Utopia Or Dystopia Essay, Research Paper
Samir Patel
Ms. Priego
English 4 CP
May 11, 1998
Utopia or Dystopia
All through life humanity tries to obtain a world in which one can live with enjoyment, equality,
fairness, and happiness. Many great writers have created utopian worlds that the reader can
consider and explore. To create a perfect place compels the writer to write novels that deal with
utopia. People see them selves in a place where it is fun and enjoyable. Writers see today’s world
not as the “good place”(Hermon, Holman). The world today has many wars, diseases, and world
wide hunger. It takes many steps to produce a utopian world and is why creating a Utopia is no
easy task. Other type of world that is opposite of Utopia is dystopia. Dystopia is a place where in
literary meaning would be a, “bad place”(Snodgrass). Novels such as Brave New World,
Fahrenheit 451, and 1984 are dystopian novels. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, takes the
Individuality and has made happiness and enjoyment of life in to an artificial feeling with the constant
presence of soma. Hope of achieving utopia humankind in this world obtains dystopia by mass
cloning that destroys humanity. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the controllers of this world try
to achieve utopia but in turn reach dystopia were knowledge is gone. In George Orwells 1984,
achieve dystopia by the inner party who strive for domination by controlling love and the individual
mind. In Once and Future King, T.H. White creates a utopian world where the idea of equality,
peace, fairness, and happiness appears as a result of King Arthur’s influence. Novel shows how one
individual tries his whole life striving to achieve utopia. The novel shows that the life time of one
person is not enough to obtain this utopia as King Arthur has to past his ideas for the future
generations. In Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, constructs the perfect utopia where the
individual, love, and knowledge are practice unlike the other worlds. Looking Backward, and
Once and Future King, did what the other novels did not; it strives for utopia and reaches it. Novels
that reach utopia keeps and works the ideas of individualism, love, and knowledge into the society;
whereas the dystopian novels eliminate such ideas believing it will lead to utopia.
George Orwell presents a world to the reader where there is no chance for a utopia whereas
the citizens see this world as a utopia due to telescreens, propaganda’s and brainwashing that leads
to a society of no desires or thoughts. Citizens are not allowed to have personal thoughts or feelings
due to the telescreens that destroys the individual mind. Telescreens is a designs that is a two way
interacting television set that the Party uses to keep people from thinking. The telescreens are
monitored by a force called the Thought Police. “Thought police plugged in on any individual
wire…-in the assumption that every sound you made was over heard”(Orwell 7). We see how this is
forced greatly on the people when Winston has to hide himself from telescreens just to write down
some of his thoughts. Huge posters with big eyes reminds the people that Big Brother is watching
them. This is the constant brainwashing the citizen go trough as they are attached at a young age to
love Big Brother and once hooked the party controls them for the rest of there lives. All the
brainwashing of constant propaganda’s and telescreen turns the people in the society into drones
with only one desire, to love Big Brother.
In 1984 the society obtains true power and maintains dystopia by controlling the power of love
both filial and romantic. Children are brainwash at a young age not to love, but spy against their
parents thus destroying the filial love. The children are raise to grow up and love only Big Brother.
Party has made the affection of making love to another as a sinful act. “The aim of the Party was
not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control.
Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act…..The party was trying
to kill the sex instinct by distorting it and dirtying it”(Orwell 57). Understanding that sex was apart of
love it was made to believe to be a sin, but seen right by Party to have sex to gain new members.
The Party still had other measure to control love for it is the force that makes their true power.
The party uses the Ministry of Love that implements torture to keep control of love to achieve
complete domination. Pain of torture is to much to bare as it can strip love and force one to betrayal
as one would do anything to stop the pain. “I don’t care who it is or what you do to them. I’ve got
a wife and three children… You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my
eyes, and I’ll stand and watch it. But not room 101!”(195). Here is an example of a prisoner who
has been tortured for a long time by the Ministry of Love and does not want anymore. Due to this
excessive pain he is willing to see his own spouse and children killed in front of him for the love of the
party and not for his family. This is the same process that Winston and Julia went through as they
betray each other.
