In both Brave New World and Anthem the underlying themes are very similar. The government controls every aspect of people’s lives, everyone is supposed to be perfectly happy with what role they are given, and the main character do not fit into what the government was deemed normal. While both books have these very similar traits, there are many differences as well; the way the government controls the people, as well as the form of government, the way people of both societies treat each other, and the situation in which the main characters are placed.
In both Brave New World and Anthem the government controls everything about a person. In Brave New World the government has taken the ultimate step in controlling the people. The government has taken people’s right to have children away, and instead grow children in labs, dictating what the child’s life will be like from the time the sperm is introduced to the egg. The government adds enhancers if they want the child to come out smart, or things like alcohol to the embryo if they want it to come out stupid. Then the child is put through a series of conditioning treatments that make the child behave exactly how the government wants the child to (Huxley). In Anthem the government has also taken control of every aspect of te people’s lives. They are not as drastic as the government in Brave New World, but they put a child through a conditioning school, they choose the job that the person will do, and they choose when babies will be made. In Anthem the government is a council of leaders that have been chosen by the previous leaders to lead the people, and make them conform to the way that the council wants the people to think. There are councils in every city in Anthem as well as sub-council that control other aspects of life, for example the council of scholars rules over the new inventions, and studies conducted (Rand). Brave New World’s government is a series of
Bibliography: Diken, Bülent . n. page. Print. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perenial, 1969. Rand, Ayn. Anthem. New York: Dutton, 1995.