Keerth's Essay

Without a doubt, the thought of living in, or forming a utopian society has flashed through nearly every person's mind. A few people have even tried to make this ideal dream society a reality. Unfortunately, within the search of these societies, the leaders become corrupt and begin to become paranoid with the fear of rebellion. Hundreds of people were murdered during the reigns of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin in what they considered events to maintain peace and stability within their respective "perfect" society. One must also consider the hardships that the citizens were forced to bear while living under these oppressive governments.

This dream of forming and maintaining a utopian society was immortalized in two novels dealing with the same basic ideas, 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Both of these novels deal with the lives of main characters that unintentionally become subversives in an authoritarian government. These two books differ greatly however with the manner in which the government controls the population and the strictness of the events taken to maintain this stability. This essay with, compare and contrast, the message and attitude of each novel, as well as consider whether the utopia is a positive or negative one.

In 1984, George Orwell explores the many aspects of a negative utopia. Orwell seems to focus on the actions that the government takes to maintain a public of lower class who have no personality or identity and believe that they are not unique individuals, but instead are part of a greater ridiculous mob of people who always work for an aggressive and cruel government which is involved in nonstop wars. These people are taught to love. They then learn to fear their government because they believe all of the propaganda that is constantly told into their minds. They're willing to follow their government without challenge, for the period of their meaningless lives. The government controls all forms of the media (for that reason denying the people the basic right of free speech) and uses it to show the government (known as "big brother") .The government therefore seems supreme, or all knowing and always correct. Plans are changed from one week to the next always proving the government was correct. As was mentioned before, many of the rights that present day Westerners take for granted, such as freedom of speech and the absolute rights of individuals are taken away from the common citizen, the workers. George Orwell obviously meant to show a negative utopia in the novel 1984.

Although