Police Reportation

"Peopled by creatures of human shape but of stunted humanity" Compare and contrast the way Orwell in 1984 and Huxley in Brave New World present the theme of dehumanization within their dystopian creations.

A dystopia or dystopian society can be best described as a state in which the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression or terror. Some key traits of a dystopia are a hierarchical society, a fictional figurehead that does not actually exist in a material form in the case of "Ford", Brave New World, and in 1984, "Big Brother", and the banishment of natural world from daily life, nature has been made to seem very unimportant by the extent of the civilisation that is occurring, this is especially relevant to Brave New World, this is the same for human nature, the overall value on living beings has been removed.

The time periods that Huxley and Orwell lived in, had a great and significant affect on the perspective presented in their respective novels. Brave New World was written in 1932 by Huxley in which time the rise of fascism was being experienced, most notably Hitler in 1930, with this being Huxley's first realistic experience of fascism, he would then go on to form his opinion of what the world will be like if this fascism stays in place and rules, encouraging him to create his depiction of it with the book Brave New World two years later. Aldous Huxley was also a humanist and pacifist who was latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism which brings a certain amount of irony to the fact that Brave New World abolishes all of these things that Huxley himself was extremely interested in. Related to this he also abolishes religion and emotions within the novel. George Orwell was extremely opposed to totalitarianism, so it is also ironic that he creates in a totalitarian government that he was so opposed to in the novel 1984 where the "faction"(1) strives to regulate every aspect of each party members private and public life whenever feasible.

Both authors make it obvious that they oppose the worlds/societies that they have created by the protagonists in each novel being completely opposed to the world that they have been thrown into, John the savage (Brave New World) and Winston Smith (1984) respectively. I think that the motivation of the authors for presenting humanity in such a negative way include two reasons: to convey to the readers how easily these fictional societies could turn into reality if the right measures are not taken "IT IS ALL TOO LIKELY TO COME TRUE" this comment made by Bertrand Russell after reading the novel also supports Huxley's interpretation of how the world and civilisation could turn out. Also I believe that they may have wanted their predictions be documented so that if they are ever turned into reality, much credit will be given to both authors understanding of societies.

Dehumanization is presented within both novels quite similarly, the people are raised for the sole use of production to keep the world moving and fill the necessary tasks. "People simply disappeared. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten" Winston Smith's thoughts in 1984 shows how meaningless the value of life is, almost parallel with that is the death conditioning within Brave New World "Undoing all their wholesome death conditioning with this disgusting outcry - as though the thought of death was terrible"

The most dominant thing throughout both novels which is the base in which everything else comes from is the removal of thinking for themselves "The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself" In 1984 the "thought police" ensure that everyone fears and are very cautious about thinking for themselves. The difference with Brave New World and 1984 however is that "Big Brother" comes down much more authoritatively on its party members by actually killing them, where as Brave New World would banish them instead as a punishment, however both use independent thought to the same extent of negativity "All conditioning aims at that: making people inescapable of their social destiny".

One of the biggest contrasts however, between the novels is sexual activity which is an extremely large and important feature within both novels. In 1984 sexual activity/intercourse is only condoned if it is for the