Governments have power over citizens of their country – that is a widely assumed idea. This power can reinforce a doctrine or ideology that the regime instates. Such ideological “guidelines” are often spelled out quickly and efficiently in the novels of 1984, Brave New World, and Anthem. Orwell utilizes three phrases: “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Bliss” – all of which represent Big Brother (Orwell 4). Huxley also creates a patriarch of guidelines, Mustapha Mond, who reveres “Community,” “Identity,” and “Stability” (Huxley 1). Big Brother and Mustapha Mond serve as supposed emblems for their dystopian societies’ values. While Anthem presents no figureheads to lead the negative utopia, rules are nevertheless put in place and enforced. For example, the novel’s mantra reads: “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One indivisible and forever” (Rand 19). Evidently, any notion of individuality – the Victim’s – would be rebuked by each novel’s society.
The society’s guidelines contribute to the regime’s power over citizens, particularly the Victim. The Victim, though, is not completely convinced of the perfection and benefits that such stipulations offer. Therein lies the issue: the Victim perceives limits, whereas the Authority sees profit and safety. To a degree, the Victim begins to second-guess the superiority and wisdom of the government; in other words, the Victims doubts. Both the Authority and the Self become weighed and doubted. A question must be posed: “Am I merely wrong, or am I actually the only one not to be numb in conscience?”
As the player in power, the Authority would obviously enjoy having control over its society. Orwell’s 1984 describes such desires of totalitarian governments quite well in Goldstein’s revolutionary book; “[an] important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party” (Orwell 212). For this reason, Orwell casts Winston as a document editor. In this way, he as an author can illustrate effectively the knowledge to which the Victim is privy. Huxleys casts Bernard in a similar role, that of a hypnopaedia specialist (Huxley 47); Bernard is one who understands the influence of mindless repetition in learning the ideologies of the Authority. The Victim’s mind differs because it is informed; this fact drives the central conflict through each of the four books. Also, such a tactic on the part of the author reveals for the reader the inner truths and structure of totalitarianism. Being infallible as a political body implies control, for who can oppose?
The Authority eliminates prospective opposition through eliminating comparison. Without comparison, the average citizen of these negative utopias knows the present only. Orwell writes that, according to the Authority, the citizen “must be cut off from the past” (212). Similarly, Brave New World represents an era in the future, towards which we as humanity have only “progressed.” Again, these would be the words of the Authority, not of the Victim. Huxley details the futuristic element, adding to the dialogue slander of our modern, timeless traditions. Our old traditions are considered shackles as opposed to freedom. The Controller official says, “Our ancestors were so stupid and short-sighted that when the first reformers came along and offered to deliver them from those horrible emotion, they wouldn’t have anything to do with them” (Huxley 45). Like the first two novels, Anthem surely warns against replicating humanity’s doings in the past – before the “Great Rebirth.” Ironically, this birth means no progression, but rather, a regression. The society of Anthem functions most like an infant compared to the “normal” adult age of technological efficiency in which we, the readers live. One can ascertain this idea from Equality 7-2521’s words in mentioning the unspoken times. We learn “of the towers which rose to the sky…, and of the wagons which moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame” (Rand 19). Thus life is restricted in terms of technology, as well as detailed knowledge of any past. Ivo Feierabrand offers an apt description: “Totalitarian ideology … tends to obliterate old societal norms and supplant them with new ones” (735). In this system, the Authority retains control of time as society views it.
The regime’s goal must be to produce this never-ending, cyclic system of control. As Feierabend states, “A totalitarian system is capable of molding its own culture, its own society and the individual, constantly recreating a new way of life” (734). Therefore, the Authority must affect each citizen equally and “mold” each separately, yet in a mass-productive manner. The roots of opposition must be uncovered and uprooted; universal societal control means everything is watched, welded, and won over. Of course, “everything” encompasses the supporters, all non-Victims.
