Ambiguity In Brave New World

In Brave New World, John’s happiness in the new environment of hill does not last long because he dies few days later. He does not have enough time to enjoy his new life. Writers of dystopian fiction usually tend to resolute the central conflict by death because there is no life without troubles. Huxley seems to say that real happiness in this world is difficult to attain. The dystopian protagonists may succeed to escape to a new desired society but they cannot overthrow the totalitarian dystopian society.

Jonas’ destiny at the end of the novel is not clear. Lowry intentionally writes an ambiguous ending so that the readers can decide for themselves. She mentions the reason for choosing an ambiguous ending of the novel:

I liked the ambiguity

of the ending. The reason is because The Giver is many things to many different people. ... So I don’t want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds… I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending (Lowry, Newberry 130).
Huxley, at the end of the novel, shows that real conformity and sameness are impossible to achieve.

In a 1962 interview, he says that the new forces of science and technology, pharmaceutics, and social conditioning could:

iron humans into a kind of uniformity, if you were able to manipulate their genetic background ... if you had a government unscrupulous enough, you could do these things without any doubt ... We are getting more and more into a position where these things can be achieved. And it’s extremely important to realize this, and to take every possible precaution to see they shall not be achieved. This, I take it, was the message of the book (Goodman 13).

Like Huxley, Lowry finds that it is impossible to achieve real sameness because man without freedom, love, family and will is semi-human. For man, choice is constructive and not destructive. And this is a shared message with Brave New World. In the novel’s conclusion, Jonas sees the lights of a village below the hill. It is very likely that this supposed community is just a conception of

fantasy:
All at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were the red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories, where they celebrated love. ... Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they were waiting for him (Lowy, Giver 179-180).
The lights seen by Jonas symbolize the lights of a new civilization that may be better than his dystopian society of The Giver.
Both Huxley and Lowry see that a genuine normal life is a mixture of happiness and suffering.

So man must suffer in order to know true happiness. This means that achieving conformity and sameness in this way of dystopias is impossible. Both novelists argue that people without sorrow and distress are people without souls. By the end of the two novels, Huxley and Lowry sent a frightening message to the whole world that one day in the future our world might just turn into the World State of Brave New Wold or the Community of The Giver. Therefore, the two novels describe a real dystopia based on science and technology. Humanity’s true happiness and stability can be achieved by intimacy and profound attachment to others, close family ties and a strong sense of people’s ability to have power over their

destiny.
In conclusion both Huxley and Lowry admit – in several talks and interviews – that their novels Brave New World and The Giver are negative utopias in which they provide frightening visions of the future. Both describe two futuristic societies that have alarming effects of dehumanization. This dehumanization occurs as a result of the absence of basic human qualities such as spirituality, religion, family, love, freedom. This dehumanization occurs also as a result of people’s obsession with physical pleasure and the misuse of technology. By eliminating all aspects of variation and diversity in favour of conformity and sameness, the World State in Brave New World and the Community in The Giver have rejected the truly utopian possibilities and have turned to truly dystopian societies where people are not free to move society forward. By eliminating the very things that make man human such as the religion, arts, music, literature, culture, freedom, passion and emotion, it is impossible to achieve real conformity and sameness. By eliminating feelings, aspirations, identities and many other things that make people human, the authorities of these dystopias oblige people to live a pointless and meaningless life. A society in which individuality and creativity are eliminated and in which people have no control to make their own choices and form their own lives is not a beneficial society at all. Such a society, if exists, is disadvantageous, unfavourable, unhelpful, unfriendly and consequently dystopian. Finally, Brave New World and The Giver are two science fiction dystopias that endeavor to reach perfection through achieving conformity and sameness. Such endeavors are doomed to failure because perfection in our world is impossible.