What one may think of as being a Utopia could be a dystopia to another. Lowis Lowry’s 1993 novel “The Giver” may seem like a remake of the 1932 “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley given their similar plot lines, but these two novels also have their differences. Jonas and Bernard, the protagonists of the novels, both have an intelligence that wants to know more, that wants to know what is outside of this Utopian place they live in. Both Lowry and Huxley have very different family situations. Lastly, both these societies live in their own definitions of Utopia, but the roots of their government have a resemblance to Plato’s Republic. Although Jonas is very young in age, similar to Bernard, he has a deep curiosity for things that are outside of the Utopia. In Lowry's "The Giver", people are allowed to have feelings; they do not present hatred towards anything. But Jonas wants more in terms of emotions and relationships. He has concern for the people around him and wants to get closer to them. On the contrary, Bernard is conditioned to hate those in a lower caste, but that is the main...
In all aspects a utopian society is a society that is place to achieve perfection, and that is the society that both the “Uglies”, by Scott Westfield and “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut, was striving for. In both of these stories, the government had control over the people’s choices, freedoms, and their natural abilities. Yet both government strive for a perfect society, the methods they use to achieve this goal were different from each other.
Utopia seems like a wonderful idea where everything is perfect and no one suffers. Three stories address this topic and show how even the best ideas have their downside. The Giver tells of a society where everything is the same and no one has to worry about making a wrong decision. Fahrenheit 451 tells of a society that bans book in the interest of preventing unhappiness. The society in Logan's Run is full of pleasure but only for 30 years. In practice though, these utopias present each of the protagonists with a problem where they question how perfect their perfect worlds really is.
The authors therefor saw the ‘utopian’ societies to be a trap for weak minded publics, and that once in place, such systems would be able to perpetuate indefinitely due to the efficiency at which they protect and propagate themselves. Through fear, diversion and sedation the utopia can maintain a strong grip on the people it encompasses before anyone realizes the sacrifices made. The popularity of these books does rule out the possibility of such a society coming into existence in the future, however. The state of people is not about to change, and their ignorance will continue regardless of the harshness of the wake up calls issued.
The Giver is about a boy named Jonas who was chosen to be the community’s next Receiver of Memory. He lived in a community where everything was chosen for the citizens, and everything was perfect. During Jonas' training, he realized that the community was missing something and that there was more in the world. Jonas wanted everybody to know that. The Giver book was then made into a movie. Though the two were based with the same story plot, there are three important differences that results with two different takes on the same story. The three main differences between the book and the movie are Asher and Fiona's Assignments, the similarity all Receivers had, and the Chief Elder's role.
Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World illustrates a utopian society; however, the utopia that Brave New World attempts to create is predominantly governed by technological progress. Throughout the novel, Aldous Huxley shows that an obsession with technological progress creates a flawed and dystopic society.
Firchow, Peter. The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1984.
A “utopia is that which is in contradiction with reality,” said the famous French novelist Albert Camus in his collection of essays, Between Hell and Reason. History shows us that seemingly exemplary ideals in practice have led to the collapse of societies. Just examine the two most prominent attempts at a utopia: Hitler’s attempt to socialize all of Europe and create the “perfect” Aryan race coupled with Karl Marx’s beliefs to instate communism into society. The final result was the destruction of their perspective visionary worlds. There was one major facet that prevented these two from creating their paradigms: utopias take away individual freedom and identity and therefore society cannot exist. Aldous Huxley’s science fiction novel Brave New World examines the large disconnect between the future and present day societies, showing how several aspects of this dystopian world lead to the downfall of the individual identity, most prominently exemplified by the death of John Savage.
Jonas is the protagonist in The Giver. He changes from being a typical twelve-year-old boy to being a boy with the knowledge and wisdom of generations past. He has emotions that he has no idea how to handle. At first he wants to share his changes with his family by transmitting memories to them, but he soon realizes this will not work. After he feels pain and love, Jonas decides that the whole community needs to understand these memories. Therefore Jonas leaves the community and his memories behind for them to deal with. He hopes to change the society so that they may feel love and happiness, and also see color. Jonas knows that memories are hard to deal with but without memories there is no pain and with no pain, there is no true happiness.