In the midst of these people lives the Victim, contemplating his uniqueness while wishing to blend in. He must avoid the Authority, for he cannot wholeheartedly accept the pluralistic constraints of the life which society offers. Bernard, in Brave New World, perpetually mutters to himself complaints. These characterize the discontent within the Victim. “Talking about [Lenina] as if she were a piece of meat,” he says upon hearing two societal men gossiping of the “wonderfully pneumatic” Lenina (Huxley 44-45). As a Victim, Bernard is appalled by the distorted interpersonal standards that society has imposed. He juxtaposes his disgust with his apparent uniqueness in society. The two thoughts yield a bit of self-confirmation – a secret he must keep from society and the Authority. Society simply sees him as a misfit, one who magnifies minute, obscure questions beyond sensible proportion.
Brave New World depicts a world where society needs no vigilance; it has been sickly conditioned. Unlike Brave New World, though, 1984’s society exists in more of a vice grip, in that its citizens are always watched. In the latter, Winston’s questions arise from his own experiences. As an employee in the Ministry of Truth, he is charged with modifying the truth of myriads of documents. These consist of anything from a speech that Big Brother had given to an advertisement of some product. Thus, his work subjects him to the truth that truth is destroyed. Winston, like Bernard, realizes his uniqueness, that society is turned awry. He appears alone and attempts to maintain secrecy. For such pleasures as diary writing, secrecy is vital, for “this was not illegal…, but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished death…” (Orwell 6). These “forbidden activities” serve to further encourage Winston in accepting his uniqueness. In addition, he seems to see the government as artificial. The result is discontent.
The theme of discontent continues early in Anthem. Its Victim, Equality, parallels Winston quite closely, for he indulges in forbidden things. His doings, supposedly unknown to the Authority of his city, evoke insatiable curiosity. So, Equality evolves steadily into an avid scientist, concealed in an underground hideout. Rand makes it crystal-clear that society’s conditioning leaks out from Equality through virtually every other thought; Equality cannot help but contemplate possible punishments due to the Authority’s threats. “It is a sin to write this,” he begins the novel, “…We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!” (Rand 1). Winston, when writing in his diary, also acts in spite of fear of being discovered; “He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act” (Orwell 7). Both Equality and Winston realize the illegality of their action. And yet, the two men persist in responding to what must be their souls. What else could possibly urge them so, since logic seeks to dissuade them? Again visible is the aforementioned thread: the Victim acknowledges his uniqueness as more than stray whims. Finally, he must commit to hiding his identity.
In short, the Authority fears even the smallest independent member. The Victim equates with such a member, and he longs to be merely himself, to express his idiosyncrasies, to be exclusive. Such a status cannot be tolerated, from the vantage point of the Authority, for it upsets the balance of equality in society. Huxley’s character Lenina reiterates, “When the individual feels, the community reels” (Huxley 94). This is one example of the killing of individualism, used by the Authority so that similar attitudes are implemented within society. For this reason, other words akin to individualism – “feelings” (Huxley 94), “thought” (Atwood 8), and even “I” (Rand 98) – are abhorred by the regime, and therefore the conflict plays out to be man versus society and the big boss. If the Victim has accepted himself mentally, then he has commenced the flow of conflict; he must keep his mind to himself in order to avoid detection by society. He is, after all, a threat to the totalitarian grip of the Authority.
Thus, the Authority views two options – either to convert or to destroy the Victim. In each of the three novels, the latter becomes imperative for the regime, since the Victim solidifies himself, his existence, and his self-identity within his mind.
III. The Mission of Eradication or Conversion
The dystopian authors have created systems of government that perpetuate themselves. Regarding Orwell and Huxley, Martin Kessler asserts, “both men are concerned with those aspects of modern science…which will enable future elites to ‘freeze’ the status quo” (567). Again, Orwell deliberately outlines this very cornerstone of totalitarian government through “Goldstein’s Book,” which Winston indulges. Brave New World presents the concept of cemented status of the regime in its Authority’s motto: “Community, Identity, and Stability” (Huxley 3). Stability is surely to be seen as the government’s goal, for Huxley does not tire of utilizing the characters to voice the cliché sayings of their time. As an example, Henry Foster, in talking to Bernard Marx, remarks, “You look glum! What you need is a gramme of soma” (Huxley 60). Thus, stability signifies comfort, immediate satisfaction. The Authority condones this, and has imparted it to society. When another citizen, Benito Hoover, enters the same scene involving Bernard, Huxley explicitly reveals the culture’s prejudice. “Benito was notoriously good-natured. People said of him that he could not have got through life without ever touching soma” (Huxley 60). So society frowns upon independence, whether it be through relationship or through abstinence from material needs. Against such a web of conformity, the Victim struggles; Bernard, in the scene, declines the offer of soma, the supposed universal solution.
