Preface This paper would just suggest another way to read and consider two important works as 1984

and Brave New World, generally seen as TOTALITARIAN NEW WORLDS, completely separated from the real one we live in. This paper mainly raises a question: Is it possible? Is the New World, whichever we choose, either the Police State (1984) or the World State (Brave New World), really a new one? Is it really separated from the human world? Unfortunately the only possible answer is a negative one. The two worlds as explained in the first paragraph came out from the old one, from its ashes, but as everyone knows the ash is just apparently extinguished, but beneath, the fire keeps on burning and the same goes for the totalitarian system and its human soul. But another question comes out: Which is the relationship between these two worlds, between the external one and its human soul? Can we imagine one without the other or are they like the two headsides of a coin? There are two sides to everything, thus the two rebels are actually WOULDBE rebels and their dissatisfaction with the society expresses itself mainly in sullen resentment and imagined heroism; the two girls represent the rare potential to see beyond conditioning but cannot live freely. Whatever the percentage of human feeling and attitude, it intermingles with the perfect plain and controlled society. Even control and control need can be questioned. Everything in both novels is done in order to keep control, to be completely aware of what was, what is and what will be. A real need for control, we dare say everyone is control-addicted. But why? What for?

Having and keeping control on every single aspect of everybodys life means to avoid feelings: fear, happiness, satisfaction, bad mood, sadness feelings belong to the human world, they cannot be controlled, but they control or I dare say IT controls, and IT refers to the worst feeling human beings can experience: FEAR. Fear of suffering, above all. And FEAR, a human feeling, is the engine which moves the Alphas and the Betas, the World Controllers and the Ministries to act as they do: a human feeling makes people work to create a perfect world where theres no room left for emotions.

When the individual feels, the community reels1

Utopian/Dystopian Societies
1

Huxley, Brave New World, chapter VI, p. 84

In Utopia, they have a six-hour working day - three hours in the morning then lunch then a two-hour break then three more hours in the afternoon, followed by supper []. All the rest of the twenty-four theyre free to do what they like not to waste their time in idleness or self-indulgence, but to make good use of it
(T. More, UTOPIA Book II)

Mores island is certainly utopian, in the sense that it is isolated and selfsufficient, inhabited by people that seem to ignore the laws of commercial competition and the dark unconscious drives that often determine political actions. Not at all utopian, but definitely dystopian are the societies depicted by Orwell and Huxley in their works: 1984 and Brave New World.
It was a cold day in April []. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. [] the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere [] BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said
(G. Orwell, 1984 Chapter I)

By eight oclock the light was failing [] An incessant buzzing of helicopters filled the twilight. [] The forest of Burnham Beeches stretched like a great pool of darkness towards the bright shore of the western sky. Northwards, beyond and above the trees, the Internal and External Secretions factory glared with a fierce electric brilliance from every window of its twenty stories. Beneath them lay the buildings of the Golf Club the huge lower cast barracks and, on the other side of a dividing wall, the smaller houses reserved for Alpha and Beta members (A. Huxley, Brave New World Chapter V)

These two societies are introduced as the only ones possible, as the right ones. However they originated from the ashes of the previous world, of past worlds where
those poor premoderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didnt allow them to take things easily [] what with the temptations and the lonely remorses []
2

where people were not happy and constantly oppressed and

engaged with pains , sorrows, wars and fightings. A nowhere (ou=not, topos=place) or a better place (eu=good, topos=place), the world both the authors offer to the reader is an artificial,
2

