The novels 1984 and Brave New World have some similarities, but also many differences.
The main theme in both of the novels is the control in all of the different societal elements. Each author has their own different points of view on education, class, and language. In both of the novels, each author shows their outlook on how they think the future will be. The novel 1984, has three main different types of control in the societal elements such as education, class, and language. Education is one of the main themes that is controlled in 1984 because when Winston had refused to obey the Party he was tortured. Winston realized the only way he would be able to stop the feeling of physical pain is if he believed that the equation 2+2=5.
Also, the education is controlled because the people living in London only know what is told by the Party because they control everything you know from your past, present, and future. The Party tells you what your past is, and they are able to change it at anytime and force you to believe what they say. Winston decides to read a children’s history textbook to find out more of the truth of what had actually happened in the past.
In the textbook the party has claimed to have built new ideal cities in London, but Winston describes his community as a wreck. Winston will never know the real truth about the history of his town because it is written entirely by the Party, and could be changed at any time. Therefore, Winston’s education is only based on what the Party has told him throughout his entire lifetime. Orwell is telling us that our future will all be based off of the technology we have today, and we will only know what is said and not what really happened. Brave New world is a novel written by Aldous Huxley that has the same three societal elements as 1984. Education is a theme in Brave New World because after the babies are hatched each child is given a certain amount of oxygen to determine how developed they are.The more intelligent children were the ones who had received the most oxygen.
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Once eight months past after giving the children oxygen the Dictator places flowers and books upon the children to see if they will head towards them. If the children do head towards the the book or flowers they will be electrically shocked. In this part of the novel, Huxley tries to reach the point across that we focus more on the little things in life when we should focus on more important things such as ourselves and our future. Lastly, Huxley is telling us that our future will be based off of technology and in the future children will not know anything of books, and may possibly never attend school and be taught through technology. Throughout both of the the novels 1984 and Brave New World class is another major theme because the characters in each of the novels is separated by different social classes.
Social classes are different levels of societies in the work force that divide people by the amount of money that people make, and the houses they live in. The novel is separated by three different social classes the low class people are considered the proles, middle class is the outer party, and the high class is the inner party. According to Bean_Shadow’s article “The World of “1984”: Class System” “Only making up 2% of the population, the Inner Party is considered the rulers of Oceania.
They make policies, decisions and govern.” The Inner Party is also known as the Party who controls everything that the Outer Party and the Proles think and do. The outer party is less educated than the inner party, but more educated than the proles. The outer party is encouraged to spy on others to make sure they follow the rules of the Party, and to make sure they show no sign of hatred toward Big Brother.
While the outer party is spying on people from their class and the other two social classes they were also being spied on by telescreens and cameras. Some people such as Winston who is part of the outer party may become paranoid because of the constant surveillance. The last social class are the Proles who are the least educated off all the social classes. They complete the task that do not require as much skill. Therefore, since the proles have all of the low paying jobs that means that they are all in extreme poverty which is not good for the society considering more than half of the society is made up of the proles. Brave New World is separated by five different social classes in order from the highest class to the lowest class is the Alpha’s, Beta’s, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. According to Anthony Astrachan “Everyone belongs to one of five classes, from the Alphas, the most intelligent, to the Epsilons, morons bred to do the dirty jobs that nobody else wants to do.” The Alpha’s are the ones who had received the most oxygen when they were babies.
The jobs that the alphas receive are mostly government jobs because they are the most intelligent of all the social classes. Alphas were made to control the world and watch over everything that happens in the society. The betas are the next in the caste system they are also extremely intelligent, but just a tad step under the alphas.
Since the alphas have a majority of the government jobs the betas had most of the jobs as doctors in the hatcheries which is where the children were hatched. Even though the Alphas and Betas are more intelligent that did not make them any more important than the gammas, deltas, and epsilons. After the betas were the gamma’s they were more middle class average people who worked on machines and were butlers. Next were the deltas who were sometimes helicopter attendants or cold pressers. Lastly, were the epsilon which were the lowest caste of the caste system, and they were unable to read or write. The people involved in the epsilons received the least amount of energy of out of all of the other four social castes when they were just hatched. The last theme that both of the novels portray is language.
