Brave New World vs Nineteen Eighty Four vs Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
"For the Sake of Humanity"
Comparative Essay :
Brave New World to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The term "dystopia" aptly applies to all three of these novels in that each story is set in a future where society is less attractive than it is now. All three books are prefaced with a cataclysmic event that results in a dramatic change in society to address and avoid the perceived problems of present-day. Although each author takes a different approach to the solution, their worlds have striking similarities. Their underlying message is the same: mankind will dehumanize humanity in the name of humanity. In Huxley's Brave New World (B.N.W.), the cataclysmic event that rocks society is the "Nine Years War, the great Economic Collapse" (Huxley, 43). This is the historical turning point where "there was a choice between World Control and destruction" and the utopian society of B.N.W. is born, or rather, it is "hatched". In this world, reproduction is a matter of technology. The family unit and marriage relationships are abolished: "Everyone belongs to everyone else" (Huxley, 38). Sex is for pleasure only, and reproduction is mechanical. The population is grown in hatcheries, genetically manipulated and heavily conditioned, so that they will mature into perfectly content, contributing members of their specific social caste. The Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre explains, "Bokanovsky's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!" (Huxley, 5). Happiness is stability according to the world's leaders. "Stability,' said the Controller, stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability'" (Huxley, 37). Every precaution is made to maintain stability at every level. As the Controller explains in the hatchery, "No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having
Comparative Essay :
Brave New World to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The term "dystopia" aptly applies to all three of these novels in that each story is set in a future where society is less attractive than it is now. All three books are prefaced with a cataclysmic event that results in a dramatic change in society to address and avoid the perceived problems of present-day. Although each author takes a different approach to the solution, their worlds have striking similarities. Their underlying message is the same: mankind will dehumanize humanity in the name of humanity. In Huxley's Brave New World (B.N.W.), the cataclysmic event that rocks society is the "Nine Years War, the great Economic Collapse" (Huxley, 43). This is the historical turning point where "there was a choice between World Control and destruction" and the utopian society of B.N.W. is born, or rather, it is "hatched". In this world, reproduction is a matter of technology. The family unit and marriage relationships are abolished: "Everyone belongs to everyone else" (Huxley, 38). Sex is for pleasure only, and reproduction is mechanical. The population is grown in hatcheries, genetically manipulated and heavily conditioned, so that they will mature into perfectly content, contributing members of their specific social caste. The Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre explains, "Bokanovsky's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!" (Huxley, 5). Happiness is stability according to the world's leaders. "Stability,' said the Controller, stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability'" (Huxley, 37). Every precaution is made to maintain stability at every level. As the Controller explains in the hatchery, "No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having
Bibliography: Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: First Balantine books Trace Paperback, 1968. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. London: Flamingo An Imprint of HaperCollins Publishers, 1994. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguine Books, 1990.