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By definition, the word “dystopia” means, “an imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible” (OED). Therefore, the goal of dystopian fiction is to imagine such a place or condition and explore the worst possible scenarios that could occur. While the genre itself is not inherently satirical, oftentimes, novels that can be categorized as dystopian fiction are also commonly categorized as satire. Two of the most well-known dystopian fiction novels, 1984 by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, both fall under the categories of dystopian fiction as well as satire.
Each author employs satirical elements in these novels to critique their respective societies. However, while 1984 and Brave New World share similar methods, the targets of each novel are significantly different. The main target of 1984 is the totalitarian government which takes its individuals’ rights by force, whereas the main target of Brave New World is the policies put in place by the government that leads its citizens to freely surrender their rights.
1984 follows the life of the protagonist, Winston Smith.
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Winston lives in an imaginary superstate called ‘Oceania,’ one of three superstates that make up the world of 1984. The other two superstates are called ‘Eurasia’ and ‘Eastasia.’ In Oceania, the ruling government is referred to as ‘the Party,’ and is broken up into two sections, where members of the ‘Inner Party’ hold the highest positions in government, and members of the ‘Outer Party,’ such as Winston, hold the lowest. Ranked above all party members is ‘Big Brother,’ who rules over all of Oceania’s citizens-- although it is revealed late in the novel that Big Brother does not actually exist.
Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia are constantly at war with one another, but their alliances are ever-changing, and so Winston’s job at ‘The Ministry of Truth’ is to correct past documents to reflect those changes as directed by the Inner Party:
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. (Orwell, 1984, 40)
Ironically, Orwell has chosen to call this section of government The Ministry of Truth, even though the ministry exists solely to falsify records and lie to the public. This is one example of Orwell’s satiric invention, ‘doublethink’ (Orwell 7). Doublethink can be defined as the ability to accept two contradictory beliefs or opinions at the same time. In the case of The Ministry of Truth, Winston is required to alter historical documents, so he is forced to believe in the new, invented “truths,” even though he knows that they are false. Doublethink is a product of Oceania’s official language, called ‘newspeak’ (Orwell 4). Newspeak was “devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism” (Orwell 298), and its purpose “was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc but to make all other modes of thought impossible” (Orwell 299). In Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” he states, “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind” (Orwell, Politics, 139) The invention of doublethink in 1984 satirizes how politicians intentionally use vague language to avoid direct and clearly acknowledging unfavorable truths. As Orwell says in “Politics and the English Language”:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments that are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness. (Orwell 136)
By intentionally altering the language being used by its citizens, the government in 1984 is taking control of the knowledge that is available to them, and controlling how they think. In 1984, Orwell is satirizing how totalitarian governments work, by seizing absolute control of the population. In “Literature and Totalitarianism,” Orwell says, “The peculiarity of the totalitarian state is that though it controls thought, it does not fix it. It sets up unquestionable dogmas, and it alters them from day to day. It needs the dogmas, because it needs absolute obedience from its subjects, but cannot avoid the changes, which are dictated by the needs of power politics. It declared itself infallible, and at the same time, it attacks the very concept of objective truth” (Orwell, Literature, 1). This describes exactly how the Party in 1984 functions.
