Corrupt Utopian Societies
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English 102
05/01/13
Corrupt Utopian Societies Have you ever imagined living in a society where everyone is the same? Can you imagine living in a society where people don’t ask questions, they just do as they are told? Winston Smith from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Bernard Marx from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World live in worlds very similar to these. They live in worlds where corruption is scarce among the common population. Winston and Bernard are from entirely different settings; however, they have an abundance of thoughts that lead them to similar places in different stories. These thoughts and actions taken by these characters are fascinating to the reader when drawn into perspective. Few times in the two novels Winston and Bernard’s thoughts draw them close to danger within their worlds because of consequences with their dictators or government. Bernard is exiled from his society to a different continent while Winston is sentenced to death after vigorous amounts of testing and torture. It is interesting to see how these characters thoughts are so different and similar at the same time, and how they lead them to their dismay. The title of my essay relays how I think about these novels in two ways. The first one being that I believe both of the books are attempted Utopias. The second reason being that although both societies are attempted utopias they turn out being the complete opposite and result in being crooked and dissatisfying. In Huxley’s Brave New World Bernard is set as an individual from everyone else right from the start. He is classified as an alpha, but is much shorter than all the other alphas. Rumors were spread that when he was in the bottle he was mistaken as a Gamma and had alcohol slipped into his blood surrogate. Bernard became more of an individual because his peers passed judgment upon him, casting him away from the social normality. By being treated like this Bernard develops an unusual way of thinking
English 102
05/01/13
Corrupt Utopian Societies Have you ever imagined living in a society where everyone is the same? Can you imagine living in a society where people don’t ask questions, they just do as they are told? Winston Smith from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Bernard Marx from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World live in worlds very similar to these. They live in worlds where corruption is scarce among the common population. Winston and Bernard are from entirely different settings; however, they have an abundance of thoughts that lead them to similar places in different stories. These thoughts and actions taken by these characters are fascinating to the reader when drawn into perspective. Few times in the two novels Winston and Bernard’s thoughts draw them close to danger within their worlds because of consequences with their dictators or government. Bernard is exiled from his society to a different continent while Winston is sentenced to death after vigorous amounts of testing and torture. It is interesting to see how these characters thoughts are so different and similar at the same time, and how they lead them to their dismay. The title of my essay relays how I think about these novels in two ways. The first one being that I believe both of the books are attempted Utopias. The second reason being that although both societies are attempted utopias they turn out being the complete opposite and result in being crooked and dissatisfying. In Huxley’s Brave New World Bernard is set as an individual from everyone else right from the start. He is classified as an alpha, but is much shorter than all the other alphas. Rumors were spread that when he was in the bottle he was mistaken as a Gamma and had alcohol slipped into his blood surrogate. Bernard became more of an individual because his peers passed judgment upon him, casting him away from the social normality. By being treated like this Bernard develops an unusual way of thinking
Cited: Huxley, Aldous, and Aldous Huxley. Brave New World: And, Brave New World Revisited. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-four, a Novel. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949. Print.