Dystopian Elements In Brave New World

The genre I studied this year was dystopia because I've always been facinated with the different possible futures that have been created by numerous authors and directors that have been portrayed in their work. Our future is uncertain but there are common aspects in all dystopian pieces which combine to create an extremely real and believable future. All the dystopia pieces I studied were set in similar places in time and place, had at least one memorable character who tried to fight against society and all had the same authors/directors purpose. The texts I used for my study were: 2081 directed by Chandler Tuttle, Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep written by Philip. K. Dick and also Looper Directed

by Rian Johnson.

One key aspect of the dystopian genre is the setting which includes the location along with the time which the piece is set.

Dystopia as a genre is set in the future and on an earth where governments control and suppress the population for a 'better world'. Often a global event or disaster has lead to a future where everyone is monitered and controlled to the point where you can't live a normal life. The future worlds are not ones that anyone would not want to live in due to freedom being completely taken away from individuals. The setting of dystopia is allows readers and audiences to have a look into the future and see what it's going to be like, if the world changes for the worse. Tuttle's 2081 shows us a dark and scary future where everyone is handicapped by intruments so the population of the world has the same abilities as each other. Individuals can be “ a genius and an athlete, underhandicapped and considered extremely dangerous” which in todays society would be seen as a very successful person in society. This is done to retain a stable society as no one is better than anyone else and in 65 years time, any sort of unequality could lead to a global disaster. Much like 2081, Brave New World is set in 2540, a future where humans are artificially created to be perfect. Society has now changed and normal things like becoming pregnant is fround upon as it would create imperfections in the bloodline. The setting of these pieces is similar to eachother as they both show a

dark future and society has changed to accept the restrictions put in place by governments. These texts reinforced my fear of a world that is filled with people doing what they have to do and not what they want to do. Our lives are currently controlled by societal expectations but dystopian pieces can encourage us to retain our freedom and not let anyone tell you what to do.

Another critical aspect to dystopia is the vigilant characters who stand up against the controlling figures in an atempt to make the world how it used to be.

The characters are followed exploring and discovering the world they live in, only to find the ugly side of what they thought was the perfect world. The characters are made to think and act in the same way the audience and readers are feeling to create a feeling of being inside the novel or film. An example of this was Joe from Johnson's Looper when he failed to 'take out' his future self. Joe knew that if his future self lived at the same time as his currrent self, it would create a rip in the fabric of time. Despite the pressure from his boss, Joe didnt turn himself in as he wanted to fix the situation himself, “i'm gonna fix this! I'm gonna find him, and I'm gonna kill him”. In this case the gang leader of Joe's gang was controlling him and was forcing him to give himself up and make things easy by killing his current self. Joe refused and chose to take matters into his own hands and fix the problem himself. This contrasts from John, who is a 'savage' in the novel; Brave New World. John lives in a savage village where they act as we do today doing everyday normal things. He is introduced into the 'civilised' community and is instantly disgusted by the way their society works. John fears for the state of humanity because they are no longer having children naturally and are encouraged to have sex with numerous partners

every week. This shocks John and he tries to make a change by explaining how life is naturally supposed to be. The civilised community don't listen to him and they continue with their daily lives. John failed to make a change or an impact in the minds of those involved however in contrast to that, Harrison Burgeron from 2081 makes a bold statement in order to make a change. Harrison takes off all of his handicaps and takes over a television transmittion to show the world it's a good thing to be unique. “ The year was 2081, and everyone was finlly equal” this shows the delight that the government share after succesfully making everyone have the same abilities. Harrison is shot and killed live on T.V when he refuses to put his handicaps on. He stood up to the super power of the government to make a change for the people and let them understand what is happening to them. Harrison leaves his thoughts with the whole of the population, although this is soon wiped from memories due to the mental handicaps worn. It takes a lot of courage to protest and fight against a whole government or organisation in order to help the people affected by them. I think this aspect of dystopia encourages people to speak up and voice your opinion, although not risking your life in front of a whole government, it teaches us to still take risks and go out of your comfort zone. Change doesnt just happen, it takes people and an idea. Don't let others transform your future into an unwanted world without making an effort to change it for yourself.

The last connection between my studied texts is the message that the authors or directors are trying to get across to us as an audience or readers. All dystopian pieces are set in a future where chaos has unfolded or where government suppression has taken over. The directors and authors who create these texts intentially create a scary and unkown world to evoke frightful yet angry emotions from the audience and readers in order to infuence them to stay in touch with their emotions and not let the world get over run by governments or technology. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , Philip. k. Dick created this masterpiece to warn people what will happen if technology continus to progress. Written in 1968, technology was accelerating at an unstopable force and as it grew, a lot of controversy grew with it too. Dick used this to create a future where technololgy has a mind of its own and turned on its human creators. Androids were being ordered to 'retire' as they were becoming uncontrolable, they were told to “emigrate or degenerate”. This was a subtle warning from Dick to his readers to be wary of technology and watch how it evolves to make sure it never becomes a problem or danger for citizens. This is also shown in Brave New World as Huxley paints the picture of what society will turn into if tecnology continues to become such a large part of our lives. Without technology, the civilised would not be able to survive. They rely on it for food, water, reproduction and contraception, without it they would struggle to live. The fear in Huxley's mind is that we are beginning to loose our natural habbits and natural instincts as we are relying on technology more and more to do things for us. We need to be careful how sophisticated technology becomes and make sure it remains under control at all times. The development of artificial intelligence is scary but we can not stop inovation from proceeding, we can only hope the developers are awhere of the potentially catastrophic consequences of getting something wrong and what it could do to the world.

The genre of dystopia has many key connections within it and from the texts I have read, a futuristic setting, morally strong characters and an authors/directrs purpose containing a warning for years to come were all important aspects of it. The ever changing world creates obsticles for our generation to overcome. Instead of coming to a hault on all change and development, we can adjust our lifestyle to work with the new conditions we face. We do not live the same way or do the same things as people did 100 years ago, we've changed and evolved into a more successful and safe society worldwide. In another 100 years, we would've gone through terrible events as we have up to now but we will create solutions to our problems and we will continue to live alongside one another despite the inevitable conflict. Dystopia has shown us an option of what our future could end up to be, but if the right choices from individuals are made, the world can avoid chaos and a bright future will follow.