Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Michal Minárik

Development of British Dystopian

Literature
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.

2009
 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Author’s signature

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 Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.
for her patient guidance, valuable advice and her support.

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Table of Contents

Introduction.......................................................................................................................5

1. Theoretical Background................................................................................................7

1.1 Utopia......................................................................................................................7

1.2 Dystopia.................................................................................................................10

2. Representative Novels.................................................................................................13

2.1 Aldous Huxley – Brave New World (1932)..........................................................14

2.2 George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).....................................................15

2.3 Angela Carter – Heroes and Villains (1969)..........................................................18

2.4 Jeanette Winterson – The Stone Gods (2007).......................................................20

3. Aspects of Dystopian Novels.......................................................................................23

3.1 Face of administration...........................................................................................23

3.2 Sexuality................................................................................................................32

3.3 Language...............................................................................................................37

4 Were the Prophets Right?.............................................................................................41

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................45

Works Cited.....................................................................................................................48

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Introduction

Thinking about the future is a part of human nature – every person is concerned

about what will happen to him and the people around him. Therefore both great thinkers

and ordinary individuals have from the beginning of time come with visions what the

future will be like. The first of these vision came in a form of utopian writing, which

had drawn a picture of an ideal society which solved all its problems, but the

development of this genre was halted for several centuries by the ruling Catholic

church. The subsequent rise of the New Learning brought a revival of the genre which

started a further development – the visions became more diverse and an ideal nature of

the future was no longer a rule.

The literature which depicted a future in a pessimistic way came to be defined as

dystopian or anti-utopian. The first widely recognized dystopian novel was a timeless

work of the British author Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932), which logically

became the first of the four milestones for this study of the evolution of the dystopian

novel in Great Britain. Seventeen years later, this iconic book was followed by another

great dystopic vision – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought

even more complex and cruel totalitarian future and is still widely recognized as the

best dystopian novel so far, therefore it cannot be omitted in this study. After choosing

the two most well-known dystopian novels in the history of British literature, the author

of this thesis had to decide which other dystopian works to use for comparison and

subsequent study of the development of this genre. To make the differences even more

evident it was decided upon using two of the most popular modern British female

writers – the third cornerstone for the comparison will be an early work of Angela

Carter, her dystopian post-apocalyptic novel Heroes and Villains (1968), which

represents the works from the second half of the twentieth century. The last and the

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most recent novel used for the comparison in this thesis will be the dystopian novel by

Jeanette Winterson – The Stone Gods (2007) containing the most recent dystopian views

influenced by the harsh reality of today.

The thematic development of the four novels in this thesis will be followed

through the gradual comparison of several key characteristics of each dystopian work.

Since the extent of this work is limited and it does not provide enough space for a

deeper analysis of more concepts, only three of the most important ones had to be

chosen. These will be the ruling administration in each of the four worlds, status of

sexual relationships in the society and the special usage of language in each of the

novels. This comparison will be used to prove the hypothesis that even though most of

the dystopias are set in the future, the world described is more closely connected to the

current time of the author and the state of the society he or she was living in. Based on

this, the compared aspects should change in accordance with the changing situation in

the actual world.

After the comparison a short chapter will be included that will discuss how close

the dystopian visions got to the actual reality that followed their publishing and what

steps the authors suggested to prevent the described development. The fact that the

actual situation resembles the situation described in the novels would further support the

hypothesis and thus prove that the authors wrote the novels under an influence of

worries created by the times they lived in.

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1. Theoretical Background

1.1 Utopia

Since dystopian literature originally evolved as a sub-genre of utopia, it is

necessary first to focus briefly on the origin, characteristics and evolution of this genre.

Utopia can be defined as “An imaginary place or government in which political

and social perfection has been reached in the material world. The citizens of such

utopias are typically universally clean, virtuous, healthy, and happy, or at least those

who are criminals are always captured and appropriately punished. A utopian society is

one that has cured all social ills”(Literary Vocabulary). The term itself is of Greek

origin, where it consist of the Greek for "not" (“οὐ”) and “place” (“τόπος “), therefore it

could be translated as “nowhere land” or “no place” (Drabble 1019). Based on this, it is

understandable that the genre is devoted to describing a land or state that has not yet

existed in the world – in utopias this land usually bears features of what is at the time

understood an ideal social and environmental conditions. The purpose of these works

can therefore be interpreted as “the search for the best possible form of government”

(Drabble 1019) and the means it can be accomplished.

Even though Zhang Longxi in his essay “The utopian vision, east and west”

discusses old utopian writings in China, utopia is generally considered to be the

privilege of the Western Civilization - to explore its very beginning we have to trace

back more than two thousand years to the most evolved cultures of the time. The first

thinkers to deal with the idea of ideal society were the most well-known Greek

philosophers, namely Plato in his Republic, where he describes his idea of an ideal form

of government, which would be beneficial to all the people and would not encounter

any social problems. This was clearly a result of enhanced Greek republic striving to

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evolve into the most functional society possible. The Greek philosophers were strongly

influenced by these attempts and, as a result, they focused their thinking on finding the

best possible model of really effective democratic society. This way of thinking was

sadly interrupted by the fall of the Roman Empire, which was followed by the rise of

Christian thinking and leaving the idea of utopia disregarded for the next several

centuries.

With the strengthening influence of the Catholic Church the whole concept of

living and thinking on the old continent started to gradually change – the idea of ideal

society on Earth was replaced by the concept of God’s kingdom in heaven. All attempts

to make earthly life more pleasant were abandoned, since this life was considered only a

preparation for better times after life, which could be achieved by obeying the principles

of the church. The only ideal societies that could have existed were the one after life and

the one before the original sin:

utopia as a concept differs fundamentally from the ideology of the

medieval Church, because utopia is an ideal society built by human

beings in this life on earth, not a vision of God's paradise in Heaven …

it would be nothing but incredible arrogance and blasphemy, from a

religious point of view, to entertain the possibility that human beings

could build a paradise on earth unaided by divine power. (Longxi 2)

These ideas were explicitly expressed mainly in the book The City of God by

Augustine of Hippo, which was the closest to the utopia that the era of Christian

domination ever got.

The return to the utopian thinking was therefore possible only after the end of

the Middle Ages with the age of New Learning emerging in the Western Civilization.

"The history of utopia began only when society abandoned the image of paradise.

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Utopia is one of the products of secularization” (Touraine 18). This progression brought

a new healthy view on the earthly existence of the individual – while “Augustine and

the medieval Church under his influence saw human nature as essentially bad,

irrevocably corrupted by the original sin” (Longxi 2), New Learning replaced belief in

corruptness of human nature by belief in the human abilities and capability of

improving oneself. The individual therefore draws attention to himself and these new

conditions enable utopian thinking to evolve again. Influenced by new ways of thinking,

new inventions and discovery of the New World, where the new society was to be

created, the greatest minds of the time started to deal with the idea of forming an ideal

society. This society was supposed to serve as some alternative to the imaginary

heavenly paradise, which was losing the importance.

"In the strictest sense of the word, utopia came into being at the beginning of the

sixteenth century” (Schaer 3) as Roland Schaer, a scholar studying utopian concepts,

states. As the first truly utopian work he marks Thomas More's Utopia (1516) and he is

not alone in this – More’s work is generally considered the first utopian work and the

first usage of the term in the Western Civilization. He published his Utopia in the times

when England was already strongly influenced by ideas of New Learning and also

because of this, his example was shortly followed by other writers and thinkers coming

with their own imagination of what an idealistic society would look like. From the

rather extensive list of these we may mention the more popular ones from the first

period such as The City of the Sun by the Tommaso Companella, New Atlantis (1627) by

Francis Bacon and Commonwealth in Oceania (1656) by James Harrington.