The language in Orwell’s novel 1984 is newspeak. In the Oceania dictionary does not have as many words or definitions in it as it should. The reasoning for this is because the people in Oceania only know the “good” part in things because the word “bad” is completely out of their dictionary. By taking the word “bad” out of the dictionary it makes it easier for the Party to control the people’s mind because it makes them feel less expressive.
Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, the language that they know, and the amount of words they know depends on which class they are in due to the amount of oxygen they were presented with as babies. Huxley takes words and meanings and makes them “wrong” so it will give the people less emotion. When people have less emotion it allows the Alpha’s to have more control of the people’s minds. Huxley is referring to what our future will eventually look like starting with the government removing words and definitions from the dictionary so there is no reference to them. After, the government will control what we know and what we say because of words being banned which would then cause us to have no expression to either good or bad things. Orwell and Huxley both have different views on human nature whether it is on education, class, or even language.
Through each of these novels the author separates the characters from the different societal elements by class. Each author viewed society just as it is today meaning people from the upper classes can not have anyone from the lower classes that are smarter than them or just better in general. Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World Huxley separates each character by how well they are educated. The social classes they are placed are based on the amount of oxygen given to them as babies which also determines how educated they are. In Brave New World, the government brainwashes the children by reading messages to them while in their sleep through a process called hypnopaedia.
This process will help the children believe it was true if it happened in a “dream”. This happens because children are extremely gullible and will believe anything that is told to them whether it is true or not. When the children in the novel are young they are told that nowadays everyone is happy. Therefore, the characters are pressured to be happy, and to socialize with others in their society.
Huxley tries to point out that the characters that are in the novel would not trade being in any other class above them or below them, because they have been settled in that class for so long they would not be able to function outside of it.According to the Administration of Inbum.net “Huxley’s basic warning is against technology and an all powerful government.
In Brave New World, people lose the ability to truly feel emotion and be an individual.” This has to do with society in today’s world because children are being brainwashed with all of the technology, and will believe anything that the internet tells them. Lastly, because most children will start off by learning information from technology whether it is by videos or any educational app. George Orwell’s novel 1984 has a lot to do with technology and how the character are educated and how in the future children will be educated as well. The government controls the technology so that the technology will be allowed to control us.
Telescreens are devices used as televisions or security cameras. The party constantly brainwashes the people, and even make the children spy on their parents to make sure they will not say anything about Big Brother. Also, since all they know is that they need to love Big Brother, and that 2+2=5 the people would not betray either rule out of fear. The people in this society are so used to knowing the most important thing which is loving big brother that they would never stop loving him because they know there would be consequences. Orwell is trying to make the point that everyone in society will soon be caught up with technology, and will not be able to stop loving it because it is so addicting.
Brave New World characters are separated into the five different social castes. None of the characters would want to be in any other caste because they are happy right where they are because they are programmed to like living in their caste. Everyone in the lower caste may not be as well educated as the people in the upper caste, but they are equal and all work as hard as each other regardless of the caste that they are placed in. It does not matter what class you were placed in you are able to hangout with anyone from any class, but most of the time you stay with people in your caste system because that is who you relate to the most. Although, Brave New World’s caste system is separated by education, and all of the different classes have different jobs with different pay you will still be able to in poor conditions with the epsilons even if you are a beta. Aldous Huxley tries to tell the people in society that in the future which is today’s society now there will still be some segregation in the world, but it will be by the different classes which are the upper middle, and lower class, and it will not be by race. Orwell’s novel 1984, separates the characters into three different social classes starting with the upper class which is the inner party, the middle class is the outer party, and the lower class is the proles.
