СУГС „Георги Димитров“ – Скопје

Проектна матурска задача по англиски јазик

Тема: Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984”

and Huxley’s “Brave new world”

Изработил: Ментор:
Димитриј Крстев IV-1 Проф. Валентина Таневска Петковиќ

Скопје,2021
 Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”

Table of Contents

1. Introduction...................................................................................1
2. The dystopian societies of “1984” and “Brave New World”.............2
2.1 Totalitarianism and maintaining unchallenged governance.........................................
2.2. Social Stratification......................................................................................................
2.3. Limiting thought...........................................................................................................
2.4. Technology...................................................................................................................
2.5. Demoralization.............................................................................................................

3. Conclusion......................................................................................8
References.........................................................................................9

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 Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”

1. Introduction
The word “dystopia”, originating from the Greek word “cacotopia”, has a literal
translation of “bad place”, likewise the term dystopia, being an antonym to the word “utopia”,
represents a society that is highly undesirable and/or down right frightening. The first person to
coin the term was the English philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1886 while critiquing the English
government. Although, the first actual dystopian depiction was done by soviet writer Yevgeni
Zamyatin in his novel “We” where free will and individuality are eliminated within a collectivist
totalitarian state. Dystopias present societies in which its inhabitants lead utterly wretched,
miserable, dehumanized and fearful lives that are a result from the ruling government’s
oppression towards its own people. Dystopias are often characterized by tyrannical
governments and rulers, dehumanization, human suffering, war, or other characteristics
associated with a drastic decline in society and in the quality of life. They often include a brutal
ruling class, the destruction of individualism and privacy, a collectivist state and a controlled
proletariat. These are the characteristics that are woven into the societies in the classic novels
“1984” by George Orwell and “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.

Written now more than 70 years ago, 1984 is a novel that presents a chilling prophecy
about the future that grows more frightening as its futuristic dystopian portrayal becomes ever
so real with the passage of time. Published in 1949 as English political satirist George Orwell’s
ninth and final book in his lifetime, 1984 acts as his vivid, nightmarish vision of a totalitarian,
bureaucratic world in which individualism and humanity is lost and constantly abolished
through authoritarianist ruling, frequent propaganda and brainwashing, all in the name of the
1% upholding power. In 1984 every person’s individuality is lost, they end up presenting a small,
obedient cog in the grand machine that is the collectivist state. The book is laced with the
protagonist Winston Smith’s internal struggle as he grows to hate the ruling Party, all the while
trying to find his sense of individuality and fight against the oppressive state. 1984 centers
conceptually on the negative implications of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and strict
regulation. It remains as one of the most brilliant books ever written in history that serves as a
well-founded warning and concern for the future.

Predating 1984, being published in 1932, Brave New World is a profoundly important
classic of literature, a novel that is a vision of a drastically unequal, technologically-advanced
future where humans are genetically bred, placed into a divisive caste system, pharmaceutically
anesthetized and socially indoctrinated in order to, unbeknownst to them, passively uphold a
ruling order. Brave New World, serving as Huxley’s masterpiece, was written under the looming
presence and rise of fascism. The novel speaks of a modern world dominated by technology,
hedonism, mass-entertainment, persuasion, addictive pharmaceuticals and a governing party’s
concealed control. The book follows the adaptation of a primal, socially-outcast outsider into a
modern society, one that is oppressive and totalitarian, one he quickly learns to resent due to
his understanding of its true nature. Brave New World has managed to predict many negative

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 Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”

characteristics of today’s world. It has accomplished captivating and alarming countless

readers, as well as maintain its urgent significance as both a warning to be heeded and as one
of literature's most thought-provoking works.

2. The dystopian societies of “1984” and “Brave New World”

While Both 1984 and Brave New World are well accomplished dystopian novels that
share similar concepts and characteristics, they are entirely unique in their approaches of
depicting their respective bleak dystopian societies. Orwell’s 1984 depicts a dystopia in which
its inhabitants are aware of their brutal oppression, unhappiness and fear imposed onto them
by the regime, even being constantly reminded by their continuous omnipresent monitoring by
various posters, telescreens and hidden microphones scattered across the whole country. The
ruling party in 1984, named “Ingsoc”, meaning English socialism, and inspired by the German
Nazi party, rules with a brutal iron fist, keeping their power through sheer terror or inspired
patriotism in the people that give up their individual rights for the betterment of the state.
Contrary to this, Brave New World depicts a dystopia in which its inhabitants are unaware of
their oppression by the state. Ever since birth they are secretly conditioned through a
technologically advanced eugenics system and sleep conditioning techniques to be obedient
and unaware. Every person in Brave New World lives their life with absolute hedonism in mind,
only looking for pure bliss and comfort in their existence, never questioning anything else,
especially the governing party.