This is how the term utopian novel entered the literary dictionaries as a “species

of prose fiction that describes in some detail a non-existent society located in time and

space” (Science Fiction Studies) and the sub-genre started an evolution of its own.

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Since the definition does not specify that the depicted society has to be ideal in any way,

an arrival of more depressive visions became only a matter of time. Exclusively

optimistic fictive societies like the ones in More’s work were therefore set in contrast

with their emerging counterpart – the kind of novel which dealt with societies

embodying negative features of human kind, the states whose development went wrong,

the forecasts of the doom awaiting mankind.

1.2 Dystopia

The genre of novels contrasting with the original optimistic visions and

pessimistically depicting destroyed or morally deprived societies came to be known as

dystopian, anti-utopian or kakotopian literature. While "the essential element in utopia

is not hope, but desire--the desire for a better way of being” (Levitas 191), the idea

behind the dystopian novel is, logically, exactly opposite – the main purpose is to warn

mankind of the possible results of its steps. The authors utilize images of hopeless

future, exaggerated possible consequences of inappropriate behaviour and frightening

social conditions to make us think about what we do and what it may cause - to make us

prevent such fate to come true.

The development of this genre was significantly more complicated than it was

with the development of utopias - while the visions of the ideal life and society are

basically very similar in every period, possible scenarios of decay of mankind are

constantly evolving and changing. This is probably the main difference between the two

and also the reason why dystopian writing has been much more popular than utopian in

the last several decades. These catastrophic depictions not only strangely attract people;

they also react to the current state of the world and emerging threats, which constantly

bring new possibilities and allow the genre to permanently evolve to be more real and

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therefore more catchy for the reader. We may say that dystopian writing constantly

reacts to the current events and thus is permanently shaped by the state of the world we

live in.

The term “dystopia” itself was used for the first time long after the first

dystopian motives started to emerge in literature. The first recorded usage of this word

occurred in 1868 as a part of parliamentary speech by British philosopher and politician

John Stuart Mill. Premier appearance of the dystopian characteristics occurred thirty-

three years before the speech in the little known novel A Sojourn in the City of

Amalgamation, in the Year of Our Lord, 19-- by even less known author Jerome B.

Holgate (List of Dystopian Literature). The book dealt with the terrible threat of the

days – an interracial marriage. The 19th century brought only a handful of truly

dystopian works. Among the most important we may mention The Begum’s Fortune

(1879) by Jules Verne, The Republic of the Future (1887) by Anna Bowmand Dodd and

novels by H.G. Wells The Time Machine (1895) and When the Sleeper Wakes (1899). It

was H.G. Wells who can be considered the father of modern dystopia, since a great

portion of his literary work is devoted to the pessimistic vision of the future of mankind

and his books are “debatedly the first modern dystopias per se, probably the first

elaborately ideological dystopias, and definitely the first anti-capitalistic dystopias”

(Exploring Dystopia). His other dystopian works worth mentioning are A Story of the

Days to come (1899), The First Men in the Moon (1901) and The Shape of the Things to

Come (1933).

The first totalitarian dystopia appeared in 1921 in Russia – it was the novel Мы

(We) by the author Yevgeny Zamyatin, who was influenced by his personal experiences

in Russian revolutions and the First World War. This was the novel that served as an

inspiration to both Huxley and George Orwell - these two authors published their

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legendary dystopian works within the next 28 years after Zamyatin and we will deal

with their works in more detail further in this thesis.

In the second half of the 20th century the dystopian model was getting more and

more popular, in consequence of which this genre spread into not only literature all

around the world, but also into the emerging cinematography. Another very important

and now legendary dystopian novel was written by an American author Ray Bradbury in

1953 – it was Fahrenheit 451, which is considered one of “the most intellectually

advanced dystopian satire” (Exploring dystopia) until today. It reacted mostly to the

decreasing importance of the art and literature, which gradually occurred in those days.

The sixth decade of the twentieth century brought new global and social

problems and therefore also the reaction in the dystopian genre. As the most important

dystopias of the 60’s may be classified the novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) by British

author Anthony Burgess, which deals with increasing wave of violence and anarchy

among the youngsters and the (in)appropriate reactions to it. An even more threatening

problem was the basis for the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966) by the American

author Harry Harrison, which focuses, as is evident from the title, on the future menace

of uncontrolled population growth and the resulting overpopulation.

Dystopian literature of the 70’s was marked mainly by the worsening state of the

environment and flowering absurdity of popular entertainment. The first problem was

discussed by Briton John Brunner in his novel The Sheep Look Up (1972), which serves

as a pessimistic prophecy of the future impact of American pollution. The second of the

noted trends was the theme of several books by popular American writer Stephen King,

who invented the cruellest possible forms of television entertainment and described

them for example in the novellas The Long Walk (1979) and The Running Man (1982).

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 The following years brought an even wider spectrum of various themes for

dystopian visions, which were elaborated mostly in the movies, but also in dozens of

literary forms. Of the most noteworthy ones is definitely Margaret Atwood’s The

Handmaid’s Tale (1985), which is considered the first feministic dystopia written. In the

nineties it was mainly the novel The Children of Men (1992) by P. D. James focusing on

possible infertility and therefore the extinction of mankind. This brings us to the 21st

century, which may be represented by the fairly modern dystopian novel by Jeanette

Winterson The Stone Gods (2007) that will be discussed more deeply in the forthcoming

passages of the thesis.

2. Representative Novels

This chapter will contain basic descriptions of the four key novels the rest of the

thesis will be dealing with. It will provide the reader with the most important

information concerning the works – information about their author, their characteristics

and what they were influenced by. For the less known works, also a brief plot will be

included.

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2.1 Aldous Huxley – Brave New World (1932)

“COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY” (Huxley, “Brave New World“ 1)

The first of the two greatest dystopian novels of British literature was published

for the first time in 1932. Its title, which is derived from Shakespeare’s play The

Tempest (1611), has during the 20th century become “a pervasive media catch phrase,

automatically invoked with connection of any development viewed as ultra-modern,

ineffably zany or involving a potential threat to human liberty” (Bradshaw). This fact

can serve as an example how much Huxley’s book influenced several generations and

came to be a generally-recognized symbol.

The book itself is set in what used to be London in “’this time year of stability,

A.F. 632’ – that is, 632 years after the advent of the American car magnate Henry Ford”

(Bradshaw), which would be about the year 2540 of our time. The society has been

changed by the Nine Year’s War and subsequent glorious (technological) revolution –

the World State is divided into ten parts and fully maintained through the means of

biological engineering. Children are no longer born, but hatched in bottles, given their

destiny by being classified into one of several castes (alpha to epsilon) and based on the

caste either sleep-taught or physically adapted to the work they will be assigned to. The

family system is non-existent and the closest relationships the citizens form are one-

night sexual hook-ups, which are in a way compulsory. The world is dominated by

advanced technologies, while almost all forms of art like literature, painting and music

have been erased. So was the religion, which was replaced by blind trust in the society

and worshiping its ideological leader Henry Ford. All potential bad tempers are avoided

by legally distributed dope “soma”, which is consumed by citizens on daily basis. These

are the conditions to which the savage John is brought from reservation - the last place

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on the surface of planet Earth, where the conditions remained the way we know them

and its inhabitants lead a lifestyle similar to that of original Americans.

The main stimulation that made Aldous Huxley write this novel was definitely

his first visit to the United States of America, which occurred in 1926 and during which

he discovered that it is “every bit as vulgar and as freakish as he had anticipated”

(Bradshaw). What he saw there terrified him, since he had expected the rising

importance and domination of the USA ever since the end of the First World War. Even

though he stated that California was closest to Utopia yet seen on our planet and noted

that the future of America was the future of the world, he was scared rather than pleased

by the way this utopia was developing. At the same time he studied the events in the

Soviet Union, which portended the further unpleasant development. Depressed by the

raging economic and social crisis Huxley decided to connect these two seemingly

contradictory worlds into one perfectly stable dystopic society, which gave way to

creating one of the most impressive dark prophecies British literature gave the world.