Throughout history, people had made numerous futile attempts to create an Utopian society. The term "Utopia" depicts on an imaginary ideal state. Such a state is describe in The Giver. In The Giver, Jonas's community believes in the renunciation of personal properties, rights, one's unique characteristics and of binding personal relationships (such as marriage). This society is believed to be perfect, free of pain and sorrow; everything is under control and "same". This serene society greatly contradict with the one we live in. Our society is furnished with hatred and warfare, yet in return, we are given freedom and the privilege of having distinctive characters. Given the nature of human beings, our society is more idealistic to live in.
The Giver by Lois Lowry and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley have many similarities. They both take place in futuristic utopias where happiness is the overall goal. Jonas and Bernard, the major characters in the novels, are both restless individuals who want change. Despite the close similarities, there are many contrasts in the two novels. The childhood, family, and professions arrangements are differently portrayed in the similar novels The Giver and Brave New World.
In the book, The Giver, Jonas is portrayed as a kind, curious and rebellious individual with a keen sense of awareness. The beginning chapters revealed Jonas as a very naive and compliant person, similar to everyone else in his community. Instances, when he was a child and got reprimanded for small misunderstandings, made him like this. However, throughout the book, Jonas has grown into an independent and determined person, someone who wants to make a change. Jonas finds new strengths in his character which forms him into someone spectacular and distinctive.
Thomas More’s Utopia and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World , are novels about societies that differ from our own. Though the two authors have chosen different approaches to create an alternate society, both books have similarities which represent the visions of men who were moved to great indignation by the societies in which they lived. Both novels have transcended contemporary problems in society , they both have a structured, work based civilization and both have separated themselves from the ways of past society. It is important when reading these novels to focus on the differences as well as the similarities. The two novels differ in their views of love, religion, and the way to eliminate social classes. These differences seem to suggest that if we do not come closer to More’s goal in Utopia, we will end up in a society much like that of Huxley’s Brave New World.
Jonas always tells his dreams. He always was there for chastisement. He always shared his feelings at the evening meal. He also always took his pill every morning. “Now he swallowed the pill his mother handed him.”(Page 38). By the end of the book Jonas is rebellious. He stops taking pills for emotions that he is supposed to take everyday. Jonas stays at the Giver’s house when he sees his father kill a baby. Jonas also tries to escape from the community when Giver creates a plan to escape from the community which Jonas barely follows because of Gabe’s release. “But your role now is to escape.” (Page 162). This means that Jonas has to escape and the Giver must stay to help the community after he is gone.
Life is a very valuable asset, but when lived on someone else’s terms its nothing but a compromise. The seemingly perfect image of Utopia which combines happiness and honesty with purity, very often leads in forming a dystopian environment. The shrewd discrepancy of Utopia is presented in both the novel ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry and the film ‘The Truman Show’ directed by Peter Weir. Both stories depict a perfect community, perfect people, perfect life, perfect world, and a perfect lie. These perfect worlds may appear to shield its inhabitants from evil and on the other hand appear to give individuals no rights of their own. By comparing and contrasting the novel ‘The Giver’ and the film ‘The Truman Show’, it can be derived that both the main characters become anti-utopian to expose the seedy underbelly of their Utopian environment which constructs a delusional image of reality, seizes the pleasures in their lives and portrays a loss of freedom.
Revolutions and civil wars have taken place and totalitarianism has become a fact that can hardly be ignored. Therefore, the modern age has become a time in which more anti-utopias have been envisioned than ever before. A lot of authors have expressed their views on utopia in their novels. Some have done it by creating their own perfect world, while others have chosen a different path. They have been selected to voice their opinions in anti-utopian novels, or dystopia.