Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Animal Farm by George Orwell - Essay Example

English 8 November A Comparative Essay on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Animal Farm by George Orwell It is very important to learn lessons from history and take them into consideration in order to avoid the same mistakes in our contemporary society. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Animal Farm by George Orwell are the best books if it is necessary to study the negative impact of communism upon human life. Both the books under consideration are dystopia novels; they satirize society. Moreover, both the authors tried to demonstrate an idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state; they also touched upon the theme of propaganda in their writings. Leaders of such societies also have to create something to keep order and obedience, to make people live in a certain way. It is giving drugs to the citizens in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and strict order in Animal Farm by George Orwell. Although Aldous Huxley and George Orwell gave birth to the books belonging to the same genre, they applied different ways to demonstrate the consequences of living in a so-called “ideal communistic society”. It should be stressed that the books under analysis have prototypes. There is one in Brave New World and two in Animal Farm. The leaders introduced to the audience by Huxley and Orwell existed in real life. Thus, Snowball and Napoleon in Animal Farm stand for Trotsky and Stalin. The director of hatcheries and conditioning in Brave New World reminds of Stalin as well. The books demonstrate people’s life under constant control of their leaders. There are several important themes introduced by George Orwell in his Animal farm: 1) the corruption of socialist ideals in the Soviet Union, 2) the social tendency towards class stratification, 3) the danger of a naive working class and 4) the abuse of language as instrumental to the abuse of power. In Animal Farm the reader indirectly finds the information how the Soviet intelligentsia received its power. They like pigs in the book just established their power and got rid of everything that was standing on their way. The book criticizes the history of the Russian Revolution. When the animals stay along without their farmer they start forming the same society that communistic Russia had. Pigs become the ruling animals in the farm. This book does not only show the dystopia of communistic society; here the author also demonstrates love for power and attempts to get it. Thus, Snowball and Napoleon are in constant conflicts because both of them are eager to be leaders in the farm. The leaders get an opportunity to have other lifestyle than all other animals; they apply the abuse of language and the abuse of power to keep order in the farm. However, making everybody to obey leaders, the latter do not stop constant opposition and straggles for power. Orwell used the following lines to demonstrate conflict situation between Snowball and Napoleon: “At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws” (Orwell, 46). This confrontation between Napoleon and Snowball fully describes the relationship between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Napoleon losing support from other animals in the farm uses dogs to get snowball’s power. He behaves the same way as Stalin, who tended to act behind the scenes. Huxley’s Brave New World is not just a dystopia; it is also a science-fiction novel. Each character of this book is characterized in close connection with the society people live in. It is necessary to stress that not people, but Brave New World itself becomes the main character of the novel. Although the society depicted by Huxley is also based on communistic ideas; here are ten leaders instead of two (as in Animal Farm). They are called World Controllers. They control every sphere of human life. This is easily seen from this quotation: “when the individual feels, the community reels” (Huxley, 127). This saying proved that people in Brave New World are not encouraged to have own thoughts and personal feelings towards anything. If it is changed, the state loses its power and influence. In this book faith is applied as one of the methods to control citizens. People always have to believe in something, however, it should be the ideas strengthening the leaders’ power. However, in this science-fiction novel even a religion is a fiction. Thus, faith is focused on so-called faith in Ford. The state described by Aldeus Huxley appeared after the Nine Year’s War. Everything underwent changes due to new power, even the names for places. For instance, the London railroad station is now Charing T Rocket Station. The theme of science plays an important role in Brave New World. In fact, one of its major purposes is to demonstrate the advancement of science as it affects human individuals. From the author’s perspective, the state’s control over people harms the scientific progress that has given an opportunity to maintain that control. “What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder” (Huxley, 35). This statement is one of the central ones in the novel. It proves that science in man’s hands is a powerful instrument. The society from Brave New World even children produces with the help of science. Animal Farm by George Orwell is symbolic. There are several important symbols applied in this novel and contributing into its understanding. They are: 1) Animal Farm, 2) the barn and 3) the windmill. The first one – Animal Farm – stands for a concrete state. It is the Soviet Union in the period of Communist Party rule. The members of Animal Farm were not allowed to get in touch with people or animals from other farms. Thus, Mollie was criticized because just having a talk with “one of MR. Pilkington’s men standing on the other side of the hedge” (Orwell, 101). Animal farm also describes the