Even though this vision was terrifying, it was not as depressive as the great dystopian

novel that was to come next.

2.2 George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell,

“Nineteen Eighty-Four” 7)

The most popular dystopian novel was published in 1949 and is still generally

considered one of the greatest and the most frightening books ever written. Even today

it serves as a great warning against any form of totalitarian oppression and the possibly

dangerous state regimes and political movements.

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 The novel was originally to be titled “The Last Man in Europe”, but Orwell later

decided against it and chose the shorter title, while never explaining his motives. The

most probable reason was that several dystopian works (including a poem by his wife)

had marked the year as critical for the civilization and, as Anthony Burgess claims in his

book 1985, Orwell was so disillusioned by the onset of the Cold War that he cogitated to

use the title “1948” (Wikipedia). By reversing the last two digits he not only made the

title very close to his present time, but at the same time enabled the novel to function as

a warning about the near future.

The plot of the novel is obviously set into year 1984 in the fictional state

Oceania, which is one of the three intercontinental superstates that were formed during

an everlasting global war. Oceania is ruled by a totalitarian regime represented by Big

Brother - a mystical character whom nobody has ever seen, except for his omnipresent

portraits. The society is divided into three classes, each of which lives a wholly different

kind of life – less than 2% of the citizens belong to the inner party, which enjoys the

benefits unimaginable for the rest of population (real chocolate, coffee, even wine, etc.).

A smaller portion of the rest belongs to the outer party, which works mainly for the

Ministries, get wages and small rations of basic material needs, while the larger portion

are Proles – people living in the worst imaginable conditions, who are dying in

hundreds and are not even interesting enough to be properly monitored. The rest of the

country is under a permanent monitoring by so called telescreens, which are screens

non-stop broadcasting propagandist programs and at the same time recording each

person’s every move. Since telescreens are installed all around the city and in each flat,

it is practically impossible to be alone.

Even the slightest violation of law (including a thought crime – thinking in a

way that is not allowed) is dealt with by the Thought Police, which vaporizes the

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criminals the way nobody even notices they disappeared. Two crucial elements of our

society are abandoned in Oceania – the first is the family, which is gradually suppressed

so people do not have any feelings towards each other; and the second one is history.

Based on the idea “Who controls the past … controls the future: who controls the

present controls the past” (Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” 31), the party continuously

changes the past happenings the way it is most favourable to the alterations in present

and in consequence of this, people no longer notice both slight and striking lies that

come to be true around them. The main character, Winston Smith from the outer party,

deals with the uneasy circumstances in his own way to be consequently confronted by

the practices of Thought police.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was the last novel George Orwell ever wrote and is

undeniably strongly influenced by the terrible physical and social conditions he

witnessed in his lifetime. Shaped by the several years of his childhood spent in

totalitarian Burma followed by the years spent in poor British and French districts,

working as a journalist and participating in Spanish Civil War, his attitude toward

suppressing one’s freedom became very strict. In the short essay titled Why I Write he

states that ”every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written,

directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I

understand it“ (Orwell, “Why I Write”). Orwell started writing Nineteen Eighty-Four in

1943, but before starting more serious work on the book he wrote much more playful

short novel on totalitarian regimes – Animal Farm. After publishing his second most

popular work, the end of the Second World War and the death of his wife, Orwell,

troubled by tuberculosis, moves to an isolated house on the island of Jura, Scotland,

where he lets his terrible conditions fully influence his dystopian vision. The result is a

dark and depressive description of a terrible future brought by the rise of the totalitarian

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regime. The novel was published on 8 June 1949, which is only 6 month before Orwell

dies, and is still considered one of the best works of British literature ever written.

2.3 Angela Carter – Heroes and Villains (1969)

I THINK, THEREFORE I EXIST; BUT IF I TAKE TIME OFF FROM THIKING,

WHAT THEN? (Carter 98)

Heroes and Villains is Angela Carter's fourth novel, which was published in

1969. One of the most popular modern British female authors was not very much

known at the time and therefore the reception of the book was very modest. The novel

still remains one of the less popular works by Carter and both literary experts and

reviewers focus mainly on her later works. It is the only work set in a dystopian

landscape Angela Carter has ever written, although dystopian features may be traced in

her other works too.

The title of the book is mentioned right at the second page of the novel and it

applies to the two main cultures taking part in the novel. Throughout the whole book the

author lets a reader decide who is the hero and who is the villain, since “appearances …

never conceal anything” (Carter 60).

The plot of the novel is set in a closely undefined future after a great nuclear war

that has destroyed everything – the world is thickly wooded and wild beasts,

descendants of those that escaped from zoos during the war, roam through omnipresent

nature. Human society is strictly divided into two contrasting societies: the Professors

that form groups of elite survivors inhabiting modern fortresses and lead a strictly

logical way of life full of weapons and restrictions. These fortresses are regularly

attacked by groups of Barbarians leading the primitive nomadic lives in the woods –

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living in terrible conditions they stick to the rules about the survival of the fittest and

heavily masked attack the Professors to seize the foodstuffs they are not able to retrieve

from nature. The ruins of the old civilizations are furthermore inhabited by Out People –

mutants who have been mutilated by radiation.

The main character, Marianne is a curious daughter of a professor. As a child she

witnessed as a barbarian kills her brother during one of the raids, which slowly

decomposes her family. As an orphan she decides to leave the boring life in the fortress

to escape with a captured barbarian Jewel. After finding the true nature of barbarian' life

and realizing that all the savages fear her and hate her at the same time, she tries to

escape also from this society, since "whatever romantic attraction the idea of the

Barbarians might have held for her as she sat by herself in the white tower, when her

father was alive, had entirely evaporated” (Carter 52). But Jewel finds her, rapes her and

brings her back to the camp, where she is forced to marry him. This changes their

mutual relationship to the one strongly biological and sexually charged in the night and

hostile during the day. Marianne gets accustomed to the barbarian way of living, and

even though she still yearns to escape, she travels with the group. Later she and Jewel

banish Donally, a mysterious shaman and thinker who is the only literate man among

the Barbarians and through the means of fear and invented rituals reinforces his leading

position. After finding the remains of the preceding civilization and attempted suicide,

depressed Jewel gets killed while trying to save Donally. Marianne consequently

decides to stay with the Barbarians and lead them herself.

Carter’s post-apocalyptic dystopia is very different from the two preceding ones.

Due to the highly experimental nature of Carter’s style and the complicated literary

times it was written in, Heroes and Villains focuses on different things than Huxley and

Orwell. Her main concern is not to display decomposition of our civilization, but

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instead she sketches possible scenarios of further development of the society after a

great tragedy occurs. For this purpose she presents two contrasting possibilities with

their advantages and disadvantages. As Carter herself said in an interview “Heroes and

Villains is a discussion of the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and strangely enough it

finds them wanting” (Novelist in Interview 95). At the same time, the book is supposed

to be a gothic novel, “the post-modern fiction of re-Enlightenment” (Yoshioka) and a

“didactic allegory of the relationship between the sexes” (Karpinsky).

Angela Carter simply wrote a book that is a collection of various symbols,

references and pastiches, yet is still surprisingly original and dystopian enough to serve

as a great example of women-written dystopian literature at the turn of the 60’s.

2.4 Jeanette Winterson – The Stone Gods (2007)

"We have made every mistake, justified ourselves, and made the same mistakes again

and again. It’s as though we’re doomed to repetition” (Winterson 216).

“’A new planet’, he said. ‘Imagine what we could do if we found a new planet”

(Winterson 241).