Alternatively, in Brave New World, the government does not aim to seize direct control of its citizens’ thoughts, but rather, creates policies that lead its citizens to give up their rights by choice. One example of this is through the drug ‘soma,’ which is administered by the government:
...And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past, you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gram tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-- that’s what soma is. (Huxley 237-238)
Brave New World is governed by one unified ‘World State,’ ruled by ‘World Controllers’ of various geographical locations. Unlike the constantly warring superstates of 1984, there is no war in Brave New World’s World State. Citizens are generally happy because they are conditioned from birth to love their predetermined roles in society-- and when they become unhappy for any reason, they take soma to erase those feelings. The people of the World State are separated into five different castes-- Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, with Alphas being the highest-ranking members of society, and Epsilons the lowest. They are not born into traditional nuclear families, which they have been conditioned to view as repulsive and abnormal. Instead, they are created scientifically through something called ‘Bokanovsky’s Process,’ in centers called ‘Hatcheries.’ Bokanovsky’s Process is described as “one of the major instruments of social stability,” and “the principle of mass production at last applied to biology” (Huxley 7). Mass production is a common theme of the novel-- the World State is modeled after Henry Ford’s assembly line. Ford is referred to somewhat like a god, and even their calendar begins after 1908 A.D. (the year that Ford’s first Model T was released) in the year A.F. 632 (After Ford). In the novel, Bokanovsky’s process mimics the assembly line used by Ford to manufacture vehicles, but it is applied to the creation of human beings. Once they are born, they are raised in ‘Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning Rooms,’ where they are conditioned using various Pavlovian psychological methods according to which caste they are placed in. For example, Deltas, one of the lowest castes, are conditioned via electrical shock to be averse to books and flowers, so that they avoid them in adulthood. Children are also taught through the process of hypnopaedia, where recordings are played on a loop while they sleep. In one of the recordings, they are taught to dislike members of lower castes and admire those of higher castes. Because of this conditioning, they are taught not to question the caste system or their own personal roles in society, because it’s all they’ve ever known. Citizens are similarly conditioned to accept the use of soma as a solution to any feelings of discomfort. Throughout the novel, the characters regurgitate mnemonic devices to remind each other to take soma in response to anxiety-- when the main character, Bernard Marx, discovers he will be sent to Iceland, his love interest, Lenina Crowne, responds, “‘Was and will make me ill… I take a gram and only am’” (Huxley 104). Because of soma, the people remain docile. They do not question their society, because the government keeps them happy, and therefore they have no reason to be non-compliant.
As Huxley points out in Brave New World Revisited: "...it has become clear that control through the punishment of undesirable behavior is less effective, in the long run than control through the reinforcement of desirable behavior by rewards, and that government through terror works, on the whole, less well than government through the non-violent manipulation of the environment and the thoughts and feelings of individual men, women, and children. Punishment temporarily puts a stop to undesirable behavior but does not permanently reduce the victim's tendency to indulge in it". (Huxley, Brave New World Revisited)
This distinction between punishment and reward as a means of controlling behavior is fundamental in understanding the difference between satiric targets in 1984 and Brave New World. As stated previously, Orwell’s main target in 1984 is totalitarian forms of government, who maintain control over their populations through “punishment and the fear of punishment” (Huxley). Huxley, on the other hand, targets the policies put in place by governments that reward desired behavior through “systematic reinforcement… by many kinds of nearly non-violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by genetic standardization” (Huxley).
One example that exhibits this difference in Orwell and Huxleys’ targets is how each author handles the theme of media and technology, particularly television and cinema. In both novels, media “uphold[s] conformity, den[ies] individuals their own privacy and personal feelings,” and also “strengthen[s] powers capable of controlling every single aspect of their subjects’ li[ves] by depriving them all of the critical attitude” (Varricchio 98). But while “both societies have been emptied of a sense of history and memory of the past” due to media, in 1984 “the emptiness is filled by a host of images and propaganda,” while in Brave New World “it is shallowness and sensationalism which nullify any possible counteraction, acting as disabling drugs” (Varricchio 98).
In 1984, the most significant representation of media is the ‘telescreen,’ which is a device installed in every home, as well as in most public places. The telescreen is a two-way screen that cannot be shut off and is capable of simultaneously collecting and transmitting the information. Not only do the telescreens present the threat of constantly being watched by Big Brother, but they also intermittently display images of propaganda that all citizens are forced to watch. The tone of the language Orwell uses to describe the telescreen is indicative of its’ purpose-- it is described as “an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror” (Orwell, 1984, 2). During ‘Hate Week,’ a week dedicated to the denunciation of the Party’s main enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, the telescreen plays a theme song called the ‘Hate Song,’ and is described as “a savage, barking rhythm which could not exactly be called music, but resembled the beating of a drum” (Orwell 148). Hate Week is an extension of a regularly scheduled daily program on the telescreen, called ‘Two Minutes Hate,’ dedicated to expressing hatred towards Goldstein for his crimes against Big Brother. In Orwell’s dystopia, the telescreen is a constant reminder that anyone who does not obey will be punished and that the government has total control over the population; “Orwell describes the use of information and communication technology, media machinery and techniques to manipulate knowledge, indoctrinate beliefs and forge opinions” (Klinger 319).
