I’m not sure if all of you are familiar with the term “dystopia”(I sure wasn’t) but they basically as my teacher put it, “ a perfectly horrible world”. Dystopia’s are the opposite of utopia’s and they essentially are a failed attempt to create the so called “perfect world”. With some dystopia’s, it is quite clear that the attempt failed, but with others, you often need to do some deep thinking into what exactly is flawed within the world. My class has been doing a dystopian novel study so I have been quite interested in this whole idea. I don’t consider myself an expert but I will kind of be outlining some of the differences in the novels I have read which are 1984 and Brave New World.

1984

1984, George Orwell’s bleakly dystopian novel about the dangers of totalitarianism, warns against a world governed by propaganda, surveillance, and censorship. The novel essentially is a world eerily similar to the life during WW1 or WW2 with food rations, mass poverty, and property destruction everywhere you go. I found this book quite interesting because it kind of always was at a very action heavy stage. There is a lot of deceit, betrayal, and contradiction. See, I think the appeal of Dystopian novels is the excitement to see what is going to happen next. Personally, I preferred 1984 over Brave New World because there was a lot more to look forward to. Not to say Brave New world wasn’t interesting! It simply has a different kind of appeal which I will mention later one. The extreme ideas shown in 1984 kind of make a lot of us laugh and then we see characters truly believing the garbage being spoon fed to them. it just is so absurd that we find it really interesting!

The ideas outlined in 1984 are so bizarre that if someone in the present were to put them out there it would sound like a joke, yet within the novel people believe it! I mean just hear me out, freedom is slavery? That is the most obvious contradiction I have ever seen yet in the world of 1984 people believe it because there is no history to back their disagreement up. They are essentially brainwashed and blackmailed with fear of persecution to follow all that Big Brother says. One of my favourite quotes clearly shows the flaws within 1984: ““Fools who don’t respect the past are likely to repeat it.”  The government practically erased history to the point where even if you lived through the time, you doubt whether what you know is truly correct or fabricated by the government! It is such a hard concept to rap your head around am I right? To be completely honest, I saw the novel as a cautionary tale for teens because a lot of teens dislike history and ask the question “why do I have to learn about something that happened fifty years ago”? I think George Orwell gave them an answer they will never forget!

Brave New World

The next dystopian novel I have finished reading is Brave New World. Now I am going to be completely honest, it was an odd book. Mature topics were present and I personally wish my teacher had warned me before I read it. Brave New World I feel has a different feel in comparison to 1984. When we start the novel, we aren’t introduced to this sad clearly dystopian world, but rather a futuristic world that seemingly had no problems. In other words, economic turmoil. Overtime, as we continue reading, we realize the problem with this world doesn’t lie with the environment but rather the lack in human feelings and emotions. People within the novel are only driven by the happiness from drugs and sex. The novel essentially outlines a world where people are conditioned into not having certain emotions and into behaving a certain way.

In comparison to a novel like 1984, the people within Brave New World believe it is a utopia because they once again do not have the history and knowledge to tell them otherwise. It is contrary the readers interpretation of the novel that dubs it as a dystopian world. Personally, I felt Brave New World had less of a plot in comparison to 1984 but rather it was mostly a description of how the world works through the lens of the narrator and a few important characters.

The moral of me outlining all of the different facts between both novels would be that dystopian novels are such a popular genre of story because they seem to have this seemingly bizarre world and we follow how people within the world live. People enjoy change, and dystopian novels take that fact and exploit it! Try reading a dystopian novel and see if you enjoy it!