The Stone Gods was published in 2007 and at present it is the latest novel

Jeanette Winterson has written. Since Winterson is nowadays highly appreciated writer,

the reviews of the novel appeared in all the most important literary magazines and

columns - it was mostly praised by critics, even though several negative reviews

occurred too.

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 The title of the book is derived from its second part, where the author presents a

short allegory of the history of mankind, which takes place at the Easter Island that is

systematically damaged for illogical reasons to the point it is no longer habitable.

The novel itself comprises four parts, all of which are in a way interconnected.

The first part, “The Planet Blue” is probably the most dystopian one and is set in an

unspecified epoch at the planet Orbus, which strongly resembles a possible future of

planet Earth. The reader only later gets to know that the story takes place in the time

dinosaurs on Earth were wiped out by a meteor hitting the planet. This was actually

caused by the people from Orbus who wanted to kill off the monsters to be able to start

a new life at the “Planet Blue”, because they have completely ruined the life at Orbus.

Not only the environment is wrecked, but also the society is splitting apart – even

though they have reached the highest possible levels of technical evolution, it did not

solve the necessary issues. Enhanced usage of robots, DNA changes that allow people to

look however they want and chip implants erased all the rests of ethics and also a

freedom in a way.

Billie, the main character, works for Enhancement Services and is disgusted by

the state of the society. Since her behaviour threatens the utopian image of the planet,

she is forced to escape with the expedition to the newfound planet. Before they make a

mistake, which makes Earth inhabitable for the next several hundred years, she falls in

love with Robo Sapiens Spike. Starving in a cold cave on the demolished planet they

start to read James Cook’s The Journals, which leads to the second part of the story.

In the part called Easter Island, a sailor named Billy is accidentally left on the

island by Cook’s expedition and explores the local way of life to find out that all the

trees at the island were cut down to be used as means of transportation of ridiculously

big statues. Local inhabitants do not care whether they ruined every resource enabling

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the survival and the only thing of interest for them are the statues and fight for a leading

position. In The Book Show interview Winterson said that "Easter Island is a kind of

microcosm of what we do" (The Book Show), therefore in this behaviour she finds an

allegory of what mankind is doing.

The third part of the book called Post-3 War is set in a near future on planet

Earth and offers a rather dismal mixture of stories and ideas. The story of Billie being

born and left by her parents is supplemented by a discussion of the state of society

before Third World War and by a dystopian prediction what it will evolve into. At the

end of the section a story of yet another Billie and Spike starts – Billie is responsible for

education of the new robot (which consist only of the head for the time being) and

decides to show her the world outside, which leads to the final part.

The last part is called The Wreck City and depicts the couple’s escape into the

destroyed part of otherwise hypermodern city. This part resembles a post-apocalyptic

novel, where everything that mattered was destroyed by pointless fighting, which left

thousands of people either mutated or living in inhuman conditions, even though they

are much more human than the ones living “a normal life”. In this destroyed world

Billie and Spike find what they have lost millions year ago and the story ends where

they have left it at the end of first part of the book.

The Stone Gods is a novel about “repeating world” (Winterson 175) and Jeanette

Winterson focuses, besides her favourite topic of relativity of time, mainly on the

primary dystopian topics – warning the reader that there must be something we are

doing wrong and mankind has steps to take to avoid a similarly dark future. As Mariella

Frostrup stated, in the book "there are two worlds here - one in the future, perhaps not

so far away future, and one in the past, but it's very much a book about the present"

(The Book Show).

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3. Aspects of Dystopian Novels

In the next chapter I will focus on several of the most important aspects of each

dystopian novel and consider all these factors in the four cornerstone novels to trace the

development of this genre during the years. This application should also reveal what

were the main aspects that influenced the author during writing the book and how

strong their impact was - among these factors we may include the social reality of the

times, relevant literary trends, but also individual aspects like personal experiences or

sex of the author.

3.1 Face of administration

The face of the administration is one of the most shaping aspects of each

dystopian novel. The ruling group or individual is the rule that determines what is

possible and what is not and therefore shapes both the thinking of the characters and

their acts. It is the administration that sets the overall atmosphere of a novel. That is the

fact each of the authors realizes, therefore they put a lot of effort into creating the most

elaborate ruling authority possible.

The dictionary defines administration as a “method of tending to or managing

the affairs of a some group of people“ (WordNet) and in this theses I will apply this

term to the principal aspect that determines the way in which the society in each book is

working, whether it is a totalitarian party, spiritual leader, trading company or a world

controlling government.

As far as the state establishment in Brave New World is concerned, it is the one

of the four that stands closest to the border between utopia and dystopia - the whole

23
world is well-organized, technologically highly evolved, all citizens gets exactly what

they need (or at least think they need) and everything works the way it should. Mankind

has finally reached the long desired ideal society – “But the Nature of Things is such

that nobody in this world ever gets anything for nothing” (Huxley, “Brave New World

Revisited“ 35). The fact is that for this perfect state of mankind an individual have to

pay a dear price, some more than the others – this price is freedom and it is taken away

in amounts dictated by leadership in two forms:

a.) Since human is no longer a viviparous creature and children are hatched in

conditioning centres, most of the population of The World State is freedom

reduced even before they start to live. The society is divided into five basic

castes and almost all individuals except Alpha plus citizens are provided with

the weaker genetic potential than they could have got, in order to keep the

hierarchy sustainable. Members of each caste get only that much intelligence

as they need to serve the required purpose, while not demanding for more.

This predestination is even strengthened by the methods of hypnopaedia

(sleep-learning) that saves rhymed rules deep into the child’s sub-

consciousness.

b.) As the basic motto of the society “COMMUNITY, IDENTITY,

STABILITY” (Huxley, “Brave New World“ 1) states, the identity is a

milestone of stable order and its counterpart in a form of individuality has to

be avoided by all possible means. Based on this, all forms of art and

individual expressions were literally vaporized. Mustapha Mond, one of ten

world controllers, explains this in the 16th chapter by the words “You’ve got

to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. ... But

that's the price we have to pay for stability” (Huxley, “Brave New World“

24
 201). Through the gradual substituting of art by lower means of enjoyment

like special form of cinema, scent organ and mainly by drug soma, they

made the art and literature virtually disappear.

After applying these practices for several hundred years, people no longer know

what freedom used to be and therefore do not feel any need for it, since they are kept in

perpetual satisfaction. This is also one of the most important differences between

Huxley’s and Orwell’s totalitarian society – Oceania keeps order by offensive practices.

The society described in 1984 is a society controlled almost exclusively by punishment

and the fear of punishment” (Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited“ 14). The idea

behind the working functional society is basically the same – also Orwell’s society was

gradually deprived of all forms of expression of individuality and replaced the

individual mind by a mind of the crowd, which is much easier to manipulate. After

reaching this, each of the authors utilize a different means of freedom management.

While Orwell’s administration is keeping the society away from breaking the law by

making people afraid of punishment, Huxley’s state provides its citizens with basically

everything they need so they would not have a reason to break the law. In his non-

fictional work Brave New World Revisited (1958), where he analyzes the relation

between his dystopian novel and actual reality 27 years after publishing, Huxley

advocates his approach as a more reliable one – “it has become clear that control

through the punishment of undesirable behaviour is less effective, in the long run, than

control through the reinforcement of desirable behaviour by rewards … Punishment

temporarily puts a stop to undesirable behaviour, but does not permanently reduce the

victim’s tendency to indulge in it” (Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited“ 13-14).

The different approaches of the authors were most probably caused by the

different inspirations for their dystopias – as was already written, Huxley’s main

25
motivation for writing Brave New World was his visit to the United States of America

and the way of life he had seen there. Horrified by the American lifestyle, Huxley built

his vision of what spreading capitalism might evolve into in case is not controlled in any

way. Its result is the consumer society that binds man through dictating him what he

needs and subsequently providing it. He has rightly predicted that the importance of

propaganda and advertisement will rapidly grow and that they might be misused for

accumulating power. That is the reason why the administration in Brave New World

may seem much more pleasant than the one in 1984.