However, “Huxley’s world looks comparatively peaceful – nobody is oppressed or pressurized: everybody is equally cajoled or treated and drugged into compliance with an invisible government” (Klinger 319). While Orwell focuses his satire on television in 1984, Huxley focuses more on cinema as a satirical target. In Brave New World, Huxley creates ‘feelies,’ an extremely popular form of entertainment and social activity. They are similar to movies, though the viewer can physically feel all of the sensations in the film as well. When the ‘Savage,’ John, who was born on the reservation outside of the World State and was raised without the commodities of modern society, is brought back to the World State, he is exposed to the feelies and finds himself repulsed by them due to their lack of substance. Late in the novel, John has a conversation with World Controller Mustapha Mond, where he denounces the feelies as “stupid and horrible,” and questions why the feelies can’t have more depth or beauty, like Othello (Huxley, Brave New World, 219). Mond answers that the people would not understand it, because their world is completely different from Othello’s (Huxley 220). He continues:
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. (Huxley 220)
Mond finishes his speech by explaining that the superficiality of the feelies is the price that must be paid to keep society stable and happy (Huxley 220). John dislikes the feelies because he was never conditioned like the others, and so he sees the feelies as frivolous and boring in comparison with the entertainment he grew up with, namely, Shakespeare. However, most members of the World State have no reason to dislike the feelies, for they have no inclination towards critical thinking as a consequence of their conditioning.
Even though Orwell and Huxley both satirize some form of media in each of their novels, it is evident that Orwell is attacking totalitarian government and its’ looming threat of punishment, while Huxley is attacking governments that manipulate their citizens into submissiveness; “...while Orwell describes the working of a repressive apparatus, Huxley portrays the annihilation of any possible residue of individual personality in the members of the superior caste... and the regulation of physiological needs through the dispensation of visual and/or physical pleasure, as is the case with the feelies” (Varricchio 113).
It is important to note the timing of these works when examining how media is depicted in each novel. Brave New World was published in 1932, while 1984 was published later in 1949. Varricchio writes, “While for Orwell it was comparatively easy, after World War Two, to predict the potential twisting power of television, Huxley was able to see beyond cinema, the most popular visual medium of his age, envisaging the consequences of the invention of the small screen” (Varricchio 98). Orwell published 1984 during the ‘Golden Age of television, so his depiction of media is a response to how television was integrating into popular culture (Allen and Thompson).
Huxley, on the other hand, published Brave New World right around the time that television was invented (Allen and Thompson). Bernard Crick notes that the use of the telescreen in Orwell’s work was inspired by the reinstitution of BBC television broadcasting, and “‘the general reeling off of triumphant and possibly imaginary production statistics was familiar to wartime listeners to the BBC itself’” (qt. in Varricchio 99). Orwell was responding directly to what he observed in the present, while Huxley was predicting what was to come in the future.
In addition to their response to media, taking note of the historical context of each novel provides further insight into the satirical targets as well. As Orwell finished 1984:
“The depression of the 1930s was over and concern with rationalizing production and simulating consumption had diminished. The thought of politically conscious people was dominated instead by vivid recent memories of World War II and the menace of the Soviet Union, and these gloomy, foreboding thoughts are everywhere reflected in the novel. The dinginess of London in 1984 is recognizably the dinginess of that city during and immediately after the war, a time of shortages, rationing, and a prevailing grayness of life; and rocket bombs are falling on London in 1984 just as they did in the last year of World War II. The novel dwells obsessively on these features of life in Orwell's imagined dystopia, making a stark contrast with the consumer's heaven of Brave New World.” (Posner 14)
1984 Vs. Brave New World. (2024, Feb 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/1984-vs-brave-new-world-essay
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