Tom Healy
Mr. Valerio
AP English 12
February 17, 2004
Brave New World: 3
Traditionally, Brave New World
presents an undesirable and horrific society portraying a future quite
uncomforting; this is an irrefutable fact but the depiction is ambiguous enough
to establish a justifiable argument towards the antithesis. Art is abolished,
and this is a terrible thing, but something must be said of the satisfaction
and efficient stability of the residents of this seemingly hostile environment.
A Handmaid’s Tale is very clear in that it depicts its characters
unhappy with the system, but this measure of reflecting the ideals of a
government on the situation of its people applies to Brave New World as
an advantage, for the citizens are ultimately satisfied and pleased with their
lifestyle. Of course
it is undeniable that this is a futuristic nightmare, and
the residents may have been “programmed” to artificially condone their
surroundings, but this specific interpretation does leave room for argument.
The citizens of this society are
pleased, at least artificially, with their world. The savage serves as a
metaphor for a completely different lifestyle, which the residents view as
inhuman and primitive compared to their benevolent modernism. Consider the term
“mother” to serve as a chief variable for my example. This is a term regularly
associated with John and with his neighbors, yet completely alien to the
citizens of this world and met with contempt, discouragement, and confusion.
When John’s mother was dying in the hospital and John was by her bedside
weeping because of the inevitable passing of a loved one, the children being
conditioned for death as standard of their upbringing find John’s behavior
incomprehensible.
These people are happy. They live in
a world that has sacrificed art and science, and such a sacrifice from the
reader’s point of view is unbelievably fascist, but when science and art is
rooted out of nature, passion, and general tendencies, than what does it
matter. For ignorance is bliss, so they say. When Othello and The Tempest are
torn out of memory and out of a bleeding artists’ heart, who will cry for it
anymore. Freedoms are limited indeed, for several generations must have
suffered when such masterpieces and natural comforts where in the early phase
of abandonment, but heaven on earth is the meaning of life, right? There is a
justifiable sarcastic tone presented, for it is utter nonsense. What you know
cannot hurt you, but it also cannot help you. Free will is the betterment of
society. These contemporaries of this society notice the superficial promise of
fascism as the road to eternal happiness, and the amount that is sacrificed
portrays this society as an enemy to free will.
All in all the main goal of Huxley
was to present a dystopia, which he did well, but there is another ambiguity
and interpretation to present an argument for both sides. One may say that
these citizens are happy with their world, but to associate them with that
world would mean to deem them computers, for this is the underlining definition
of a computer: lacking free will, artificially conditioned, possessing a dead
passion for the preservation of art and beauty. Humans cease to be humans when
they are empty of moral choice, and this society ceases to nurture human
beings, only some new species of lifeless mechanisms.
The Handmaid’s Tale: 2
The social order of Gilead fails to
completely convert its citizens because the programming of contemporary society
will never successfully contaminate their deepest passions and most sincere
desires. What is left of the original human being is that which lies deep
within our soul, or whatever one may call that eternal spirit, which serves as
mankind’s greatest power of impenetrable purity and innocence. This is proven
by the natural rebellion to the social order of Gilead from the lower classes
and from the higher positions such as a commander’s rank. The attempt to scrape
clean all which makes a human being human and transform it into some artificial
code of law is a vain attempt. Even generation after generation, when memories
of free will becomes nonexistent, there will still be a natural rebellion and a
resilient mark of one’s original lifetime.
Offred serves as a contemporary of
modern society. She was a mother, and can remember well the life she took for
granted before this nightmare, but even conditioned and intrusively programmed
by the system she still recalls memories, experiences vague feelings of love,
and has a potential for sentimental attachment. In the first paragraph she has
a clear memory of the gymnasium as some resource of history that hosted dances
and told stories of glorious basketball games. It is nostalgia, but also
forlorn memories that she praises for their alien standards compared to her
world. Where lies the unconditioned parchment is in her mind, her thoughts, and
her memories of a world alive not so long ago, and this is what serves to
satisfy the semi-conditioned palimpsest. She clearly nurtures aspects of her
former life throughout the book in a hopeless and somewhat subliminal way but
the mere fact that she nurtures them means she is not completely conditioned.