2.1 Totalitarianism and maintaining unchallenged governance

Totalitarianism, being a system of government that is dictatorial and requires complete
subservience to the state, is one of the most prevalent themes in both of these fictional
dystopias. In 1984 “Ingsoc”, or often presented just as the head of the party “Big brother”, is
represented as the brutal totalitarian regime ruling over Oceania. The inhabitants of Oceania
are well aware of the existence of the party and its authoritarian rule. They are either entirely
subservient to Big Brother or are swiftly captured by the party, tortured and brainwashed to the
point of subservience. Big Brother achieves a state of sheer fear and servitude in its people by
constant monitoring, brain washing and state produced propaganda.

The underlying technique that Big Brother utilizes for maintaining an unchallenged
governance is using the complete eradication of privacy. In essence, creating a feeling of having
nowhere to hide, or most importantly, having nowhere to conspire against the state, leading to
a constant fear of going against the wishes of the state. Fear that is present even in making a
seemingly mild, innocent action, yet one that could possibly oppose the state. In 1984, even
having a thought of the same kind is highly prohibited and referred to as “thought crime”. The
highly invasive monitoring is done through the use of hidden microphones and so called
“telescreens” that are monitor screens scattered throughout the whole of Oceania which pick

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 Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”

up every action, movement and sound in their vicinity, leaving very few places to hide or have
personal privacy.

The rigorous propaganda and brain washing in 1984 is carried out with the assistance of
the four state-controlled ministries: The Ministries of Truth, Love, Peace and Plenty. Each are
named and supposed to support something beneficial for the people, but in reality, they go
directly against their respective names. The Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith’s
occupation, is in charge of information that is received by the public. This information can come
in the form of education, art, news or entertainment. Truthful information is imperative to a
free and democratic society, although the Ministry of Truth does not have the ideals of
democracy in mind as it only works to create and distribute propaganda, as well as alter history.
Similar to this, the Ministry of Love is in charge of any activity that relates to maintaining loyalty
to Big Brother, including brainwashing and various oppressive systems. These include “Room
101”, representing hope’s end, where Winston Smith’s very being is finally broken down and
forced into Big Brother’s servitude. The Ministry of Peace’s function is to maintain Oceania’s
perpetual war. The perpetual war uses up all surplus resources, keeping most of Oceania
citizens, especially the poor proletariat named “the Proles”, in lives of constant hardship and
thus preventing them from ever learning enough to comprehend the true nature of their
society. The Ministry of Peace also uses Oceanic telescreens to broadcast news reports about
how Oceania is continually winning every battle it ever engages in, though these reports have
little to no credibility, often reporting a different adversary and ally on different occasions,
ignoring and destroying older reports that contradict them.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of
political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to
be coerced, because they love their servitude.”1. While 1984 has a very apparent totalitarian
ruling power, Brave New World’s totalitarian government, named “The World State”, being a
global government that administers most of the planet, takes a more inconspicuous approach.
While 1984 requires rigorous propaganda and monitoring of its citizens, the World State
maintains control of its people through conditioning and instilling only a desire for pleasure and
bliss in their citizen’s lives, eliminating the need for anything else. This pleasure comes in
several forms, in form of satisfaction gained from social acceptance, social status, beauty,
sexual intercourse, entertainment and pharmaceutical drugs, all the while having all of these
pleasures reinforce and demand each other. Due to this hedonistic lifestyle, every person has
no interest in anything outside of pleasure, leaving them no time or ability to question their
surroundings.