Winston and Julia severe torture destroys the romantic love and leads to their mutual betrayal
as they turn to love Big Brother that made them believe the society they lived in was perfect. This is
power that the Party obtains and controls in this dystopia. “Never again will you be capable of love,
or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow.
We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves”(211). Through immense
torture leads to the betrayal of Winston and Julia, “I betrayed you” she said baldly. “I betrayed
you,..”(Orwell 240). After they were drained of the love for each other they were filled by love of
Big Brother. This is reason why the people of oceana are not capable to love on their own but made
to love Big Brother through the power of torture. With this in mind this society controlled by party
sees it as utopia whereas it truly and sadly a dystopia in readers eyes and will remain an dystopia. All
dystopian worlds are alike such as Brave New World, were their too contains like qualities and
opposite qualities to 1984.
Brave New World shows the individuality striped from its people who are forced to live
brainwashed, segregated, and unfair without them knowing of it; the people of this futuristic world
see it as utopia whereas the reader can clearly see it has dystopia. In this world they have mastered
genetics and are able to form identical beings by the dozens that destroys individuality. This process
is called Bokanovsky’s Process, “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social
stability!(Huxley 5). Result of the Bokanovsky process is mass cloning which is not social stability it
is the destruction of humanity. No longer the individual exist, the term individual has a small meaning
in this world of similar faces. Controllers of this world are still not done as they strip more of human
nature away.
In quest for utopia the controllers of Brave New World have created a caste system were at
birth many human natures are taken away; the controllers act as god and decide who gets what from
birth. One must wonder how a world is equal when it comes to labor? Who gets to decide who
becomes a garbage man or a company president? In this society their jobs are chosen before they
are decanted from their artificial birth. Society creates different levels of humans so that the lower
the class the lower quality of being. This is truly unjust as one group of humans lose their human
nature to grow both physically and mentally. Higher classes are not identical for they are made
different but are only a small percentage of the total population. The higher class is the one that
coordinates society while the true labor backbone comes from the lower class. To maintain this
caste system the controllers must take great efforts to keep happiness and pleasure for the castes
groups so they do what they are made to do.
Happiness in Brave New World is artificial with lots of conditioning and the company of the
drug called soma. All the people in this society go through conditioning. Conditioning takes away
free will to knowledge as it makes the citizens to learn whatever they are condition. If a certain group
has to pick up garbage they will love to pick up garbage. There is no room for the individual mind
because the conditioning does not allow the mind to mature in its own way that is why children were
decanted and not born. “For you must remember that in those days of gross viviparous
reproduction, children were always brought up by their parents and not in State Conditioning
Centre”(Huxley 23). The happiness that condition brings to the caste works efficiently. Sometimes
this artificial happiness needs a boost for the members of this society. The higher and lower caste
can sometimes see their misery which is not intended by the controllers so these people are given
soma. Soma induces pleasure in great amounts and clears the mind of bad feelings. Conditioning
and soma satisfies all pleasures so there is no need for love.
In this world’s advances to achieve utopia cost them many valuable items such as love both filial
and romantic. Decanting was the lost of filial love because in this world there are no mothers or
fathers. Citizens are not able to see romantic love because the controller encourages and conditions
them to have sex with many different people within their caste. No love is possible in this society
because true love is not wanted. People of Brave New World see the love between a mother and
child disgusting. “The spectacle of two young women giving breast to their babies made her blush
and turn away her face. She had never seen anything so indecent in her life”(Huxley 111). Without
love for another death is not seen. The only way they can see love is when they go to the savage
lands. The savage land is were John is from and through his eyes the reader can truly see this world
of dystopia.
The reader of Brave New World can see that the society has not reached utopia as can John
the Savage, but ironically the people of the society think other wise; citizens believe they have
reached a state of living that many dream of. The people of this world can not see this dystopia
whereas John can. Society disgust John because he is able to see clear without the conditioning and
soma. “‘O brave new world that has such people in it.’…But the Savage had suddenly broken away
and was violently retching”(Huxley 63). The society does not understand Johns reaction other then
that they see him as a savage. Society sees their world as a utopia and try to show John. “Bernard
and Hemholtz show off Utopia to John. He is more disgusted and moody with each passing
day”(Carey 13). It is ironic that John is called the savage when he truly is not. “But the central irony
in Huxley’s evocation of the Noble Savage idea is that although John Savage, as he comes to be
called, fits the romantic prototype in that he has a natural dignity and intelligence, he is not a
savage”(Guinevera 76). This shows that Brave New World to a regular person is not seen to be a
utopia; it is seen to be a dystopia. Another novel such as Fahrenheit 451 reaches for utopia but ends
up with dystopia.
Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, shows a society that creates a world of happiness without the
cause of pain and confusion that leads to a world with no thoughts. The society believes that pain
was causing dystopia along with confusion. So this society began to strive for complete happiness
believing that utopia would soon be reached. To rid pain they made devices to continuously pump in
happy thoughts. Such devices were television sets that completely surround the room on all four
sides and headsets to calm you down and put in happy thoughts. “..in her ears the little seashells, the
thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk
coming in…of her unsleeping mind”(Bradbury 11). Shows how the society tries to keep everyone
happy and free from pain and confusion. This devises are not enough for the human brain has many
thoughts so the society has to try to keep the mind free of any thoughts other then happy thoughts.
This world believes that knowledge from books causes to much controversy, confusion, and
pain so eventually they became extinct. Society wanted the people to be happy and not ask why. In
order too due this society had to take away the individual mind that forms from the knowledge it
receives. The source of knowledge that the society looks upon to be bad was books. At first they
did not burn books as they thought they could just shorten them. “Classic cut to fit fifteen-minute
radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column…whose sole knowledge, as I say, of
Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up
with your neighbors.”(Bradbury 50). By shortening books they believed it will cause fewer thoughts
thus leading to less controversy that leads to less confusion and finally less pain. It is the thoughts
that put questions inside the mind and this is what the society does not want. Shortening books was
not enough so they had to take more drastic measures.
In Fahrenheit 451 is a world that does not let the individual express their own thoughts by
destroying all the books that help the human mind to form it’s of unique individual way. In the
beginning, we see fire that is used to destroy books. “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special
pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed”(3). This shows how fire is to be
seen throughout the novel as it destroys books that are knowledge. The destruction of books shows
that destroying books that creates individuality is not wanted by a uniform society that the reader
sees as dystopia. As the books burn and become blacken is how the minds of many become, as
they no longer think for themselves. Burning books is affective from keeping the minds clear of
thoughts but not enough so the society of Fahrenheit 451 speed everything up.
In this so called utopia the society has to be on a fast past so they have no time to think or
question; just be happy. Everything in this society is practically speed up. “One column, two
sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under
pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary,
time-wasting thought!”(Bradbury 50). Even the teaching of knowledge is speed up. “School is
shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling
gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored”(Bradbury 51). This society keeps going
ahead, no time to see what is wrong.
The society Fahrenheit 451 keeps pushing themselves so they can be happy and no pain; they
do not look back and see their dystopia whereas Montag does as Clarisse makes him think.
Montag has been pushed along with society until he met Clarisse. It took a question from Clarisse,
“Are you Happy?”(Bradbury 9), and an old lady who burned with her books to change Montag’s
views about the society he lives in. Montag soon became a rebel and went against the ways of the
society. Controllers of this world kills Clarisse since she was a loose cannon of thoughts to the
society. This is what the society has come to as it will due anything to preserve their little thoughts of
happiness. Montag is an example of what thoughts and books can due to a citizen in this futuristic
society. The power of thought can open the eyes and truly see how the society really is; in chaos. In
Once and Future King shows a novel that is unlike this dystopia for it creates a utopian place.
T.H. White’s, Once and Future King brings a utopia in which King Arthur constructs from his
childhood lessons from Merlin, but is in danger by the teachings of Toirdealbhach to Arthur’s ill made
son and the Orkney boys. These lesson that King Arthur experienced in his childhood is when he
became a fish, an ant, and a goose. As a fish he learned that might right, but learns from this lesson
that might is not right. When the young wart was an ant he learned that war was wrong and not
worth it. As an ant he saw just how important the individual mind is. When wart took the skies with