Anyone involved in any of the three classes would not want to switch the class that they are in because of how happy they are in it. All of the classes know the same exact thing because of the information that the Party tells them through the telescreens. According to the Schoolworkhelper Editorial Team “Orwell warns that absolute power in the hands of any government can deprive people of all basic freedoms.” This means that since Big Brother has been so caught up in all of his power that he is taking away the freedom from everyone in the community by spying on them twenty four seven. The last element that has to do with human nature is in each of these novels is language.
Orwell takes out the word “bad” completely from the people dictionary to make everything have a “good” outcome. For example if something bad happens the people will not use the word bad they will use words with good, but they will not really mean good things. According to Jem Berkes “Newspeak narrows the range of thought and shortens people’s memories. It is therefore ideal for a totalitarian system, in which the government has to rely on a passive public which lacks independent thought and which has a great tolerance for mistakes, both past and present.” Orwell takes the word bad out of the dictionary because it will make it easier for the Party to control the community’s mind by making the people less expressive.
Brave New World ‘s language is sort of similar to the language in 1984. The only difference is that Huxley takes all words and meanings and makes them wrong. By making the words wrong it will make it easier for the Alphas to control the minds of everyone else in the lower classes, and make them expressionless. The characters in Brave New World are happy where they are, and with the things they have along with their language. The amount of words that a person should know in the novel is due to the amount of oxygen given to them as a baby which also depends on the class that they are placed in.George Orwell and Aldous Huxley’s novels 1984 and Brave New World both show resemblances in today’s society with class, education, and language. Ultimately, I believe that 1984 is more like our world today because of all of the advanced technology that we have.
In 1984 all of the characters learned their information from the telescreens whether it was true or not. In today’s society we get all of the news off of our phones or it will be broadcasted on television all around the world. When information is given to us through our phones we never really know how accurate it is therefore, we are in the same situations as the people in 1984 expect it is them with their telescreens.
According to Lewis Beale’s article “We’re living ‘1984’ today in the novel, nearly all public and private places have large TV screens that broadcast government propaganda, news and approved entertainment. But they are also two-way monitors that spy on citizens’ private lives. Today websites like Facebook track our likes and dislikes, and governments and private individuals hack into our computers and find out what they want to know. Also, in the novel they are always being watched by the Party or the government through the camera’s and telescreens. While being watched the people also have to watch themselves to make sure they are not doing anything wrong. In today’s society, the government has access to everyone’s phone and computers as well as all social media. Also, on all of the new phones that are from apple all have touch id to unlock the phone. Have you ever wondered if your fingerprint from your phone would be sent to the government which can make it easier to help the government find you if you did something wrong.
Today, if you speed or pass a red light while driving in certain spots there will have cameras that will take pictures of your car as you pass it; which is another sign that you are being watched which going places and doing certain things.In the novel 1984, the class system is quite similar to ours in today’s society because we are separated into the three classes upper, middle, and lower class. In today’s society you are able to tell which class people are in by the way they dress, where they live, and the way that they talk.
This is similar in 1984 because you were able to tell who was in the lower class by the way the proles dressed and by the lack of education that they had. The upper class was also recognizable because of the way that they presented themselves and the jobs that they had. Another theme that the novel 1984 portrays in today’s society is education. In the novel the upper class people are more educated than the lower class. This is because the upper class have more money and want their children to have high paying jobs therefore they need a good education which cost money. This is similar to today’s society because people from the upper class and middle class send their children to either catholic schools or private schools, because they know their children will receive a better quality education because of how strict the schools are. In 1984, the proles do not have that much money which means a majority of them are in poverty, and may not be able to send their children to good schools for a good education for that reason. Since all public schools are free most people in the lower class and some in the middle class will attend a public school because of money reasons.
It is not that the people at public schools do not receive an education because they do it is just not as high quality as what you would receive at catholic or private school. The last theme in 1984 that has to do with today’s society is language. The only difference from today’s language and 1984s language is that Orwell took all of the “bad” words out of the dictionary. In conclusion, 1984 and Brave New World the three main societal elements are education, class, and language. Although, these novels have some similarities they have many differences.
Lastly, both Orwell and Huxley both believe that in their novels is how society will be today, and they are both accurate.