The most commonplace method used for instant pleasure and satisfaction is the
consumption of soma. Soma is the state created and distributed pharmaceutical drug that
delivers instant satisfaction to the consumer. In small doses, soma brings mild satisfaction and
1
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

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 Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”

numbing to negative feelings. In large doses, it creates pleasant hallucinations and a sense of
timelessness, rendering its user almost entirely unconscious while they drift away in pure
euphoria. The citizens of the World State are even encouraged to take soma by their peers and
by their government, with popular sayings such as “A gram is better than a damn.”, meaning
instantaneous pleasure is preferable to negative worry. When they experience very strong,
unescapable negative emotions, citizens take a so-called soma holiday to distract them from
their current unpleasant feelings. The main protagonist, John, sees soma as it truly is, a tool of
social control. He realizes that taking soma makes the citizens of the World State mindless
slaves, comprehending the fact that there is little meaning or beauty in life without negative,
unhappy experiences.

The need for pleasure is not the only tactic The World State employs in relation to
numbing its people in order to continue its uncontested rule. The pleasure-seeking hedonistic
lifestyle is only preserved for those working in higher class, more intellectually demanding
professions, in other words, those that are able to rebel. In Brave New World natural child birth
is replaced with an artificial insemination system that utilizes eugenics. Even before the birth of
a person in Brave New World there is an established eugenics system they go through, a system
that manipulates a person’s genetic makeup or genotype for specific reasons. This Eugenics
system is put in place in order to produce different categories of people that are specially
designed and obligated to carry out specific tasks. Ranging from alpha double pluses to
drastically inferior sigmas, every person has their own occupation that differ in cognitive
complexity. The bottom tier individuals similar to the likes of epsilon minuses are genetically
modified to specifically have professions that require little to no intellect or cognitive dexterity.
For this same reason they are reduced to nothing but empty shells that are unable to think or
function anywhere near the level of an average human being, empty shells that are only
concerned with their daily tasks, ones essentially unconscious and unfit to rebel.

2.2. Social Stratification

“Social class pyramid in 1984” “Social class pyramid in Brave New World”

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 Anatomy of a dystopia: The approaches of Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”

When it comes to social stratification in 1984, you inherit the class you belong to. At the
top of the social hierarchy reside the inner party members as having the most desirable
position in society, after them come the outer party members, and as having the least desirable
position come the Proles, seen as a poor and unintelligent segment of society. The oppressive
systems present in the society of 1984 are all systems put into place to assure the obedience of
individuals that are a part of the 15% of the population that do not equal the “Proles”. The
Proles, making up around 85% of the population, are people that lack the required knowledge
and intellect that would lead to them sparking a revolt or revolution against the system they
are included in. Because of their blissful ignorance, they are characterized as essentially
“unconscious”, only there to carry out physically demanding work. In the words of Orwell
himself: “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled,
they cannot become conscious.”2. For these reasons the Proles present no threat to the party
and are relatively left untouched by the oppressive system that is put into place to discourage
any type of revolt against Big Brother or Ingsoc.

Unlike 1984, Brave New World puts a large emphasis and importance on the social caste
system implemented into the world state. With the previously mentioned eugenic artificial
insemination system, each person is precisely genetically altered and conditioned to be placed
in a specific social class in order to carry out specific tasks. There are 5 classes that build the
caste system, including: Alphas, betas, gammas, deltas and epsilons. Society is controlled by
Alphas and their subordinates, the intellectually adequate, yet inferior Betas. Below them, in
descending order of intellectual capacity, are Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each caste is
distinguished by their color-coded work clothes and is further subdivided into Plus and Minus
categories. At the very pinnacle of society sit the Alpha Double-Plus, who serve as the future
scientists and top administrators of the world.

2.3. Limiting thought

Limiting thought, knowledge and factual history is an imperative strategy when it comes
to perpetual governance, for it is intricate thought and awareness that sparks a revolution.
Therefore, the limiting of human thought and anything that could lead to it has a great
importance in the dystopian societies of 1984 and Brave New World.

In 1984 this limitation is achieved mainly through relentless propaganda and the
destruction of factual history. The vast scope of this propaganda and destruction of history is
visible within the written words of Orwell: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every
book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been
renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by
minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is
always right.”3. The Party controls every source of information, managing and rewriting the
2
1984, George Orwell
3
1984, George Orwell

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content of all newspapers and historical accounts according to the current needs of its self-
maintained narrative. The Party does not allow individuals to keep any types of records of their
past, such as photographs or documents. As a result, memories become blurred and unreliable,
citizens become perfectly willing to believe whatever the Party tells them. By controlling the
present, the Party is able to manipulate the past. And in controlling the past, the Party can
justify all of its actions in the present.

