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Emma Paboudjian
Mrs. Gladman
ENG 301
8 January, 2016

1984 and Brave New World Comparison Essay

Orwells 1984 and Huxleys Brave New World are outstanding examples of dystopian
novels both filled with intellectual content much ahead of their time. The first word that comes to
mind when describing 1984 and Brave New World is control. Both of the novels governments
(The Party and the World Controllers) will do anything in their power to maintain their current
control over society; this including their usage of technology and the elimination or alteration of
past knowledge. Control is the most important element in a dystopian governments regime.
In order to keep control, governments have the power to access and use certain industries to their
advantage such as the use of technology in Brave New Worlds society. The technological
industry is used to condition the people of the World State to conform to the governments ideals
of a utopian population. Conditioning the population of the World State at birth allows the
government to select specified class workers from Alphas to Epsilons, and condition them to like
the tasks they were raised to perform, henceforth never wanting to reject the ways of their
utopian society. The Director of Hatcheries and his eager assistant, Mr. Foster proceed to tell a
tour group of young men just how conditioning works and the shear brilliance of its ability to
cater to their ideal society:
Heat conditioning, said Mr. Foster. Hot tunnels alternated with cool tunnels. Coolness
was wedded to discomfort in the form of hard X-rays. By the time they were decanted the
embryos had a horror of cold. They were predestined to emigrate to the tropics, to be

miners and acetate silk spinners and steel workers. Later on their minds would be made to
endorse the judgement of their bodies. We condition them to thrive on heat, concluded
Mr. Foster. Our colleagues upstairs will teach them to love it. And that, put in the
Director sententiously, that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what youve got
to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny
(Huxley 16).
What is the point of objecting a government that has given their people no reason to do so? The
utopian government has made it nearly impossible for any of their citizens to be unsatisfied with
the lives chosen for them because theyve been successfully bred and conditioned according to
their class and job description. Brave New Worlds government has realized that in order to
remain in control you must eliminate reason for anyone else to take that control away. The
technology of conditioning has helped to maintain government control.
In 1984, social control through the use of technology presents itself in the form of telescreens. In
a deep underground canteen, Winston and his friend Syme meet up for lunch where later on, Mr.
Parsons comes over to join them. Throughout their light conversations, Winston notices a darkhaired girl who had been staring at him for the past five minutes. Frightened that this girl might
be a secret member of the Thought Police, he tries his best to hide his emotions that might show
his fear:
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place
or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an
unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself anything that carried with
it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an
improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for

example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak:
facecrime, it was called (Orwell 62).
Wherever you look in Oceania there is a telescreen along with hidden members of the Thought
Police and Junior Spies all programmed to eliminate any persons seemingly out of place; their
facial expressions and questionable actions giving their rebellious intentions away. The
Oceanian government known as The Party strives for control over their people much like the
World Controllers (Brave New World). The way to maintain this control is to eliminate anyone
who does not conform completely to society and who does not hold a true love for Big Brother.
The extreme surveillance power of The Party has aided in the control over the Oceanian people.
In both 1984 and Brave New Worlds societies, knowledge from the past has become an enemy to
the modernized society. Government control is maintained by the elimination of old artifacts and
dated knowledge. The elimination of the old has become a method of caution to prevent the
disruption of their societys set ways and the possibility of citizens turning against their
government. In Brave New World, Mustapha Mond argues with John the Savage, explaining why
the new utopian society has no need for old knowledge such as Shakespearian literature:
Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without
steeland you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now.
People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get.
They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're
blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers;
they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned
that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should
go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of

liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty! He laughed. Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is!
And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy! The Savage was silent
for a little. All the same, he insisted obstinately, Othello's good, Othello's better than
those feelies. Of course it is, the Controller agreed. But that's the price we have to
pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call
high art. We've sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead
(Huxley 220).
The society that has been created has no need for stories about family issues, bravery, solitude,
and pain because it has become reality that all of these struggles have been eliminated. Everyone
in the World State has no reason to be unhappy or alone thanks to the new ways of their utopia
issued by the standing government. If the World Controllers introduced old literature and other
ancient artifacts into their modernized society, the presence of them would provide unnecessary
confusion to the population and could cause commotion among the lesser conformed citizens.
The elimination of old knowledge is crucial to keeping control over the new, modernized society.
In 1984, knowledge from the past is not only being eliminated, but any hint of existence of the
old knowledge is being erased as well. Anything from the Partys past that does not fit their
current governing position is eliminated along with any previous records of its existence.
Winston still has vague memories of past events that have been erased and rewritten to fit the
current events of war and justifications for government actions. He remarks that the Party has
gone as far as erasing history itself to maintain government control:
The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith,
knew the Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as a short time as four years ago. But
where did this knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case could

soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed if all
records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who
controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past. And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered.
Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All
that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. Reality
control, they called it: in Newspeak, doublethink (Orwell 34-35).
If the Party decides that they were the ones who invented airplanes or were never once in
alliance with their current enemies when in reality that has not always been the truth, they would
have the power to alter or eliminate anything that would instruct otherwise. The Party does this
to keep the citizens of Oceania in awe of them. The Party must impress and do everything they
can to keep their image as the good guys in the eyes of the society they govern. If they lose the
support of their citizens, they lose their control over them. Government control is maintained by
the elimination and alteration of past knowledge, gaining support from its citizens.
In the end, the main goal of a dystopian government is to maintain control over their society. In
Orwells 1984 and Huxleys Brave New World, both governments used the power of technology
as a form of control; conditioning (Brave New World) and telescreens (1984). Both governments
also chose to eliminate and alter past knowledge to keep the support of their citizens, preventing
any un-satisfactions with the governments regime. The Party and the World Controllers have
proven that they will do anything in their power to maintain control over their society. Control is
essential in a successful dystopian government.

Word Cited
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York City: Harper Perennial Modern Classics,
2006. Print.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York City: New American Library, 1961. Print.