Dystopia is, "an imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror." (Dictionary) In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, we are introduced to two different dystopian societies. Mind control (or conditioning) is a major subject in both novels, but the methods of control are different in each of the two novels.Nineteen Eighty-four, as a totalitarian dystopia, explored the insidious mind control methods of Big Brother. This control was necessary because, "totalitarian societies utilizes total control over and demands total commitment from the citizens, usually hiding behind a political ideology
[...] However, in itself the action of creating a need to consume, and then having the necessary items to fill that need was mind control, “individual happiness is defined as the ability to satisfy needs, and success as a society is equated with economic growth and prosperity.” (Themes) Sleep teaching also spoke to the inappropriateness of feelings, “when the individual feels, the community reels.” (Huxley) Drugs are also a useful controlling tool in Brave New World, if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. [...]
[...] It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.” (Orwell) In Brave New World, while mind control was as important as it was in Nineteen Eighty-four, it was completed differently. Brave New World is a leisure dystopia. In a leisure dystopia, problems have been solved, at least officially, and all citizens are living in wealth and happiness this is often achieved by suppressing individuality, art, religion, intellectualism and so on and so forth. Conditioning, consumption, designer- drugs, light entertainment and similar methods are widely used in order to combat existential misery,” (Exploring). [...]
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