Similarities with The Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World

Welcome  back readers!

As my group pointed out, I accidentally read three chapters ahead in my last reading, so although this section was supposed to be Part 2: Chapter 6 to the beginning of Part 3, it ended up being Part 2: Chapter 9 to the beginning of Part 3. Whoops!

In this section, Winston reads an anti-Party book given to him by O'Brien titled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Goldstein, sworn enemy of the Party. It criticizes the Party's method of controlling people by altering what people know about history, and analyzes the true meanings behind the Party's slogan. The end of the section leaves at a cliffhanger, as Winston and Julia are caught by the Thought Police via a hidden telescreen. The shopkeeper Mr. Charrington is revealed as a member of the Thought Police, and it can be assumed that he was working against Winston and Julia the entire time.

Throughout my reading of 1984, I have noticed striking similarities to both Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which is what I will focus on in this post.

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel written in 1985 that paints the picture of the futuristic society of Gilead, where personal freedom is strictly limited by by the government and women are seen primarily for their ability to reproduce. The Commanders and their wives are the wealthiest and most powerful members of society, similarly to the Inner Party members in 1984, and they have Handmaids whose only purpose is to carry the Commanders child.

In both Atwood's society of Gilead and Orwell's society of Oceania, people have become desensitized to violence, as is shown by references to public hangings in both books. In The Handmaid's Tale, people are hung for various sins, such as adultery or performing abortions, during events known as Salvagings. A reference to a similar event is made in 1984, when a mom is trying to wrangle her young children who are chanting "'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!'" (23). This shows how people in both societies are numb to violence because it has become a normal occurrence designed to subliminally make threats about what happens to those who don't follow the rules.

Both books also feature governments that try to keep citizens from reading in hopes that they will never be able to know the deceit that goes on behind the scenes. In Gilead, there are simply no words available to be read by lower members of society: shop signs have only pictures, and books are reserved only to those in positions of power, such as the Commanders. In Oceania, the desire to read and write have simply been eliminated from the minds of the society members. People are addicted to watching telescreens, which is what they rely on for their entertainment, and do not feel the need to read or write. It has been phased out of society so much that when Winston is reading The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, he pauses to "appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety" (152). He has become so used to not reading, as is common in Oceania, that he is amazed when he actually does.

A final major similarity between The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 is the ability of the government to spy on people. In Gilead, people are watched by the Eyes, and in Oceania, the Thought Police regulates society. In both worlds people are forced to live in constant fear of being watched and taken away, which causes them to constantly self-monitor their words, thoughts, and actions. This is a major power move by the governments of both societies because they rule through fear to keep people in line.

Brave New World, on the other hand, is a prediction for the year 2540, and features the hyper-controlled society of the World State, where people are artificially created to fit within different castes, and are completely reliant on a drug called soma to feel pleasurable emotions. The society is controlled mainly by Mustapha Mond (the Controller) who, similarly to how Big Brother, is someone who the citizens look up to. Bernard, the main character, is very similar to Winston because both are relatively high functioning members of society who decide that they disagree with the core beliefs of their societies, and become determined to act against them.

The largest similarity between the two books is their usage of mottos to make the population believe that everything is functioning well within the society. In 1984, the slogan is:

"WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" (7).

The World State, on the other hand, bases itself on three words:

Community, Identity, Stability.

These slogans are designed to convince the members of the society that what they are saying is true, when it often times is not. As discussed in one of my previous posts, the slogan in Oceania is ridden with irony and mistruths. The World State's motto, however, carries the same deceit. In the World State, there is no sense of community; people are separated strictly into different castes, and trained to think highly of only their own caste. Their sense of identity is also flawed, seeing as they were artificially created to fit into the standards of their own caste. Finally, the concept of stability in their slogan serves mostly as something that they have sacrificed all their freedom for. They work tirelessly to fulfill the duties of their caste and take soma so that they live uniform, stable lives, where things stay mostly unchanged. These slogans are created by the government to give citizens the impression that the control exerted on them is a positive thing and is good for their well-being, when this is in fact untrue. 

1984 is ridden with similarities between both Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale, and yet each novel puts their own unique spin on the picture of the futuristic societies that they all paint. They also all bear striking similarities to todays society through the general concepts and ideas within them, which make them so haunting to read! 

Until next week,

Katie