modern world, but rejects them because he loves poetry, art, and individuality. Eventually,

John kills himself because he cannot stand being alone in his values anymore. Other major

characters in the novel are Lenina Crowne, a law abiding citizen who John falls in love with,

Bernard Marx, who is the one to bring John to the civilized world, and Mustapha Mond (the

controller), a government official who controls what the people know and explains to John

why their society is the way it is.

George Orwell was born in 1903 in India as the son of a British civil servant. Because he

grew up in England, he witnessed the same European adoption of fascism as Huxley, and was

inspired by Brave New World to write his novel, 1984.5 This novel is set in Oceania, where the

government run by big brother is constantly watching and listening to their citizens in order to

control them. The citizens are obedient out of fear of their government. Big brother and his

government control all information and thought in Oceania, which allows them to remain in

4
"Letters of Note: 1984 v. Brave New World." 2012. 6 Dec. 2016
<http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html>
5
"George Orwell - Author, Journalist - Biography.com." 2011. 6 Dec. 2016
<http://www.biography.com/people/george-orwell-9429833>
power. 1984s protagonist, Winston, questions the government and is punished for it by being

tortured and conditioned to become the perfect citizen. After struggling with power and having

to accept his insignificance, he returns into society to live out his days as just another ordinary,

lifeless citizen. Other major characters are Julia, Winstons lover who pushes him to rebel more,

and OBrien, who works for big brother, pretends to befriend Winston, but is central in getting

him jailed and tortured.

Both 1984 and Brave New World take place in societies with strict social constructs built

around a hierarchy with a large powerless population at the bottom. These two novels share

themes of using technology and the alteration or omission of information to control society. The

fates of the two protagonists, John, who commits suicide, and Winston, whose life becomes

meaningless, are similar in that they are both caused by the restrictions put on them by their

totalitarian governments. Through the fates of the protagonists, the authors showed their

predictions that totalitarian governments would kill human nature and individual thought.

In Huxleys Brave New World, society is divided into castes and every last detail is

controlled by the few top leaders. Reproduction and upbringing are completely industrialized;

children are made in test tubes and raised with constant conditioning to fit the exact role the

government intends for them. The caste system and structure of society in the novel is

constructed for the sake of efficiency. They have the perfect amount of people doing each job,

consuming products, and making sure everything goes perfectly. The entire population is

conditioned to value community and conformity. Individuality, art, and deviation from norms of

society is completely unheard of.

tube breeding methods, and drugs to control the population. With these methods, the government

is able to make sure that there is never a fluctuation in their power or efficiency. After showing

young children being shocked with electricity at the sight of flower petals, the Director explained

that they condition the masses to hate the country...but simultaneously we condition them to

love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of

elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport (Huxley

23). Mustapha Mond explains in a conversation with John that we [the government] believe in

happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn't fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a

factory staffed by...separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to

be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!

(222). The government has a perfectly planned system that uses technology to control who the

identity, wants, and needs of the citizens. They use electric shocks and other methods of

conditioning on children in order to maintain the demand in their economy and keep the society

in order when they reach adulthood.

The government also strictly filters what the people read, hear, and see in order to make

sure that the only messages out there are ones they agree with. This makes it so the people

blindly agree with the government because they know of nothing else. When John asks

Mustapha mond why works of art and literature like Shakespeares Othello are banned, Mond

says because its old; thats the chief reason. We havent any use for old things

here...particularly when theyre beautiful. Beautys attractive, and we dont want people to be

attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones (Huxley 219). Because efficiency
and stability are so highly valued by the government and society in Brave New World, they

cannot allow anything that distracts a citizen from the purpose of their existence, which is to

consume what they have been conditioned to consume and produce whatever their job entails.

Art, literature, and the values that John possesses not only oppose those of the world state, but

have the potential to distract. Such distractions would destroy the conformity of the population

by presenting views and ideas other than those of the government, which could lead to

questioning or resistance from the citizens. In order to remain a stable society, Mond and the rest

of the government do not allow art and literature.

Because of his upbringing in the savage tribe, Johns values are opposite of the majority

of the population, leading him to represent individual thought and nonconformity in the novel. In

his childhood, he was given books by Shakespeare and other authors that are banned in the world

state. This literature exposed him to ideas of love and romance, individuality, and religion.

Throughout his conversation with Mond, he questions and argues over the world states policies

on art and literature, and says, whether tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of

outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you

dont do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. Its too easy

(Huxley 238). In this metaphorical statement, the slings and arrows are the inconveniences of

allowing art, love, and all of Johns favorite things. By not allowing the presence of multiple

views or opinions on anything, John believes the government is taking a route that is too costly

and too easy. At the end of the conversation he exclaims, I dont want comfort. I want God, I

want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin (240). John

represents individuality because he is the only one who believes in his particular set of values,
and does not conform societys ways because of his non conventional upbringing and faith in

what he believes to be right.

