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Individuality And Control In George Orwell's Brave New World

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Totalitarian regimes promote societal efficiency and control over every individual. As George Orwell demonstrates in 1984 and Aldous Huxley presents in Brave New World, for a single party to achieve a successful dystopian society, it must strip individuality, force loyalty, and practice manipulation. The most effective step in both worlds proves to be destroying any meaningful, personal relationships leaving only a person’s loyalty to the government. Sex, one of the most intimate behaviors among humans, remains prominent in both 1984’s superstate and Brave New World’s WorldState. However, Party members, Orwell’s miserable middle class, call any intercourse “‘making a baby,’ and… ‘our duty to the party’” (Orwell 67). Orwell declares any sexual act without aiming to conceive an act of rebellion because if one gives into the animalistic instincts, he or she performs without the interest of the Party at heart. Winston and Julia, Orwell’s protagonists who hate the Party, have sex, but not out of love. Instead of sexual attraction to one another, they had a political attraction to create a subtle act of defiance as “[t]heir embrace had been a battle [against the Party], and the climax a victory” (126). Though, in Brave New World, the government encourages everyone to have sex from childhood to adulthood with slogans including “every one belongs to every one else” (Huxley 43). This phrase also removes any feeling of individuality but adds an intense sense of community. Sex

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