Huxley, Brave New World, chapter III, p. 36

a pretended one and everyone is unconsciously aware of that: the author, the reader and the characters themselves. In both novels there is a SPOT, in its double meaning, as: - a place linked with the past (the proletarian quarter in 1984 and the Savage Reservations in Brave New World), and as: - a stain, a blot a stained place, a rotten place, a sort of metastasis, which will sooner or later undermine the perfect world and bring it to its self-destruction (fulfilled in Johns and Winstons end). Actually the spot, both the Reservation and the Prole District, stands for the past, the previous world, still alive, still breathing, still moving and represents the COMPLEMENTARY OPPOSITE of the new societies Orwell and Huxley have depicted: a Police State the former, a Futuristic Society the latter. Winston Bernard: the customized rebels In these perfect controlled societies, two men, two outstanding members of the system come out and catch the readers attention: Winston (1984) and Bernard (Brave New World) A common man, 39 years old, frail and thin, Winston is employed as a Records Editor in the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth. An Outer Party Member, he leads a squalid existence, wears blue overalls, eats synthesized food and hates group exercising. A thoughtful intellect, Winston is very concerned with Party philosophy; resentful of the Partys oppression of EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN, he spends much of his time musing on his rebellious tendencies. More than anything, Winston seeks the unadulterated truth and the only way to get it is by rebelling against the totalitarian rule of the Party.
Too little bone and brawn had isolated Bernard from all his fellow men, and the sense of this apartness, being, by all the current standards a mental excess, became in its turn a case of wider separation [] the physically defective Bernard had suffered all his life from the consciousness of being separate.3
3

Huxley, Brave New World, p. 60

Bernards character is interesting for his remarkable and complete change, from a likeable hero to a detestable ninny. He refuses soma on the grounds to be himself (rather be myself,not somebody else, however jolly). His glory moment comes when he is called out for being unorthodox, but in this very moment his transition starts. Actually Bernard himself has been conditioned like everyone else, thus his freedom of thought is severely limited. Winston gives himself false hope, fully aware that he is doing so; whereas Bernard is really more interested in excelling socially than in defining his individuality, and his connection to the Savage functions as his ticket to popularity. In both these two situations its totally clear that even the rebellious attitude displaced by both the two male characters seems to be controlled and part of a greater and stronger system, part of a plan realized by the system itself: CONTROL, CONTROL OVERALL, CONTROL FOR CONTROLS SAKE Lenina and Julia: the female sounding board of the male heroes
Pneumatic uncommonly pretty

Everyone is obsessed with Lenina, even if she is not really unique, or interesting or challenging or particularly intelligent. PNEUMATIC in its double meaning, on the one hand as full of air, busty, curvy and all-around sexy, on the other hand mentally pneumatic, i.e. lifeless and dull. Proud of her sexual attractiveness, Lenina seems at first a conventional woman of a society in which comfort, pleasure, and materialism are the only values. As the novel progresses, however, she emerges as a conflicted character, more complex than she seems initially. Lenina rebels against her conditioning for sexual promiscuity. Without completely understanding her motivations, she explores the emotional

territory outside recreational sex with far more daring than Bernard, the supposed rebel, does. Looking at the other novel, and at the female character, Julia is Winstons love-interest and his ally in the struggle against Big Brother. Dark haired, twenty-six years old, she is employed as a machine operator in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Looking like a zealous Party member, she always participates passionately during the Two Minutes Hate. She is a woman with raging hormones and a cunning spirit, she is used sleeping with Party Members regularly to satisfy her own desires, but actually she uses sex to attack the Party. Superficially, Julia seems like an uncomplicated character, on the contrary she represents the elements of humanity that Winston does not: pure sexuality, cunning, and survival. While Winston simply manages to survive, Julia is a true survivalist. She shows Winston that the Party cannot get to the most intimate places in a human beings mind. These two women, so different, so passionate, so human are a sort of projection of the unconscious, simpler and ancient nature of the two heroes, a somewhat striking contrast to them, they are their sounding board. For instance, considering the characters of Julia and Winston in 1984, while Winston continues to seek an overall explanation of the Partys control over the present and the past, Julia on the other hand, continues to seek personal pleasure in the present, not concerning herself with the larger and more abstract questions about her existence, and thus conducting her self-centered rebellion. Moreover, she is more optimistic than him, and uses her body to remind him that he is alive. She accepts the Party and her life for what it is and tries to make the best of a situation that cannot be greatly improved, but she moves, whereas he is just motionless and pretends to move.

