1984 Vs Brave New World

1984 vs. Brave New World

1984 and Brave New World, written by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, respectively, are both books that reflect the authors vision of how society would end up at the course it was going at the time of the writing of the book. Both books were written more than fifty years ago, but far enough apart that society was going in a totally different direction at the time. There are many ways to compare these two books and point out the similarities. On certain, deep levels they are very much the same, while at first glance, on the surface, they are very different. One point that in some parts is the same and some very different, is the governments in each of these books method’s of control.

The first thing to think about is how the governments control the newborns, infants, and children. In 1984, children are taught as early as possible all the thoughts and teachings the government wants them to. With these teachings being carved into their brains also comes intense loyalty, each child of the Party is ready and willing to turn their parents in to the authorities at the first sign of heretical thoughts. They are taught this as early as possible to keep them from having time of form independent thoughts of their own. The newborns of Brave New World in some cases are not even alive long enough to have thoughts of their own. People are no longer born, they are grown and hatched to fill a need of the society. Some people are intentionally stunted so that when they are born they have no presence of mind to do anything other than what is asked of them. Those fortunate enough to be ”hatched” more intelligent, are conditioned to dislike and like what the government wants them too through electric shock, high pitched noises, and other forms of non invasive torture. One generic way that all children are controlled is thorough a technique called hypnopedia, which is repeating things over and over during sleep until the words are memorized. So from childhood, both governments have control through not allowing the children any time to think any anti- government thoughts and filling the spaces instead with the thoughts they want to be there.

The way of controlling the rest of the population is where a big difference can be seen. In 1984, the government relies on