In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, uses parody, of various utopian novels, to present a futuristic dystopian society where everyone is the same and ”everyone belongs to everyone.” Huxley uses parody to warn what the future may hold if society as a whole doesn’t change its current path. The book is a warning that by attempting to create a utopia it subsequently creates a dystopian; people conditioned from birth, eliminating individuality, creating complete uniformity. Although most people in Brave New World seem happy it is iust a combination of conditioning and drugs.
From birth audio recording are played in the sleep of youth to condition them, also known as hypnopedia. to act happy and carefree.
One of the phrase that is repeated throughout the hypnopedia sessions is “a gramme is better than a damn,” which is a reference to the drug soma taken by the populace when feeling unhappy. The conditioning and drug use eliminates individuality and free will; ultimately done to make an easily controlled population.
In Brave New World. the totalitarianistic government decided everything about a person’s life is determined before birth including intelligence and social standing, furthermore to eliminate almost any chance of becoming self aware they disapproved of critical thinking regarding it as a social taboo.
The complete lack of individualism, and free will makes the society a blatant dystopia, In Gattaca, Andrew Niccol presents a dystopian society similar to the one in Brave New World; it’s filled wrth discrimination and social taboos that run the lives of the populace.
People born without genetic modification are looked down upon as being inferior. and although illegal to discriminate against them it has become socrally accepted to discriminate. This dystopian society, much like the last, also decides before birth many of the qualities and traits of people before there are born.
In the beginning of the film one of the doctors removes various traits that are deemed undesirable. thus eliminating at least some free will from the child. Having the perfect traits seems ideal. but the character Jerome quickly reveals that being perfect is not ideal. Jerome reveals that he attempted suicide before being put in awheelchair; implying that “valids” suffer from the pressure of being the perfect people they were bred to be. People living in either dystopian society suffer from government imposed control. lack of free will and discrimination. even if they don’t know it.
Dystopian Societies in Brave New World and Gattaca. (2022, Nov 18). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/a-comparison-of-the-dystopian-societies-in-the-novel-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley-and-the-film-gattaca-by-andrew-niccol/