John spends some time in civilization, but after openly opposing the government in

public and creating a stir a few times, he is sent to an island to live out the rest of his days

without disrupting the stability of the world state. On this island, he is still alone in his ideals,

and eventually he hangs himself to end the life that he deems meaningless (Huxley 259). John

kills himself out of loneliness and despair caused by a government that forces everyone to

conform. Huxley uses John and his fate to show that he believes that all-controlling governments

like the one in Brave New World will lead to the death of individual thought. John represents

individual thought and nonconformity, and his death being caused by the governments

opposition to and oppression towards those ideals is a warning from Huxley that the presence of

a totalitarian government can do no good for those who share those values.

In Orwells 1984, society is divided not by definite castes, but into three main groups.

Very few people are at the top working in the government, and the majority of the population is

either working-class or a peasant-like prole. Because they are constantly under surveillance by

the telescreens, the people of Oceania obey their government and do not even think an adverse

thought out of fear. The majority of the population is kept uneducated, which is why they are so

easy to control.

The government in 1984 uses telescreens and other means of surveillance to scare people

into obedience; this allows them to control society using technology. The first time Winston

committed a crime against Big Brother, he was alone in his apartment, but he could not help but

feel a twinge of panic...He had committed--would still have committed, even if he had never set
pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself (Orwell 18-19). The

punishment he is so afraid of is vaporization; your name was removed from the registers, every

record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and

then forgotten (19). Even though there was no one else around him, he knew that the

government could know about his heresy because of their telescreens. Being constantly under

surveillance is the governments way of promoting fear in the population and keeping them in

check. They think they are always being watched, so they never disobey.

In 1984, history is constantly altered and current news is fabricated in order to create a

reality in which the people will not think thoughts that oppose or question the government.

Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, which controls all media, and laid down the lines of

policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one

falsifies, and the other rubbed out of existence (Orwell 42). The government alters history so

that everything makes sense in accordance to their current views or state, and during Winstons

interrogation, OBrien explains to him that whatever the party holds to be truth is truth. It is

impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party (249). By controlling

and altering the media of the past and present, they control the thoughts and beliefs of every

citizen of Oceania. This system makes it so that no one knows anything outside of the

governments altered and fabricated statements, so they cannot think about anything that has not

been placed into their minds by the government. Alteration of the past and present allows Big

Brother and the party to control the thoughts of the citizens and make it so that they do not

question their government.

goes against the ways of the rest of his peers and neighbors and opposes the government, often

alone. OBrien explains to Winston while he is in prison, you are here because you have failed

in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of

sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one (Orwell 249). The government is

opposed to the idea of individual thought and non conformity, so they jail and torture winston to

kill the part of his that commits those crimes. Winston represents the parts of human nature that a

totalitarian government cannot afford to let be because they make for an uncontrollable

population.

After being arrested for opposing the government, Winston is taken into prison where he

is starved both physically and mentally. In prison, he is electrocuted and interrogated by OBrien

until he believes that Big Brothers truth is the only truth. Essentially, his mind and soul are

broken down until he can no longer resist. At the end of the novel, he is returned to society to

live out the rest of his days in a lifeless manner. He is given wealth and comfortable living, but

this does not matter because he cannot enjoy nor appreciate life any more.

Because Winston is a symbol of individual thought and non conformity, Orwell uses his

fate to demonstrate what he predicts will happen if totalitarian, fascist, or oppressive

governments remain in power. At the end of the novel, Winston has gone through interrogation

and torture to the point that he loved Big Brother (Orwell 298). He completely accepts and

believes in all of the governments news, history, and sentiment. The interrogation and torture by

the oppressive government has killed the individual thought and nonconformity within him.
Orwell used Winston and the torture by the government to show that an oppressive government

would rid society of them.

In both Brave New World and 1984, the government uses technology and censorship to

control the large portion of their population that lacks knowledge and power. In Brave New

World, the completely industrialized breeding system and censorship of art, religion, and

literature creates a society where the government controls every want, need, and choice that the

citizens make in order to support happiness and stability; in 1984, the partys use of telescreens

and alteration of history promotes obedience out of fear, but creates the same obedience and lack

of questioning. The protagonists and their fates are similar in that both represent individual

thought and conformity. John dies because he is alone in his ideals and the government will not

allow him to discuss them, and Winstons spirit is killed by interrogation and torture because he

is latched to his own individual thoughts and nonconformist ideas. Both authors used the

symbolism and fate of the protagonists to show that they believed and oppressive or totalitarian

government would kill individual thought and nonconformity.

Q: What are the thematic similarities between 1984 and Brave New World? How does the social
construct from each novel compare? What are the similarities and differences between the fate of
the protagonists? What do the fates of the protagonists show about the authors predictions for
the future?