Winston and Julia

The relationship between Julia and Winston is mainly about them rebelling against the inner party. The fact that they love each other, which is not allowed in the party is a silent rebellion for their own sanity. However, it is interesting how Winston thought at first that she was spying on him, then when he found out that she loved him he jumped at the thought of meeting her again. This doesn't really happen in our world today, especially since they hardly even know each other, and they really don't seem like they go together and are only together because it was convenient for Orwell. The one important difference between them is that Julia is rebelling against the government because she thinks that things can't be changed anyway and she's just happier breaking the rules and feels like they truly can't beat the entire system, while Winston questions the inner party and thinks that the party can be brought down. Also, Julia expects more out of life and is a bit more adventurous than Winston. They are very similar in that they want to rebel against Big Brother by meeting in private and doing things that are looked down upon. There is a very large age difference between the two of them, but I suppose that it takes one to know one. Although there wasn't much spark at the beginning of their relationship, Winston starts to feel like he needs her, while I get the feeling like Julia just wants to rebel and just likes going against the party in any way. Ultimately, Winston says that Julia knows that she will eventually be caught by the thought police, but at the same time Julia believes that she can live in this world where she constantly contradicts the party and will not get caught. This silent rebellion is a way of keeping themselves sane, and it shows that it is possible to have lust, and love in the party.

Winston v. John

Winston's view is entirely different from John's, he hates purity, and goodness and wants it to die. John loves purity and goodness, because he didn't see any of that while he was in the savage reservation, and when he met someone like Lenina whom he put on a pedestal he thought she was the purest thing ever. The point is that there is no purity at all within the party, even though they are trying to create a perfect world. I think Winston hates purity because purity is what the party is trying to achieve, and by Julia not being pure he loves that. He likes that she is rebellious against the party, and this is a silent attack against the party by just not being pure and how the party wants her to be. I think that Winston is trying to show that there is nothing pure like there used to be, no love, because everyone is caught up in their fear and hatred. I also think that they are starting to love one another, because they are both rebellious, and they are also sneaking away from the party doing things that would now ironically be considered to not be pure. I just think that this is an interesting contrast between this world and the world created by the party. John wants purity, but ends up not liking it in the New World, while Winston hates purity, because of the standards of purity set up by the party.

Controlling the Past

One of the methods of Control in the party is changing events in the past and telling people that Big Brother did all of this stuff that he really didn't do. For example, Big Brother is said to have invented the airplane at a time later then when it was really invented. Big Brother does this through the Ministry of Truth, which is really a Ministry of Lies. If they can control who did what in the past and make people believe a lie, then they can make people believe just about anything that they want them to believe therefore giving them control of the people. Another way they can control history is through Newspeak, because the less words the people in the party have to use, the less opinions they can come up with. And of course Big Brother limits this by not even letting them write down or think of heretical things. If they do, then they simply disappear from the records, and the interesting thing is that they can make people up at random. This means that you could be taught that someone who never existed did this great thing in Newspeak, and it’s all a lie. This is effective, because the people make themselves think that this is all true, because they know if they think any different that they will be taken away. This method of changing history is so effective because they are making people believe what they are told whether it is a true or not.

Language and How it Relates to Freedom

There are many languages in the world today, both foreign and modern, but all of these diverse languages have one thing in common, they represent our freedom. We are showing our freedom that is stated to us in the First Amendment, by merely getting our opinions out there in one way or another. Some people choose to express their freedom through music by making mix tapes, and some choose to be like Winston and write in a way that other people think will soon be extinct. Winston writes in his diary because he is not only tired of the society he lives in, but he cannot say these things out loud or even think them, yet he knows that writing them down is just as bad. In this sense he is a patriot, putting his ideas out there and using the written language to defy the society. This is not allowed in this society because if someone breaks away from the party then other will start to as well, which is why thinking up heretic things about the party is considered to be a thoughtcrime. Winston commits a thoughtcrime through the written language. Winston is drawn to this type of language because he does not like Newspeak, and he prefers Oldspeak, and this is because he faces Newspeak everyday at his job. However, his comrade Syme has the job of destroying words and he thinks that eventually we will only have a few words left to describe so many things. He doesn’t like the language Oldspeak, because he thinks it is too vague and has to many shades of meaning, while with Newspeak is much more simple with words abbreviated and pulled together. The language in this society is restricted to Newspeak because if people were to use other languages this might promote new ideas, and of course that is a crime and you will disappear. The party has to eliminate words every day, and this will eventually lead to the change in the literature, slogans, and in this society orthodoxy will mean not needing to think. The party does not want people to think, they don’t want them to write, and this stifles the individuality that Winston so desperately craves, which is why he writes to be an individual. Language allows everyone to create their own individuality.