For Orwell the main impulse for writing his dystopian vision was the situation in

Europe before and after the Second World War, when totalitarian governments were

being formed – whether it was right-wing or left-wing. Even if it may seem so, the book

was not a direct critique of communist Russia. In one of his essays Orwell writes:

My recent novel [1984] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on

the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of

the perversions ... which have already been partly realized in

Communism and Fascism. ...The scene of the book is laid in Britain in

order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately

better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against,

could triumph anywhere. (Orwell, “In Front of Your Nose” 546)

Thus, it is logical that under different influences from the world around them the

authors created different kinds of absolute administration they were trying to prevent.

As far as the truthfulness of their vision is concerned, we may assume that Aldous

Huxley was closer to the truth – while most of the Orwellian regimes that occurred in an

actual world were denounced by the world and overthrown, the capitalist and

26
consumerist ways of life are still flowering and, even though they are not that close to

the reality of Brave New World, they are not generally considered harmful.

Unlike the first two authors, the two women writers were not threatened by such

a critical situation in the world – at the end of the sixth decade of the twentieth century,

when Angela Carter wrote her novel, the world was menaced by the Cold War, which

was more a hidden threat than an open aggression which Huxley and Orwell were

confronted with. That was also the time of an experiment, when new points of view and

approaches were being brought into art. These are also the main aspects that influenced

the Heroes and Villains.

Fuelled by the growing tension between the global superpowers, the threat of

usage of nuclear weapons was permanently present, which greatly popularized the post-

apocalyptic novels. Angela Carter has too chosen the form for her dystopian vision. In

an interview she commented: "Heroes and Villains is a dystopian novel. In the fifties

and sixties there was a real vogue for post-catastrophe novels as a sort of pastoral, but

it’s just not possible to do that now: we do know too much” (Novelist in Interview 95).

Through the study of Rousseau’s theories on the origins of civilization and society, the

author explores possible ways of development of human nature that lead to forming the

world and the relationships between different societies. In an allegorical way she offers

a depiction of mankind’s way through the time shaped by some subconscious need to

destroy. To display this Angela Carter utilizes two radically different societies with

contrasting faces of administration that are not that different - as was already written,

these societies are the groups of Professors and Barbarians.

A smaller fraction of the book is devoted to the Professors – the reader gets to

know that it is a well-organized society that lives according to clearly set rules and

everything seems to work. When Marianne is closed in the tower for being too lively,

27
she observes: “It appeared diminutive, from this height, and very tidy and bright-

coloured, like a place where everyone is happy” (Carter 3-4), but it is only a superficial

impression. In fact the intellectuals created a society that, even though it is ideally

organized, providing its members with enough food, safety and basically everything

needed, does not make people happy. Therefore “suicide was not uncommon among

Workers and Professors …, though it was uncommon among Soldiers, who learnt

discipline” (Carter 9). It may thus indicate that the absolute perfection need not be the

best solution and it works only if a person is just a disciplined machine without an

individual mind. For other people it becomes binding and boring – “Everyone was clean

and proper, shirt and dresses white as paper, suits as black as ink. Marianne was bored"

(Carter 4). What is more, this way of life formed a basis for further fighting for a

leading position among the subsections of the society and this already started to occur

as the soldiers started to develop an autonomous power of their own. For these reasons

Marianne decided to leave for a chaotic, and thus a more interesting, world.

The colourful world of Barbarians represents a perfect counterpart to the

polished black-and-white world she was brought up in. It is a world, where a fear is “the

ruling passion” (Carter 51) – that is the tool that forms the Barbarian world. Not only is

it used to scare an enemy by a colourful and extensive war paint, but also to keep order

among barbarians themselves. This is practised by their spiritual leader Donally, a

mysterious stranger that skilfully employs fear to build up his domination over the tribe.

Since there is no other organization of power in the group, he is an absolute

administration and the ruling unit that does everything to hold to the privileges. Since he

was highly educated even before he joined the Barbarians, he is familiar with the

concepts of religion, which he skilfully utilizes to manipulate people, because “religion

is a device for instituting the sense of a privileged group” (Carter 63). Donally thus

28
adapts elements of Christianity, shamanism and primitive religions to create an

impressive mixture that makes him a respected leader. Even though he chose Jewel to

become a leader and educates him, Donally never teaches him to read as he would lose

control over his abilities, which would threaten his absolute power. Although,

influenced by Marianne, Jewel banishes Donally, he later regrets this decision and

leaves to save him, but never finds him and dies in a battle.

The relationship between the two groups is mutually similar – one fears the

other, scare their children with the terrible myths about the others and define themselves

not by how their society looks, but by what the others do. Even though Barbarians and

Professors hate and fear each other, they could not live without the other – Barbarians

because they steal the vital groceries from Professors and Professors use the fear of

Barbarians as a means of keeping their citizens in order. Maybe that is also the reason

why there never was even an attempt for understanding each other.

Neither of the two contrasting ways of life that Carter depicts in Heroes and

Villains is in any way innovative or stable. Whether it is the complicated totalitarian

society of Professors or the primitive tribe “caught in the moment of transition from the

needs of sheer survival to the myth-ruled society .... the difference between the

Barbarians and the Professors is only semantic and the two patriarchal societies secure

their boundaries through the same logic of exclusion” (Karpinsky 3). It is thus clear that

not even nuclear catastrophe and total disintegration of the society has changed the

human thinking and its inner destructive spirit.

This idea strongly resembles the ideas that form the basis for Jeanette

Winterson’s The Stone Gods, where she suggests that the world and time is repeating –

in other words, it does not matter how many chances mankind gets, it will always come

up to the same result – “either we kill each other or we kill the planet or both. We’d

29
destroy the lot rather than make it work” (Winterson 240). She illustrates this on the

example of the two human civilizations that, even though they are sixty-five million

years apart, are virtually the same.

The first of the two civilizations is the one on the planet Orbus, which the reader

gets to know in the first part of the book – the society is on the highest levels of the

technical evolution, every disciplined citizen gets everything he needs – pretty much

like in Huxley’s World State. The rest of the social reality also strongly resembles Brave

New World: individuality was replaced by conformity, art by cheap entertainment,

morality by unbound sexuality.

The society on Orbus bears an official name Central Power and it is ruled by a

president. Unlike in Nineteen Eighty-Four, this president is real and makes common

appearances in the television broadcast, but what is the same as in Oceania is the formal

organization of society – everything has its glorious name which is easy to remember,

but nobody really knows what it stands for, the state is in permanent war with its

neighbours and there is still a much nicer tomorrow to look forward to. The world really

has lost its former values and now cares only about superficial characteristics, which

makes it easier for the government to control the masses by providing them bread and

games. In this perspective, the society has reached perfection – due to DNA changes,

people can stay young forever, robots do all the difficult work for them and moral bonds

of society are loosened.

Sadly, the same means that keep the people happy are used to keep in shape

those who do not find this simple happiness sufficient. We get to know that rebels

against the system are made the so-called X-Cits or ex-citizens – since all the records

are kept only electronically, the government simply erases them and “there will be no

record of you ever having existed” (Winterson 31). The few of them that get out of jail

30
are micro-chipped and kept under permanent Orwellian surveillance by "the satellite

system that watches us more closely than God ever did" (Winterson 31).

The citizens that are rebelling against the system without provable breaking of

its rules, like Billie is, are systematically pushed outside the law by trivial charges like

parking tickets to be stopped from illegitimate actions. “There is no resistance against

the Central Power” (Winterson 31).