stratification of the society. It looks the following way. The pigs stand for government, the dogs symbolize a police force or army, and all other animals belong to so-called working class. There are a lot of neighbors near Animal Farm. This fact stands for the necessity of political entity and diplomatic relations between all the countries in the world. Even the barn in George Orwell’s novel is symbolic. It reminds of all the things that can represent the collective memory of the contemporary world. The barn was applied to paint the Seven Commandments and do all revisions if necessary. “Four legs good, two legs bad, was inscribed on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters When they had once got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they would all start bleating “four legs good, two legs bad! And keep it up for hours” (Orwell, 30-31). The quotation proves that the barn was very important in Animal Farm. It helped to teach all its members Animalism that was the major theory to follow. In Brave New World both controllers and ordinary people should also be taught to follow certain rules. The most important one was to live according to the state’s slogan – “Community, Identity, Stability” (Huxley. 45). It should be noted that pigs used all other animals for their own benefit. The windmill is the symbol of this interaction. The pigs make other animals built the windmill to earn money and increase power. In fact, the windmill is the allegory representing various modernization projects that took place in Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution. All above-mentioned symbols prove that Animal Farm by George Orwell has deep sense and discusses the truth concerning communistic Russia and its attitude towards common people belonging to working class. Aldous Huxley makes his novel easy to read, but this does not prevent the audience from considering the major topics discussed by the author of Brave New World. There are a lot of complex ideas to think over. Some of them are not present in Animal Farm. They are: 1) science as a means of control, 2) the threat of genetic engineering, 3) the misuse of psychological conditioning, 4) the cheapening of sexual pleasure, 5) the pursuit of happiness through drugs, 6) the destruction of the family, 7) the denial of death and 8) the pursuit of happiness carried to an extreme. People introduced to the readers are strictly controlled by means of scientific inventions. The directors are sure that they are the most powerful and cannot be stopped by any natural processes. Controllers do everything possible in order to make common people lose their free will. Even babies are given certain qualities with the help of genetic engineering. Although Huxley does not use this term in his book, this phenomenon is present in the novel. Genetic engineering is one of the ways to control people. Since birth all people have certain thoughts and behaviors: “Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not only the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too-all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions… Suggestions from the State” (Huxley, 54). There is wrong psychological conditioning in the novel. Every person lives in order to satisfy the needs of the State. It is his/her major purpose. It is something like the work they need to perform every day. All the members of society depicted by the author undergo psychological conditioning. It is obligatory and it is done by means of sleep-teaching and hypnopaedia. Everyone is made to be happy, because only in this case the State will be prosperous. The latter resorts to the use of drugs in order to achieve this purpose. People are happy, but it is artificial state. No one is afraid of death, because people are sure that it is not awful and painful. To conclude, it is necessary to state that Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Animal Farm by George Orwell belong to the same genre – dystopia. However, the first one is also a scientific fiction. Both the novels under consideration criticize communistic Soviet Union’s society. However, the authors do this in different ways. Thus, George Orwell tries to demonstrate the opposition between Russian leaders. They are Stalin and Trotsky. They struggle for power and impact upon the society they live in. There are no conflicts between directors or leaders in Brave New World. In this novel the author pays the readers’ attention to the methods applied by the State in order to keep control over all people. They are under guidance from the moment of birth. It is impossible for them to think autonomously and have sexual relations with the individuals they wanted. Everything is under strict control. People are born artificially and even have the thoughts gained through psychological conditioning. As for Animal Farm, here all animals also have to obey certain rules written on the barn. However, this does not concern the leaders. They seem to belong to another sort of people. In both the novels it is easy to see the stratification of the society. The one depicted in Brave New World reminds of the contemporary world. Here one may come across the issues of family, relations between men and women, scientific progress. This cannot be found in Animal Farm. Perhaps, its main purpose is to stress the confrontation between two leaders. However, the author of Brave New World does not forget about the life of ordinary people. He depicts it so that everyone wants to sympathize people living “happily” under strict control. Both the novels deserve much attention because they teach to be democratic and show the disadvantages of communistic system bringing conflicts, misunderstanding, and unhappiness to all its members. Works Cited Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Canada: Random House of Canada, 2007. Print. Orwell, George. Animal Farm. USA: 1st World Library-Literary Society, 2004. Print. Read More