Evenge And Love Theme In Wutheing Heights By Emily Bronte Essay, Research Paper

Explore the writers oppression in Nineteen Eighty Four and Brave New World

Both Orwell and Huxley present to the reader in their novels Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty Four, a new society, one reinvented where totalitarian aspects of society rule. Both societies strive for stability and inevitably a utopian society. Orwell and Huxley explore the possibilities of achieving this, and warn of the dangers and impracticability of attempting such a society where individualism is crushed, and conformity and submission is adamant.

Huxley and Orwell achieve this by dispelling/disregarding institutions and norms that form a society recognizable today and replace them with substitutes that create/promote a dysfunctional, dystopian society.

As each novel progresses it is clear that neither societies contain family values, or attempt to live by them. This affects how society and those belonging to it, express and forms itself through recognised relationships, bonds, actions and norms identified by readers. Both societies are corrupted by this, in Brave New World, Huxley creates a race that has no self respect as sexual beings, as the value and expression of love no longer exists. The World Controllers encourage society as a whole to become the ?family unit?, ? The World was full of fathers – was therefore full of misery; full of mothers – therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts – full of madness and suicide? (PG 34) By creating taboos concerning the family institution as a whole Huxley successfully encourages his characters to associate the family with inferior, undesirable imagery, the use of language Huxley encourages affects the readers horror of the created norms existing in such a society and the lifestyles of those living in Huxleys imagined society.

This is contrasted in Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell does not go as far in Huxley that natural conception and birth is abolished and reconstructed elsewhere, however family loyalty and love is discouraged, and the sexual act is reduced to merely begetting children. Orwell successfully accomplishes this by introducing the concept of the Anti-Sex League, ?Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act… Sexual Intercourse as to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema.? / ?There were even organizations such as the Anti-Sex League which advocated complete celibacy for both sexes… The Party as trying to kill the sex instinct or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it.? Orwell imagines a society that again uses the same narrative technique as Huxley he uses debased language and imagery through extremely effective propaganda. The constant use of this in Orwell?s novel expresses how easy and it is for the leaders to influence its people.

The breakdown of the family in both novels ultimately allows the rest of society to crumble and both governing bodies to secure the love of its people, shown in both the novels mottoes, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY of Huxleys creation, and the three slogans of Orwells novel, WAR IS PEACE,

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Both slogans ask for submission as being accepted healthy thing to do, the language in both slogans are positive and evoking as in a recipe for victory that subconsciously is accepted by society.

The main area in both novels that is corrupted and distorted by both Orwell and Huxley is the family this essentially leaves those in society isolated and dependant on their respective governments.

Huxley does this in a Brave New World, as he opens by presenting us with an unrecognizable technically advanced future world/society. It begins in a conditioning center of London; this is the basis of Huxley?s presentation of control in society. The image we are thus confronted with is daunting and unknown ?The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved in a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance…?

In the opening chapter Huxley conveys/reinforces this image of sterility by using harsh, clinical imagery and language, allowing the reader to form an uncomfortable awareness of the society that has evolved in his/the novel. The sterile imagery presented here at the opening chapter is echoed throughout, and impresses Huxleys deliberate presentation and use of language in this manner discomforts the reader creating a society of unrest, dissettlement far from a cozy, warm, flawless, faultless, ideal that conveys images of a utopian, and perfect society today.

Running concurrently Huxley creates one immense home, he shows his characters living in an environment with no privacy or isolated personal time by vividly describing the accepted and normal living conditions the citizens of a Brave New World live in ?From her dim crimson cellar Lenina Crowne… walked down a long corridor and, opening the door marked GIRL?S DRESSING ROOM, plunged into a deafening chaos of arms and bosoms and underclothing… everyone as talking at the top of her voice. A Synthetic Music Machine as warbling out a super-cornet solo?.

Huxley emphasises this by creating an atmosphere of a buzzing, noisy, active background by describing the scene in immense detail, to express to the reader the intense claustrophobic lifestyle that the citizens of Brave New World experience, by this Huxley successfully creates to us the conditions that the citizens have became conditioned and immune to.

The living environment of society citizens is compared to by references describing the past, ?Home, a few small rooms, stiflingly over-habited by a man, by a teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an understerilised prison; darkness, disease and smells.? Conclusions can be made that if citizens lived in other personal situations it may possibly revert to the way it as before and then the World Controllers would lose their power. By creating communal living areas World Controllers discourage individuality, and limit room for thought and observation as much as possible. Pg. 39 ?Fortune Boys! Said the controller. No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy – to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having no emotions at all!?

Huxley creates substitutes for society such as the ?feelies?, where the citizens are able to experience small very much controlled emotions that are administered accordingly. Huxley makes comparisons between John the Savage and Lenina to identify to the reader how emotionally blighted the citizens of a Brave New World are, he contrasts Leninas and Johns interpretation and experience of entertainment, ?I don?t think you ought to see things like that? ?Horrible?? Lenina was genuinely astonished. ?But I thought it as lovely.? Huxley emphasizes the particular control that Huxley has on society by creating small waves of emotions yet leaving behind a lasting satisfactory memory towards the person so as not to affect the status quo.

The reality in Huxleys creation comes as Bernard points out that that it is not wrong to be alone, scary as Lenina cannot understand, obviously a norm and that co-operation and community her incomprehensibility of Bernard?s remarks show the frustration, lack of individuality existing in society, Huxley forces the readers to question at what point would the false utopia in Brave New World be worth sacrificing real raw emotions

Orwells opening chapters contrast this. In the introduction, Orwell shows us a bleak reality in which members of the party live. In the first encounters Orwell presents a raw, uncomfortable presentation of Winstons life, Orwell immediately introduces us to suffocation and immense power that Big Brother have over society ?Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument, (telescreen it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely?. Here Orwell uses the same literary technique as Huxley by providing his individual with no sense of privacy, thus evoking feelings of immense suffocation. Orwell takes this suffocation and frustration to a deeper level, making it more acute by introducing the Thought Police, ?How often, or on hat system, theThought Police plugged in on any individual was guesswork…they could plug into your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized?. What makes Orwells work so realistic is the presentation of his language used so flat, accepted, unquestioning as if it was normal procedure to live in this manner, yet so hauntingly normal evident it is not. It is the accepting role that Winston plays that creates Rowel?s novel. This suffocation in silence, Orwell merely describes to us the society, rarely showing signs of rebellion in Winston, which has an enormous impact on the reader.

A crude, dingy atmosphere contrasting that created in Huxleys Brave New World further emphasizes this. It orchestrates to the reader the extent of oppression in society, Orwell embellishes this through his extensive use of language, and coarse imagery used suppresses the reader and forces them expertly to place themselves as Winston and experience him in his world, what makes it more real to the reader is his characterization of Winston as he appears to embody a normal person, readers can relate to Winston through his struggle ?Winston turned round abruptly. He set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen?. Orwell successfully conveys Winstons acute subjection to oppression by placing him in very normal circumstances which again has maximal effects upon the reader ? The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly resting several times on the way?. In Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell adopts a created war

Just as Orwell creates a character that is real to his readers, so Huxley does also, he presents to us Bernard Marx, Bernard similar to Winston in that he is very real to the reader. Huxley presents Bernard out of context of his society, he is seen as an outsider. To add emphasis to Bernard’s individuality, Huxley describes to us Lenina as a contrast, to point out all of Bernard’s faults as a member of society. Lenina demonstrates to us the ideal, a perfect product from the blah blah process that enables the World Controllers gaining a hold over society and enabling stability and achieving their love and loyalty towards them.