Three parts of the book and sixty-five million years later, the reader is faced with

virtually the same society that had evolved on the planet Earth. Now it is called MORE

and again it is built on the consumerist society – by substitution of physical money by a

jeton system, which is much easier to control, they erased the differences between rich

and poor and thus only the difference between ruling ones and ruled ones remained.

Taking advantage of the chaotic situation after the Third World War, a company had

realized how to please people and to lower their demands at the same time so it became

a ruling power. MORE brought the new style of consumerism based on renting instead

of buying – people now do not own anything, yet have everything they need (while the

company decides what they need) and are still satisfied – or at least most of them. The

main difference between the society on Orbus and the one on Earth is that the MORE

society is not yet so evolved so there is still a possibility of rebellion, even if only

passive. Citizens disillusioned by the society escape into the ruins remaining after the

war, where they can enjoy the freedom in its old form. Yet, also this is coming to its end

as in the last part of the novel MORE-peace (unit composed of army and police) comes

to deal with the rebels.

When reading The Stone Gods it is almost impossible to not realize the strong

influences of the author’s present time on the work – the novel is a perfect cocktail of

the troubles of mankind at the turn of the 21 st century spiced by the aspects of the three

31
previously mentioned dystopias. Jeanette Winterson stated about it in an interview: “I

wanted to confront the challenges of our own time directly … So the reader could come

on with me and narrator, Billie Crusoe and perhaps discuss the situation we're in now -

with the climate change problems, possibly with impending terrorist threats" (The Book

Show) - and so she does. The complex structure of the book clearly reflects the state of

the world we live in. Besides the moral decline, ecological problems and military

conflicts, the most discussed theme in the novel is the technological development and

artificial intelligence. Even though Winterson says she is not blaming science, she is

still afraid of the consequences of its rapid development: “There is nothing in The Stone

Gods ... which is not being developed now somewhere in science. The idea of age

reversal, genetic fixing or artificial inteligence that looks like you and I ... All of that is

really being researched now in laboratories" (The Book Show). Seeing the growing

importance of this field in the ruling and administration, the author decided to react and

offer her vision of how these means could be mistreated for the benefit of smaller

groups to deprive mankind.

Considering the various faces of administration the authors used in their

dystopian visions, it is clearly visible that all of them are created as a direct consequence

of either functioning social systems or threatening aspects, which were dominating the

times when the novels were created. The dystopian novel thus becomes a dynamic genre

that enables the greatest literary minds to warn their readers and draw their attention to

the aspects mankind should be aware of.

3.2 Sexuality

Sexuality as one of the strongest human instincts bears a great potential as form

of expression of the state of the society. Relations between the sexes and the forms of

32
their expression thus play an important role in each of the four novels – these dystopian

writers proved that sexual instinct may be used both a means for keeping the society in

order and as a means of rebellion against this order. The form in which the instinct was

displayed was clearly influenced by the changing point of view on the issue in the

society the authors were writing in.

As far as Huxley’s Brave New World is concerned, the role of sexuality in the

novel is obvious – the government has denounced traditional family values and replaced

them by unbounded promiscuity that satisfies citizens and thus keeps them away from

other, possibly dangerous, impassioned expressions by protecting them from

dissatisfaction and possible lovesickness (Freud’s function). What was Huxley’s

inspiration for this system of values is evident and it is even directly stated in the book –

“Our For – or our Freud, as for some inscrutable reason he chose to call himself

whenever he spoke of psychological matters - Our Freud had been the first to reveal the

appalling dangers of family life” (Huxley, “Brave New World“ 34). In the times Huxley

was writing Brave New World the world was still amazed by Freud’s psychoanalysis and

his explanations of sexual behaviour. This obviously influenced also Huxley so much

that he made the critique of unbounded sexuality on of the pillar stones of the book - he

uses a world where "everyone belongs to everyone else" (Huxley, “Brave New World“

35) to demonstrate that uncontrolled promiscuity can not satisfy normal people the way

a romantic relationship does. Even though Savage John loves Lenina and she is

indisputably attracted to him, keeping to traditional values he refuses her sexual

proposals as they are clearly based on other than romantic motives. “In a true utopia, the

counterparts of John and Lenina will enjoy fantastic love-making, undying mutual

admiration, and live together happily ever after” (Pearce). To underline the Freudian

influence on the work Huxley makes use of Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex by

33
representing the relationship between Savage (John), his mother Linda and her lover

Popé (Freud’s function).

On the contrary, Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four presents sexuality in a

completely opposite way – the goal of the government is the same as it wants to prevent

every form of passionate relationship, but to achieve this it, contrastively to Huxley,

bans sexual relationships. The only form of sexual contact that is allowed is between

husband and wife (that are not allowed to have any romantic feelings) to produce

children – this was usually referred to as a “duty to the party” (Orwell, “Nineteen

Eighty-Four” 57). All other forms of sexual behaviour would provide citizens of

Oceania with pleasure and other feelings unknown to them, which would be a real threat

to the system. Winston reflects that the “real, undeclared purpose was to remove all

pleasure from the sexual act … The Part was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could

not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it” (Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” 56).

This state of the society enabled Winston and Julia’s affair to become an act of

rebellion – and as Orwell proves, this relationship was enough to change an

uncourageous worker into a rebel willing to murder and die in the name of revolution.

His relationship with Julia provided him with not only outlet of his sexual needs,

showed him that he was not alone in his thoughts, but also proved to him that it was

possible to disobey the omnipotent Party (Horan).

Even though the sexual restrictions displayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four are not

based on a real situation existing in the world, it serves a terrifying prophecy what may

happen if the totalitarian regimes spreading in the world around him and their growing

restrictions are not stopped.

Sexual desire and its expressions play an important role also in Carter’s Heroes

and Villains – the significance of the passionate relationship between the two main

34
characters is so great that Eva C. Karpinsky in her essay classified it by an invented

term “dystopian romance” (Karpinsky). Since passion is something unknown to the

Professors who prefer arranged marriages, Marianne is confronted with real passionate

feelings only after she joins the colourful world of the Barbarians. This enables a rather

uncommon romance between Marianne and Jewel to start, which Carter uses to

challenge several sexual stereotypes.

Breaking stereotypes is one of the most important aspects of Heroes and Villains

and since Angela Carter is strongly feminist oriented, she focuses mainly on stereotypes

related to the gender and the relationship between man and woman. The couple’s

relationship is built on passion rather than on love, therefore there is a strong difference

between their nightly love-making and their mutual expressions during a day. To prove

this, in the end Marianne tells Jewell that he with his unique appearance is “nothing but

the furious invention of [her] virgin nights” (Carter 137), which supports the assertion

that Carter inverts the traditional dichotomy of man and woman, where the woman is a

sexual object, and thus in Heroes and Villains a man becomes the object of woman’s

sexual imagination which the woman uses mainly to find herself (Franková 50). At the

same time, Angela Carter reverses the established myth of demonic lover, where,

instead of being submissive, Marianne becomes the powerful one that reminds the

partner of his past sins (Peach 96). By enabling her to take decisive steps Jewel thus

serves as a means of expressing Marianne’s passion and freeing herself from the

restricting conventions of the Professors’ society.

In contrast with Carter, Jeanette Winterson deals with sexual issues on a much

broader social scale and applies a more critical point of view on the sexual reality of her

times. Since the evolution on Orbus has got so far that everybody can stay young and

beautiful forever, this perfection has become uninteresting and various sexual deviations

35
are gaining on popularity. “Sexy sex is now about freaks and children ... giantesses are

back in business. Grotesques earn good money. Kids under ten are known as a veal in

the trade" (Winterson 23). Winterson sees this as naturally following steps of the current

state of society.

