GEORGE ORWELL vs ALDOUS HUXLEY
What should we fear more,
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" or "Brave New World"?
What do these novels have in common?
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Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) |
The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF
(After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are
engineered through artificial
wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or
castes) based on intelligence and labour. Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is
popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not. He is
shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him
an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-learning allows
him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its
citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing,
happiness-producing drug called soma.
Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his
boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because
of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who
finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel
by English novelist George Orwell. It was published in June 1949.
Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of
government over-reach, totalitarianism, mass
surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviours
within society.
The story takes place in an imagined
future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual
war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda.
Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of a superstate named Oceania that is ruled by the
Party who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and
independent thinking. Big Brother, the leader of the
Party, enjoys an intense cult of personality despite the fact that
he may not exist. The protagonist, Winston
Smith, is a diligent and skillful rank-and-file worker and Party member who
secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. He enters a forbidden
relationship with a co-worker, Julia.
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George Orwell (1903-1950) |
Nineteen
Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and
dystopian fiction. Many terms used in the novel have entered common usage,
including Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, prole, and memory
hole. Nineteen Eighty-Four also popularised the adjective "Orwellian",
connoting things such as official deception, secret surveillance, brazenly
misleading terminology, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian
or authoritarian state.
"Amusing ourselves to death", by Stuart MacMillen
Powerpoint presentation - Click HERE