“How could you tell how much of it was lies?...The only evidence to the contrary
was the mute protest in your bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you
lived in…at some other time must have been different.”
In 1984, the past is certain and not hidden. The process of manufacturing people is made proud by the population in BNW and its history of development is for everyone to know. This is one of the main contrasts in style as the two are very different. The Party make sure the majority (the proles and Party members) do not want to know the truth and/or question their methods by reducing their interest in such matters; let them lead their lives and all will be well (as they will not care to question the past). Whereas in BNW, the authorities make sure that the information is there for everyone to access and the past is something to be proud of and so interest on how things could be different in both novels is virtually non-existent. Two methods of achieving the same result.
Huxley’s language in BNW means that events occur quickly; the frequent use of words such as ‘And’, ‘But’ and ‘Which’ move the story or description along. Huxley writes free, indirect discourse which allows the novel to move fluently and fast-paced. The effect this has is that is dissolves the author’s opinions into those of the characters. Lenina, Foster and the Director all have been pre-conditioned to think of themselves better and more intelligent than Betas, Delta, Gammas, and Epsilons, as do all Alpha’s. And with good reason as Alpha’s are pre-conditioned to be more intellectual and socially better. This portrays a capitalist society with the different classes. Huxley deriving from an upper-middle class family this is understandable. In contrast to 1984, everybody is relatively the same. Proles and Party members are all treated the same and are regulated with telescreens and thought police moving amongst them. The views of Orwell have been diffused into the subject matter of 1984 as well as Huxley’s into BNW, the difference and contrast being their views. Huxley’s views of a class system and Orwell views that a socialist Britain was going to develop in light of Soviet Russia.
When further comparing the author’s style and subject matter of thinking for their characters, it is clear that they share relatively the same principles. Orwell’s language and style shows that the Party members and proles are sub-consciously trained to believe the ideals of the Party by propaganda. Posters, the two-minute hate, books, songs and newspapers all enforce the Party ideals and the people believe them for they have no other principles or ideals with which to compare. They assume that the Party is right in what it says. This refers back to the proles not having an individual consciousness away from party principles, as stated by Winston in the extract. Their thinking is basic and un-intellectual. Similarly, the thinking process in BNW is a result from training and conditioning. This time people are taught in their sleep (again sub-consciously like in 1984) what to think and what ideals/principles to hold. Their thinking is mechanic and standardised which holds parallels with the mechanic factories they were produced in. Again it is the case of two different methods producing the same result.
The subject matter of the BNW extract shows humour which 1984 does not. The fact and process that leads to the Rocket Engineers only ever being truly happy when standing on their heads and that ‘Decanting trauma’ can occur in comparison with real life birth trauma. Both of these examples from the extract are illustrations of the humour that Huxley injects into the novel at several intervals. With 1984 there are no humorous comments at all and so the subject matter keeps, at all times, an air of seriousness, whereas with BNW this air of seriousness, as a revolutionary novel, is broken from time to time by the humour.
A main contrast that the two extracts highlight is the ideal of what both worlds are striving towards and are. In 1984 Winston describes the Party’s ultimate aim as;
“The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible and glittering – a
world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines…- a nation…all thinking
the same thoughts, shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting,
triumphing and persecuting – three hundred million people all with the same
face.”
This holds extreme parallels to the world that Huxley creates in Brave New World. A world where everyone has the same face paralleling with the mass producing of people that all look alike; shouting the same slogans, paralleling with the sleep taught sayings that everyone has a version of, whether you’re an Alpha or Epsilon, a world of steel and concrete paralleling with the vast huge cities of BNW. It seems that 1984 is a world where a government is attempting to change the past and achieve a different world, whereas BNW is a world proud of its past and of sustaining its world. The two are exact opposites; BNW being what the Party is trying to create.
The importance of the two extracts in the novels is high in that they are meant to shock the reader. Huxley’s description of the manufacturing of people and Orwell’s description of a world that controls everything (even the past) and makes its people think whatever they like. Both extracts create a world in which the story is allowed to develop, they are the soil from which the seed is meant to grow. The 1984 extract has an added level to its importance as it shows that already Winston is part of the undead. It shows that Winston is doing exactly what he’s not supposed to be and that if/when he is caught, the Party have got grounds on which to vaporise him. It shows the re-occurring principle in the novel that death is certain, and life is not. It shows that any chance of Orwell’s world changing, the Party being overthrown, is non-existent as any chance must lie in the proles but:
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have
rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
This parallels with BNW as no-one there either wishes to change things, as they are content with their current life. Both extracts create these two worlds of unimaginable oppression whether its inhabitants realise it or not and the theme that runs throughout the comparison of the two novels and extracts is the same; that Orwell and Huxley both achieve relatively the same thing through different methods. They both achieve worlds of oppression and shock simply through different actual environments; as they did with making it that everyone thinks what the authorities wants them to think and that they have no interest in challenging this or any other aspect of their world. This being the case and both authors creating these future worlds of shock and astonishment are vital to the novels as this is what makes the novels so revolutionary for their time.