The situation is rather unpleasant for women too – similarly to Huxley’s World

State, sex is no longer used for reproduction, which changes the position of women as

child-bearers. “The future of women is uncertain. We don’t breed in the womb any

more, and if we aren’t wanted for sex …But there will always be men. Women haven’t

gone for little boys. Women have a different approach. Surrounded by hunks, they look

for ‘the ugly man inside’. Thugs and gangsters, rapists and wife-beaters are making a

comeback" (Winterson 26). The Central Power is thus not only strongly sexually-

decadent, but it is also being deprived of the traditional family values and the real

meaning of human relationships.

Another related issue that the author is discussing is a possibility of sexual

relationships with artificial intelligence – even though the morally deprived society

punishes inter-species sex by death, Billie is engaged in an erotic relationship with

Robo Sapiens, which proves Spikes’ theory about the possibility of emerging kinship

between humans and robots caused by decreasing differences between the two. As she

says, the evolution of the robots had to have certain limits, but “we have broken those

limits” (Winterson 35).

As was already written, sexuality plays an important role in all of the mentioned

dystopian novels and each of the authors uses it as a powerful and understandable form

of expression of its possible function in our present and our future. Depending on the

varying points of view of different authors it may function both as a means of

destruction and a means of salvation, but the opinion that unites the four is

36
unsurprisingly based on the importance of love in human life and the notion that sexual

relationships should not be deprived of it, since it keeps a progression of mankind

meaningful.

3.3 Language

As people building their lives on words, the authors fully appreciated the

importance of language for mankind and thus each of them ascribed it an important role

in their dystopian novels. As a most important means of communication we use every

day, language can function not only as a perfect reflection of the times the authors lived

in, but it may be also used as a means of manipulation and a limiting element of the

freedom of an individual.

The aspect that all the novels share is a complete abandonment of freedom of

speech through the banning or simply dropping of art. Art functions as a most powerful

tool for spreading individual thoughts which have to be controlled in order to keep the

society within set lines of behaviour. All meaningful forms of art had been replaced by a

mechanically-produced entertainment serving solely for a simple amusement or, even

worse, propaganda. As all the individual minds in the societies were systematically

vaporized or suppressed, there is nobody left to bring and spread new creative ideas,

which logically results in ruling out the further intellectual development, which only

supports the stability of the totalitarian regimes. As far as individual ways of treatment

of language in the dystopian novels are concerned, the authors propose several scenarios

of how it can be used to limit individual knowledge and freedom.

As Huxley devoted a large portion of the book to the emerging usage of

propagandist practices, he applies a brilliant example of this in the methods of a moral

sleep-teaching used in the World State. The desired values are formed in simple slogans

37
that are easy to remember and in this form repeated to the sleeping children “a hundred

and twenty times three times a week for thirty months” (Huxley, “Brave New World“

24) until they are firmly set in the child's sub-consciousness and kept as a standard of

living. A disciplined citizen thus daily repeats learned rhymes whenever they are

applicable, which always enables him to make the decision that is in accordance with

the society’s rules - it has became a fundamental part of his mind. This is obvious for

example when Lenina repeats the rhymes after she falls asleep – for her, these are the

greatest truths of life.

In Brave New World Revisited Huxley explains that the basic inspiration for this

usage of language had been the spreading world of commercials. By forming a message

in a simple and catchy form that clings to one’s mind miracles can be achieved.

“Nonsense which it would be shameful for a reasonable being to write, speak or hear

spoken can be sung or listened to by that same rational being with pleasure and even

with a kind of intellectual conviction“ (Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited“ 88). If

only Huxley knew how right he was.

Definitely the biggest experimenter of the four in this respect was George

Orwell. His well though-out concept of doublethink is widely recognized and over the

years it has become part of the wider English vocabulary, therefore I will rather focus on

the concept of Newspeak - "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets

smaller every year“ (Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” 45) – the ultimate weapon, “a

mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal being the destruction of will and imagination"

(Berkes).

Orwell’s fear of misusing the language as a tool of propaganda is evident as he

not only places a great focus on the concept of Newspeak during the whole novel, but

also adds a separate, several-pages-long appendix dealing solely with this issue. In the

38
appendix he provides a definition: “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a

medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of

Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible” (Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-

Four” 241). The language which is only in the earlier stages of development in 1984

will in his final form not allow its users to commit a thoughtcrime, since it will not

contain words that could express the thoughts that the party would not approve.

Moreover, the meanings of the remaining words will be so narrowed that they will not

make it possible to describe forbidden concepts in any way - the author provides an

adjective "equal" as an example. It will apply only to the physical characteristics of

individuals, since there is no more anything like the concept of political equality. The

same will apply to “countless other words such as honour, justice, morality,

internationalism, democracy, science and religion [that] had simply ceased to exist”

(Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” 246). Newspeak will moreover bring a definitive end

of an old knowledge as, in several generations, it will make impossible to accurately

translate everything written before the revolution and no one will ever be able to get to

know what the greatest philosophers and writers had to say centuries ago. As Berkes

concludes his essay on the language of Nineteen Eighty-Four, “Orwell’s novel carries a

well-founded warning about the powers of language. It shows how language can shape

people’s sense of reality, how it can be used to conceal truths, and even how it can be

used to manipulate history“ (Berkes).

Angela Carter also ascribes a great importance to the language, but mainly to the

process of naming and using proper names for individual concepts. Since the novel

deals with rediscovering and recreating the world full of broken stereotypes, it is left to

the reader to decide which name is proper and which is not. This aspect of the novel is

39
clear from its title – Angela Carter lets the reader to make a decision who is the hero and

who is the villain, since, as she says, the appearances are not to be trusted.

At the same time, by a symbolical destruction of a new civilization she gives the

world a chance to start from a new beginning and to make the things right – “losing

their names, these things underwent a process of uncreation and reverted to chaos,

existing only to themselves in an unconstructed world, where they were not formally

acknowledged, becoming an ever-widening margin of undifferentiated and nameless

matter surrounding the outposts of man" (Carter 136). Language thus functions as a

basic characteristic of things that has to be challenged, since it was forgotten and has to

be set up again in a right way.

Similarly to the previously discussed aspects, The Stone Gods deals with

language mainly in relation to the author’s present time. Jeanette Winterson discusses

the modern usage of language right at the beginning – the proper usage of language, as a

means for the intellectual development, is gradually being abandoned. Not only are

books no longer read and text are only dictated instead of written, but all texts are

gradually being shortened - short words are no longer enough, thus everything is being

named by an abbreviation, or rather even a single letter. The new world does not have

time for proper communication or expressions, why would it have time for literature?

That is now a completely forgotten concept and so is the proper education and

communication, which brings its results - “Guns are a failure of communication”

(Winterson 208). Jeanette Winterson again takes her time to show us what we are doing

wrong and how we will end if we do not do something about it.

Even though each of the four authors employs language in a different way, it is

clearly visible how important they consider proper communication and all it forms to

be. Language is not only a powerful means of communication and manipulation; it is

40
also a symbol of the state of mankind and a most important tool for keeping

individuality and knowledge alive. Thus the way it will be treated will definitely

determine the way mankind will further develop.

4 Were the Prophets Right?

As was already written, all the dystopian works are built on some actual basis

and their primary objective is to warn the society of their times from various negative

trends that are emerging. To do this they create an exaggerated vision of what the

society would look like if the trends develop further. In this chapter I will try to very

briefly analyze how closely to the actual future did the dystopian prophecies get and

what possible solutions to the problems the authors propose.

Bearing in mind that Aldous Huxley’s novel is the oldest of the discussed ones, it

is almost terrifying how much of the actual future he was able to predict. This was most

probably caused by the fact that his strongest inspiration for this novel was his visit to

the USA – the culture that had the strongest influence on the development of the

western civilization in the following years.