Even with Nick she was developing at least a potential for romantic
involvement, such a variable quite unacceptable to Gilead, which further establishes
her unconditioned stand.
This theme can well be associated
with those who in fact have experienced a life before their latter situation.
Such people represent the most difficult generation to subject to this new
conditioning for the older one is, the harder they find to let things go and
learn new things, especially such consistent comforts such as human nature and
standards of living. The first children born into this new system and born with
its radical politics and fascist community will find it engraved in their
memory and their nature, so perhaps any newborns do not qualify for the
palimpsest theme for they are in no need of conditioning; they have nothing to
be conditioned from.
The commander, who invites Offred up
to play scrabble and later takes her to Jezebel’s, serves also as one with
aspects of an original free lifetime engraved in his nature. Nick plays along
and serves as a commuter between Offred and the commander but he also
represents a semi-conditioned citizen. In fact, if one analyzed most of the
characters in the book, they would find that there is no real person worthy
enough to be called “purely conditioned”, for it is a ridiculous society which
harbors rebellions that would be condoned by an outside interpreter living in a
free world. Gilead’s social order is bleeding with representations of
unpurified citizens who offer as a theme to Atwood a general palimpsest. The
attempt to scrape clean the people is evident. For example, the status of
clothing meant to demoralize and inspire procreation, but almost more evident
than the attempt is the inability to obliterate all traces of the original
lifestyle, apparent in every character and every bitter and sarcastic thought
in Offred’s mind.
A Clockwork Orange: 2
The representation of A Clockwork
Orange as a whole both supports Burgess’ acclaims to original sin and
presents a case in which the government intervenes with spiritual purification
and consequently shifts, becoming tyrannical. Alex is at the center of this
representation and he provides well to support Burgess’ view on this subject as
presented in the interview. Burgess believes in original sin, and denies the
strive for perfection on earth, which he explains is a futile attempt and even
more vain when governments try to force heavenly perfection artificially.
The government in Alex’s time
represents the government Burgess addresses in the interview, Russia and Nazi
Germany. Alex’s government does in fact try to intervene with his own moral
perfection, which consequently proves to be an unsuccessful attempt. Ludovico’s
procedure in A Clockwork Orange is a procedure of moral correction;
associating specific acts of vandalism with a sickness, which physically
prevents the patient to perform such acts. Now physically they may not be able
to be imperfect, but if there is still a moral choice to perform these acts, as
there clearly was in Alex’s case for he tried to hit Joe when the time came
round and he as well tried to grab the naked women during his testing, than any
world beyond the material world would not see this as a correction at all. In
fact, nothing has really changed within the patient. Burgess says that it is
rightly impossible for a human being to be morally transformed by anyone save
himself, and the closest any artificial variable, such as the government’s
procedure, will come to would be on a physical level that just builds a wall
between the patient’s criminal tendencies and society. This first point
expresses the vain attempt of governmental correction, but Burgess further
exploits this detail by expressing the failure for the procedure to even
succeed on a physical level, for Alex wound up jumping out of a window and
later being conditioned to return to his old vicious self.
Alex does not truly become
conditioned towards the general good structure of a human being until he
personally decides to thrown down his rebellious signature and grow up. What is
ironical about this is the simplicity of it all when millions of dollars and
countless hours of research were spent on correcting this youth unsuccessfully
and in a day’s time, with such a little effort spent, he is on the road to
correction. This is Burgess’ influence on the book when he says that we must
sort out morality for ourselves without the intervention of an intrusive
government. These wacky governmental figures attempt to perfect this fallible
world and in consequence only exacerbate the situation. Consider Alex, Dim, and
Pete who consciously cured what society had tried very hard to condition. Pete
became married, Dim, hired as a millicent, and Alex simply felt one day that he
was growing up and too old for vandalism anymore. What these boys performed was
all based on free will, despite the undying efforts of figures such as Mr.
Deltoid and Dr. Brodsky. As apparent in A Clockwork Orange, man cannot
support heaven on earth, and man does not have the ability to create a just
society, which was clearly represented in the gross mistake of Ludovico’s
procedure to artificially contrast this theme.
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