To reach extreme levels of thought limitation, Ingsoc also utilizes a technique that is
rapidly in development and nearing completion, one that would prove to be flawless in the act
of eradicating thought. This technique named “newspeak” comes in the form of a state
produced and controlled language that has absurdly limited and simplified grammar and
vocabulary. Newspeak, originating from the English language, is the accepted spoken language
in Oceania whose aim is to reduce thought complexity and outright remove some concepts
from human comprehension, such as the concept of freedom. For how would a person ask or
fight for their individual rights and freedoms if they do not even know nor understand the
concept of freedom? Newspeak has many versions and iterations, becoming more and more
limited with each subsequent version, all the while having the main goal of reaching an
impossibility for possessing rebellious thought or committing so-called thought crime.

Another concept present in 1984 is the concept of “doublethink”. Doublethink presents

a state of thought in which an individual holds two opposing and contradicting opinions as
being correct and truthful. Doublethink, usually achieved by imposed social norms or
requirements for success, allows indoctrination of individuals, even when they are aware of the
untruthfulness of the ideas and information they are given and forced to believe.

While 1984 requires great suppression and alteration of information in order to achieve
the limiting of human thought, Brave New World achieves suppression of thought in an entirely
different approach. The citizens of the World State have no want or desire to have original,
profound thought. Throughout their daily pleasure-seeking, hedonistic lives they have no need
or reason for human thought. Even if they did have a desire for thought around a certain topic,
they are given so much information, anything relevant or important gets lost inside a sea of
irrelevancy, leading to the people being reduced to pure passivity and egotism. This absence of
human thought is also upheld by the social norms. We can see this in the clash of world views
between Bernard Marx and Lenina, Bernard, by somewhat avoiding soma, paying attention to
the beauty of nature and among other uncharacteristic things as well presents a person who
sees the world in a different perspective, while Lenina presents the average citizen of the World
State who shares the exact opposite views and opinions. This disparity, coupled with Bernard’s
physical oddities, leads to Lenina seeing him and treating him as an odd outsider due to the
upheld need for conformity to the established social norms.

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2.4. Technology
Technological advances have a great assistance in the continual misery and oppression
present in the dystopian societies of both books. Namely, in 1984 Telescreens and hidden
microphones are what facilitate mass obedience. The party also employs fearsome machinery
for inflicting torture upon those it deems as its enemies. 1984 reveals that technology,
generally perceived as working towards moral good and betterment of humanity, can also
facilitate evil. On the other hand, Brave New World’s society is far more dependent on its
technological advances to keep its dystopian way of life. Through the character of John the
savage it is truly apparent what happens when advances such as eugenics, sleep teaching,
conditioning and soma are not present in a person’s upbringing in the World State. They end up
as an asocial outsider that is repulsed by the society they reside in, presenting a threat to the
ruling party. Brave New World serves as a peek into what the future might hold if large,
revolutionary technological advances are exclusively faced with blind optimism and remain
unregulated.

2.5. Demoralization
Another theme that is commonplace among fictional dystopias is population
demoralization. This demoralization can come in many different forms and approaches, aside
from the extremely apparent and oppressive totalitarian rule in 1984, both books use the same
techniques to apply mass demoralization and misery to members of society. They achieve this
demoralization mostly through tackling the problem of traditional values that provide hope and
high morale to the population, finding the solution in completely eradicating them and
replacing them with social norms and values that are beneficial to the state. In both books we
see a replacement for the traditional family, for religion and the addition of misguided
meanings of life.

In every open society with strongly upheld human rights there is an absolute freedom in
the practice of religion. Although practicing religion does have its undesirable consequences, it
is undeniable that religion, aside from providing a large coping mechanism, provides much
needed hope. For these reasons Oceania has outlawed any type of religion their citizens could
practice, leaving the option of faith only to the proles, the large obedient section of the
population that is irrelevant to Ingsoc because of their inability to revolt. On the other hand,
the World State does not fully outlaw religion, instead it only allows the practice of a single
worship, the worshiping of Henry Ford and his significant technological innovations, notably his
invention of the assembly line. This type of worship does not give any type of hopefulness nor
does it instill any positive human values, it only puts a large importance on technology and
human progress.