Huxley himself discusses almost all the aspects of the World State in his non-

fictional work Brave New World Revisited, where he sadly concludes that 27 years after

publishing his novel, the world got dangerously closer to the state he was warning from.

This applies both to the technological inventions and social trends he described.

Terrified after close analysis of the mentioned aspects, in the final chapter he proposes

what has to be done to stop the decline of the cruel world that has become reality. As the

most efficient tool, he proposes the active participation and concern in what is

happening around us, because passive knowledge will not help in any way - “All this is

obvious today and, indeed, was obvious fifty years ago …And yet, in spite of all this

41
preaching and this exemplary practice, the disease grows steadily worse” (Huxley,

“Brave New World Revisited“ 183-5). At the same time Huxley realizes that it will be

difficult to change the started development, because the majority is comfortable even

with oppression if they are fed, which is summed up in the phrase “Give me television

and hamburgers, but don’t bother me with responsibilities of liberty” (Huxley, “Brave

New World Revisited“ 187).

Mankind can only be grateful that George Orwell’s much more gloomy vision of

our future did not get as close to reality as Huxley’s one. Even though the practices that

were in power in Oceania very much resemble the actual ideology in totalitarian

regimes (as Huxley stated in his comparison of his and Orwell’s world), the society

controlled through punishment is not sustainable. – “Punishment temporarily puts a stop

to undesirable behaviour, but does not permanently reduce the victim’s tendency to

indulge in it” (Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited“ 14). As a consequence, the

majority of similar regimes in the world was overthrown and none of them was able to

evolve into the level of perfection that Orwell was describing.

In contrast to Huxley, George Orwell does not propose a possible solution to the

evolving crisis and is much more pessimistic about the future and sees no way out.

There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All

competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this,

Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly

increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment,

there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy

who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot

stamping on a human face ... for ever. (Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”

215)

42
 The novel also ends in accordance with this mood, as Winston is not even as

strong as John to commit suicide, but he just surrenders, which is probably the most

pessimistic ending possible. The reason why Orwell holds this opinion was probably

caused by the events in his personal life, as he was writing the novel completely

abandoned, fatally ill and deprived of all hope. Therefore he had not seen any hope for

mankind either.

Taking Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains literally as a post-apocalyptic novel,

we may note that mankind has fortunately not got so far as to reach this level of

destruction, even though we might not have been so far from this kind of global

destruction in the past. This applies mostly to the times of the Cold War, which strongly

influenced also Carter while writing this novel and made her choose this destroyed

environment as its setting.

If we consider several individual aspects discussed in Heroes and Villains the

comparison with the actual reality becomes more complicated. Considering the over-

organized society of the Professors, that became boring and depressing, we may find

resembling situations also in our present as everlasting stereotype has in recent decades

become a serious problem for millions of people, who are fighting it every day. Carter’s

recommended solution to this phenomenon is stretched throughout the whole book – the

author permanently proposes abandonment of old non-functional stereotypes that daily

bind us. Promotion of new angles of view on old things has become one of the main

aspects of the novel.

As a counterpart to the Professors stands the disorganized society of the

Barbarians manipulated by the authoritative shaman. Using religion as a "device for

instituting the sense of a privileged group” (Carter 63) and tool of manipulation is a

phenomenon known to mankind for thousands of years, which (un)surprisingly works

43
very well even today and it does not seem it will be abandoned in upcoming years. A

possible solution to this problem may be found in the deed of Marianne and Jewel as

they banish the shaman, even though she implies that it will not be that easy as people

are used to his practices and will demand his return. Furthermore, through the image of

the Barbarian’s journey Angela Carter reflects mankind’s wandering through the time

and its immortal tendency to destroy. Eventually, this pilgrimage comes to the sea and

the ruins of the preceding glorious civilization, even though the last steps are really

difficult and dangerous. Based on this image, it seems that Carter sees a possibility of a

better tomorrow for mankind.

Studying Jeanette Winterson’s novel we notice that the step she pushed our

civilization forward was not that big. As was already written, most of the technologies

she describes in The Stone Gods are already being used or developed and also the moral

values are being similarly corrupted. Of course we have not reached the levels she

presents, but we are on the way to get there in several years as many of the trends are

getting out of our hands – the quality of popular culture is diminishing, people are

losing interest in art and literature, various sexual deviations are spreading, the

importance of the modern technology is rapidly growing and people are losing the

ability to communicate.

To present these visions Jeanette Winterson uses the form that lies on the

boundary between depressive and humorous to not only warn the reader, but to indicate

that it is not too late and there is still some hope for us. In The Book Show interview

about the book she says that even though the industrial revolution was some sort of

nervous breakdown and we are cut off from old evolution heritages now, what will kill

us is the belief that it is too late (The Book Show). Furthermore, she says that, even

though mankind keeps repeating its mistakes all over again, she had to leave the

44
possibility of change in the book to give us strength to do something about it. In the end

of the novel she proposes the right solution – “A quantum universe – neither random not

determined. A universe of potentialities, waiting for an intervention to affect an

outcome. Love is an intervention. Why don’t we choose it?” (Winterson 244).

Conclusion

International Reading Association defines dystopia as:

A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and

the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate,

bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias,

through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about a

current trend, societal norm, or political system. (Read, Write and

Think)

Taking the first sentence of the definition as a fact, in this Bachelor's thesis I

tried to focus mainly on its second sentence and prove the statement that even though

dystopian novels are usually connected with the future, they are more closely related to

the current state of the society the author lives in. To prove this I compared several

aspects of the dystopian novels with each other and with the actual reality of the times

they were written in.

The first of the considered facts was the administration in charge in each of the

four novels. This comparison proved the assumed fact that each of the authors created a

society that was in some way a reflection of his or her current times – Huxley built the

World State on the image of the emerging consumerist USA, Orwell used the

totalitarian Soviet Union as a main inspiration, Angela Carter used the post-apocalyptic

45
model inspired by the Cold War threats and Jeanette Winterson created a society that

resembles the close future of the high-tech society we live in.

The next aspect of the dystopian novels considered was the sexual freedom and

general status of sexual relationships in the society. Aldous Huxley living in the world

still strongly shaken by Freud’s theories used his novel to criticize his view on unbound

sexual life, while George Orwell made free sexual behaviour one of the displays of

human freedom that can possibly endanger inhuman totalitarian regime. For Angela

Carter the sexual instinct was one of the expressions of passion - the main instinct

shaping human behaviour and thus also its future. On the other hand, Jeanette Winterson

provided an exaggerated depiction of a world where inhuman sexual deviations are just

a step from the sexual revolution we are going through and highlighted the importance

of love for our society.

The third analyzed feature of the books was the usage of language as a means of

manipulation or for the purposes of depiction of the state of society. In Brave New

World the specific language was utilized mainly to illustrate the propagandistic practices

that were spreading in Huxley’s times. Orwell’s Oceania also used language to

manipulate the masses, but in a more cruel, and fortunately fictive, way to prevent

people from any form of individual thought and thus also freedom. In Heroes and

Villains the language mainly symbolized the form of the stereotypes that need to be

changed and set anew to keep the world away from the destructive future it is heading

for. In Winterson’s The Stone Gods the declining quality of language stands as a symbol

for the currently weakening demand for art and communication, which is a direct threat

to the future and freedom.

Even though there are a few instances of comparison where an individual aspect

is not directly connected with the author’s current time, in most cases this connection

46
was proven, which confirms that the four provided examples of dystopian novels are

closely connected with the time they were written in. Based on this, we may assume that

the general hypothesis of this bachelor’s thesis has a real basis and dystopian literature

actually is a somehow adjusted depiction of the author’s present time. That is also the

reason why it has been and will stay a popular and up-to-date genre that will constantly

remind mankind of possible dangers and their consequences it is facing, since there is

no presumption that our society would be able to deal with all its problems in a near

future.

47
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