Both the two girls are basically more lively than the two (would-be) rebels, who want to be individual and to feel strongly and act freely, but eventually show little creativity and courage. Mass-control: control of the past ensures control of the future
Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chain (J. J. Rousseau)

Today man in his civilized existence gives importance to freedom in the sense of the protection of the civil liberties, of which the rights to think, speak, and write are especially important. These and related freedoms are not granted by the state or any group in society. Those rights are human, social or natural, based on the nature of man and the conditions necessary for his development and the common good. Different kinds of freedom can be distinguished: freedom of choice, or moral freedom; freedom from external restraint, or physical freedom; social and economic freedom and political freedom, which includes equality before the law, trial before an impartial tribunal, and the right to vote or be elected. Under political freedom come freedom of speech, thought, and conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly or organisation. It is true that man is born free. A civilized existence demands certain curbs on his natural freedom. Today man has surrendered part of his freedom for the sake of his civilized existence. This, however, does not mean that he is everywhere in chain. Here and there man exploits man. But in a civilized society man cherishes his moral freedom, his intellectual freedom, his political freedom and his economic freedom.

However, the societies we encounter in these two novels are obviously civilized, but there, man doesnt cherish freedom, as just explained above.

The citizens of Brave New World, for instance, are in a constant state of imprisonment. But since they have been conditioned to love their servitude, no one seems to have any problem with this. Being happy all the time is a sort of prison. Rather than use violence to enforce the law, those in power in this futuristic society have simply programmed the citizens to be happy with the laws. This power is bolstered by a free-flowing supply of drugs, the insistence on promiscuity, the denial of history or future as any alternative to the present, and the use of sleep-teaching (hypnopaedia) at a young age. History is bunk, literature is outlawed and the only kinds of serious writing are the sleep-teachings. Thus, a whispering voice is heard repeating a lesson in a room where older children are napping, while adults are given soma, the perfect drug, in order to escape any momentary bouts of dissatisfaction, as Lenina does during her journey to the Reservation.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past

so ran the Party slogan in 1984. Control of the past ensures control of the future, because the past can be treated essentially as a set of conditions that justify or encourage future goals: if the past was idyllic, then people will act to re-create it; if the past was nightmarish, then people will act to prevent such circumstances from recurring. Every history book reflects Party ideology, and individuals are forbidden from keeping mementos of their own pasts, such as photographs and documents. As a result, the citizens of Oceania have a very short, fuzzy memory and are willing to believe anything that the Party tells them. DOUBLETHINK allows this total control. As explained in Chapter III, it is the ability to believe and disbelieve simultaneously in the same idea, or to believe in two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The Party carefully monitors the behaviour of all its constituents, the morning group exercises are compulsory, it controls everything and tortures and vaporizes those who harbour rebellious thoughts.

In order to achieve this goal, a NEWSPEAK is engineered to remove even the possibility to think differently from what the Party grants and accepts. Newspeak contains no negative terms, and all the words by which such rebellious thoughts might be articulated have been eliminated. The Armageddon The final battle, the turning point, the epiphany come into life through the characters of Winston and John. Both Winston and John commit suicide in two different ways; Johns is a real one, while Winston kills his rebellious soul, accepting the Partys ideas and teachings. Focusing the attention on John, the Savage, can help understanding what actually happens and how the two worlds: the human one and the perfect futuristic society intermingle and cannot be separated. John is the only person in Brave New World born naturally of a mother, He represents a unique human being in the novel, with an identity and a family relationship unlike any other character. Once out from the Reservation he is at first fascinated by the New World, but then he revolts against its massification, its lack of passions, its conformity, defending the right of man to disease, poverty, suffering and death in the name of higher spiritual values like beauty and truth. Once again the idea of the complementary opposites introduced by Blake prevails:
Without contraries there is no Progression: Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human Existence

The possibility of progress, of achieving knowledge of what we are, lies in the tension between opposite states of mind, not in their resolution by one gaining supremacy over the other: neither the external perfect controlled world can overcome its human soul, nor can the human soul. Two headsides of the same coin, united and unique, double but one.
Bibliography Huxley A., Brave New World, 1994, Flamingo Ed.

Orwell G., NineteenEighty-four,2004, Penguin Ed. Thomson G., S. Maglioni, Literary Hyperlinks, 2009, ed. BlackCat Mingazzini R., Salmoiraghi L., A Mirror of the Times, 1989, Morano Ed. Spiazzi M., Tavella M., Now and Then, 2006, Zanichelli Ed. Delaney D., Ward C., Fiorina C., Voices and Visions, Longman Ed.

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