The destruction of the traditional family has a very important benefactor to both
totalitarian states. In 1984 every person is assigned a significant other, whose only objective
should be to reproduce in order to make new members of Oceania, without the sharing of any
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type of familial connections. This is evident in the Oceania organization Inspired by Nazi
Germany’s Hitler youth program, the junior spies. This organization indoctrinates children from
an early age to act as spies for the government, reporting any type of crime their parents
commit directly to Ingsoc. In Brave New World though, with every person being artificially
created in a laboratory, there isn’t even a need for romantic relationships. People are only
encouraged to embrace promiscuity and frequently change romantical partners, without having
any serious relationship with them in order to further demoralize the population of the World
State. This abolishment of the traditional family enforces every individual to be purely selfish by
having no one else in their lives they would care for.

These twisted familial norms, coupled with the lack of a beneficiary religion leads to an
entirely false meaning of human life. In 1984 every person lives their life for the sole purpose of
bettering the collectivist state and in Brave New World every person lives purely to experience
pleasure and a misguided sense of happiness and beauty.

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3. Conclusion
Orwell and Huxley have gone down in history as one of the greatest writers of the 20 th
century, both having the same goals in mind when writing their masterpieces, 1984 and Brave
New World. This successfully met goal was to construct a dystopian society through their novels
that is not just feasible, but, in their opinion, imminent. In doing so they have successfully
outlined the themes that construct the anatomy of a technologically advanced dystopia, and in
turn partially predicted the modern world.

In both novels, they have achieved these predictions in two very different, contrasting
ways. Orwell set out to create a society that would deprive us of information, while Huxley
created a society in which we are all given so many distractions that we would be reduced to
pure passivity. Orwell’s society hid the truth, while Huxley’s society gave out so much
information the truth was lost in a sea of irrelevancy. Orwell’s society inflicted fear and pain to
control its citizens, while Huxley’s society inflicted pleasure to control its citizens. In essence,
Orwell set out to predict a society that would be very apparent in its disregard to humanity,
using various methods to inflict obedience through terror, a society in which humanity would
be ruined through what it fears and hates the most, while Huxley set out to predict a society
that would have its oppression concealed through the pleasureful numbing of the masses, a
society in which humanity would be ruined through what it loves the most.

We can see that their predictions were successful through the fact that the themes
depicted in both books are paralleled by today’s world, most notably we can see similarities
with 1984 through China’s collectivist communist state, as well as similarities with Brave New
World through the United States’ culture and society. While neither country is by no means a
dystopia, the resemblance in some areas of society and governance to these two novels is
undeniable. Namely aspects like the constant monitoring through the social credit system
established in China, sharing its similarity with Big Brother’s surveillance imposed for
obedience. While Brave new world shares its similarity with the opioid crisis sweeping through
the United States, as well as the rampant hedonism embedded into the American culture,
having similarities to soma and the meaningless lives that the citizens of the World State lead.

Through an analysis of both works there can be made a conclusion that at the root
cause of a grim dystopia there is always a totalitarian ruling party that is willing to stop at
nothing to maintain their governance, one willing to oppress its citizens, either knowingly or
unknowingly to them. And with this totalitarian rule and willingness to commit vile acts in order
to uphold power comes the limiting of thought of the masses, a clear social stratification,
technology used against humanity, and mass demoralization. These characteristics work
together in a clear cohesion that brings a drastic decline in the quality of human life in society,
to create a society that can truly be called a dystopia. While not all of these characteristics are

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needed to create a dystopia, these serve as a template of what to avoid and fight against in the
modern world for the betterment of humanity.

References

 George Orwell: “1984”, Signet Classics, 1949;

 Aldous Huxley: “Brave New World”, Harper Perennial, 1932;
 Aldous Huxley: “Brave New World Revisited”, Harper Perennial, 1958;
 Neil Postman: “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show
Business”, Penguin Books, 1985;
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia;
 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/17/classics.margaretatwood ;
 https://www.ft.com/content/aa8ac620-1818-11e9-b93e-f4351a53f1c3 ;

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