Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World: A Comparison
Two very different takes on the future
Both Nineteen Eighty-Four (its original title) by George Orwell — Eric Arthur Blair's pen name — and Brave New World (a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest) by Aldous Huxley are considered groundbreaking masterpieces of dystopian fiction, and rightly so. A direct comparison between the two novels shows Orwell and Huxley taking completely different paths in order to describe their version of a dystopian future.
Brave New World (first published in 1932)
Huxley was a somewhat peculiar character. Born into the prominent English Huxley family, he grew up surrounded by writers and biologists. His early education began in his father’s well-equipped botanical laboratory, which might explain his fascination with natural sciences that transpires from Brave New World. His dream of becoming a doctor was shattered by a health problem that left him almost blind for a couple of years. Thus, he studied English literature at the University of Oxford.
Huxley’s view of the future — as portrayed in his dystopian masterpiece — was heavily influenced by the ever-advancing molecular genetics research and the synthesis of genetics and evolutionary biology. At the same time, he was clearly aware of…
