The changes in our society according to our actions, can lead to our own self-annihilation. In the novel, “Oliver Twist,” the author, Charles Dickens, tells us that the government has taken wrong actions towards poverty and crime in his time, but from then on, through the use of characters in Dickens’ novel, people shine more light at this topic of corruption. Similarly, in the novel, “Brave New World,” the author Aldous Huxley, also tells us that the future government has taken wrong actions by choosing to rely on technology to solve all their problems. These authors later on tell us that there are corrupted thoughts being supplied to a person’s mind, by either the wrong hands in the society (Oliver Twist), or by the use of technology in the future (Brave New World). Both authors, with the use of their respective novels, affect social change.
Charles Dickens uses the effects of workhouses on orphans to portray the real orphan life, while Aldous Huxley portrays the present way of over-using technology, and its negative effects on the future society. Initially, the government thought that workhouses will be hospitality for orphans, and a place to earn money. Workhouses are where orphans are given sevenpence-halfpenny per week in unhealthy working conditions. Dickens tells us that the government thought the workhouses will be perfect for orphans, but really, their living and working conditions were a hell. Dickens gives us a sarcastic description of the conditions in workhouses. The Society in Dickens’ time was really harsh to orphans, and with this novel, the Society began to have nobler views towards orphans. Additionally, orphans, being a lower class, are treated like dirt by the workhouse owners. Orphans are starved with the given payment, without a right amount of food, they become ill, and like Oliver, are harshly beaten if they ask for more food. As Dickens presented these treatments that are given to orphans to the society, his influence made conditions in the workhouses improve in the late nineteenth century, and social-welfare services and the social-security system supplanted workhouses altogether in the first half of the 20th century. Today, the society becomes emotionally in touch with orphans when they hear about the life of the poor. Like Oliver Twist, Brave New World uses its own way to advance or ruin the human civilization. To commence, the society in Brave New World is maintained through technological interventions, which start before birth and last until death. In machines, children are decanted by the Bokanovsky’s Process, making ninety-six human beings, who use these machines to maintain their bodies throughout life. Huxley warns us, that machines will be the way that children will come into the world, thus eliminating God. People nowadays, think that machines provide advances toward the society, and the social change with technology that is happening right now, will be affected by the different views of the society towards technology. As a result, if you let machines meddle with the way humans are born, you are asking for trouble. Every ninety-six human beings in the lower classes, with the same embryo develop with the same characteristics, and some are cloned. Humans come into the world without a family in Brave New World, thus they are without true love given by a family, and have no uniqueness, a loss of identity and values. Recently, there has been a sheep and a pig cloned by scientists, and humans can be next! Huxley tells us that if we keep using technology the way we are, there will be a life without God, his creation of humanity, which is the uniqueness of everyone, will be destroyed, and the change in the society with the use of technology to make our lives easier, does come to a halt with this novel. Just like the government in the past thought the workhouses to be an advantage for orphans, and the government in “Brave New World” thinks that by controlling reproduction through technological and medical intervention, and thus making everyone’s identity the same, it is making everyone equal, but really, it is creating a loss of dignity, morals, values, and emotions—in short, a loss of humanity. To conclude, Charles Dickens gives us an example of orphan life, and Aldous Huxley brings up the topic of the use of technology biologically, which are going to affect the society by giving a little hint of their effects.