The 1984 Society

The society in Brave New World is not based on happiness, but rather on war and violence. People in this society seem to be very suspicious of each other and are not very social. Winston hates the dark-haired girl simply because she likes being a virgin and wears the symbolic red sash around her waist to symbolize this. This world is supposed to appear very dark and in this society you are supposed to adore the Big Brother and hate Goldstein. You can also see the apparent hatred in the daily two-minute hate. This scene in book 1 shows how the people in the party share the same kinds of hatreds and are expected to act like this. Another aspect about this society is that they are constantly being watched, and monitored by the thought police. Winston is the perfect example of what not to do, he writes a diary which is not a good thing, and he only does out of the view of the telescreen. Their entire existence depends on them not thinking or writing a bad thought about the party. This is another very good example of a dystopian society. This society is supposed to be perfect because no new ideas can get in, but this whole idea gets overturned because they promote hatred and the only thing they can do to control people within this society is to make them hate one another and not trust anyone.

Is it really so bad?

The “New World,” Aldous Huxley portrays in this book seems like the perfect world, and it so different from our world and it is in fact not that great. The fact that this society is so fake and perfect makes it so bad, and nobody should have to live in a world where they are conditioned to not think freely. I value freethinking and so do a lot of people in our society. In a world with no war, and no disease or suffering is not living in a real world; you have to see those things in life in order to become your own individual. How can you truly be happy, if you don’t know how to appreciate what you have? This is the problem with Huxley’s characters, their idea of happiness is something that has been pounded into the heads and is something that they are conditioned to believe. This society is so bad because it denies the people inside it to think on their own and be themselves, and do what makes them happy. Another thing that these people are missing out on is actually loving another person and not belonging to someone else. This society contradicts this society in so many ways; they all belong to one another yet they have no personal connections to anybody else. They can’t be mother, they can’t get married, they can’t love another person without anybody thinking it’s heretical, and they can’t even be by themselves. You can belong to someone else and not love them, but that still doesn’t give you anything in return, in this world all that gives you is physical pleasure and nothing else. Without all of these emotional connections, and war and other things that people deal with in real life, this is in fact not a perfect world. I say that this is not a perfect world and it is bad because in this world these people have no idea that they don’t have access to anything that can actually better themselves or develop their own thoughts.

Huxley's Predictions

In the book Brave New World, Aldous Huxley makes a lot of predictions about the future, and since we are in the future now we can obviously see that some of these predictions are not true. We are not born in bottles, or take soma, don't wear birth control belts, and we certainly don't worship Ford. Despite all of this, some of Ford's predictions are accurate. We have more effective forms of birth control, we have the technology to make a test-tube baby (which is similar to a bottle baby), and a lot of us still worship some godlike figure or we have an idea of what our religion is. One thing that I think will never happen that Ford said would happen is that History is totally obliterated off the Earth, and all traces of historical figures and events have been wiped away, leaving hardly any evidence behind. I think that Huxley's society does have some elements of truth in it. I think that the idea of bokanovskifying eggs is something that would be very interesting to see, but too many people in our society today would be against that idea. However, something to keep in mind is that we do have some technology that can alter a baby to be what we want it to be. Some people think that this is unethical, which is why I think that this is a big piece of their society, but is not a big piece of our society in 2009. Also, another idea that I think is too irrelevant is how the classes are separated, and how the society in Huxley's book has "Savages." I think that we have people who are uncivilized in our society today, but we don't barricade them from the rest of the world and treat them like they are animals in the zoo. I do think that transportation is one relevant part of Huxley's story, and although ours in 2009 is not as advanced as Huxley's, almost everybody has a car. And if somebody doesn't use a car, then they use public transportation. We can also get to places relatively fast and without too many delays. I do think that one idea in Huxley's society, which is that everybody belongs to everyone else, is interesting, but that kind of thing could only be possible if everyone were the same, had the same ideas, and obviously our society tends to embrace diversity. Our society is also based on the idea of a family, whereas Huxley's society is not.
A lot of Huxley’s ideas seem a bit too absurd, but I think that Huxley’s idea of advanced technology is definitely something that is relevant to our society today in 2009. We do embrace technology, and maybe someday we will all fly helicopters, and maybe there might be some more test-tube babies. I think that in our society, we have the tools to make our society better through technology, but we will not take it to the extremes that Aldous Huxley has