Anthem’s assumptions of stability become evident through Equality’s words of guilt. The reader finds him a torn man – between an internal desire for discovery and imminent punishment for his thought crimes. Orwell’s idea of “thoughtcrime” explains the situation well. Winston knows well the word’s definition, for all citizens in his world are cognizant of the Thought Police. “It was conceivable that [the Thought Police] watched everybody all the time” (Orwell 3). It is such a fear that haunts Equality, forcing him to ask forgiveness within his mind after every act considered to be a sin. Obviously, Rand has created a character that truly embodies the Victim’s agony, the fear of being caught. From the Authority’s perspective, agony bears fruit, which must be conversion. And from this underlying motive sprout myriad routes by which conversion of the Victim’s rebellious mindset may take place.
“The party cannot tolerate any other autonomous group in the society, since pluralistic society connotes limited government” (Feierabend 735-736). Therefore, unity of intragovernmental departments exists as indispensable for the dystopian Authority. In 1984, the Party consists of four rather euphemistically named sections: the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Love, the Ministry of Peace, and the Ministry of Plenty. The former two are concerned with propaganda and discipline, respectively, while latter two deal with war and economy (Orwell 4). Brave New World presents less departmental structure, although there exist officials such as the Controller or the Assistant Predestinator, who oversee the technological operations buildings in the horrifically science-molded world. Anthem recounts the prominent buildings within the city setting with which the average citizen would be acquainted. The Corrective Detention, Equality reiterates throughout the novel, stands as the society’s source of discipline. There exist multiple vocation Homes, in which workers of their specific Home’s job live and fellowship. The Council of Vocations dictates whatever one’s vocation may be; Equality dubs this his “Life Mandate” (Rand 26). But even above that council lies the World Council, the body of all truth (19). And so, the Authority constructs a multiple-tiered regime, all the while insisting on the unity of culture and government. Although a paradox, such a system of government is intended to enforce the Authority’s ideology against the Victim.
Kessler says that the core response given by Authority figures to the questioning of the system is that “it works.” He points out the logic gone awry in the Authority-society equation. “[H]appiness is regarded as a means for the perpetuation of the Brave New World, not the other way around” (Kessler 570). As for 1984, it consists of a “dictatorship based on fear, repression, and misery” (571), as does Anthem. In any case, because the Authority flips the correct statement, the society must find its sustenance in the Authority; hence, the central flaw of totalitarian structure. Such an idea of dependency submits the Victim, the one not to be aloof to the distortion, to pressure. The dystopian Victim understands the fallacy of the premise of stability, for he finds reverence neither for the Authority, nor for the conditioned society. Bernard Marx evidences this attitude, as mentioned earlier, as well as Winston, who genuinely fears the Thought Police. Fear’s genesis must be guilt, and Winston knows that he has broken statutes many times. Equality, out of the list of Victims, exhibits the most reverence, in terms of his language, toward the Authority; he initially remains submissive, choosing phrases such as “May we be forgiven!” (Rand 17) that connote acknowledgement of superiority. Yet, it is crucial that one note that Equality defies nonetheless. As a Victim, he proves to be of solid desire. Characteristics such as these of the Victim threaten the Authority and its reign of “stability.” For as exceptions in society, Bernard, Winston, and Equality represent the failure of the Authority to convert the Victim.
As another route to dissuading the Victim from autonomy, the Authority twists the definitions of friends and family to match its ideology. In 1984, friends do not exist; rather, one refers to acquaintances as “comrades.” Anthem similarly depicts a shunning of the traditional friend. Equality attempts to maintain friends, for he seems to understand the humanity in some congenial preference. Yet, he refers to it with guilt as the “Transgression of Preference.” In the novel’s society, it is evil “to love any among men better than all the others, since [they] must love all men and all men are [their] friends” (Rand 30). Huxley opts to demonstrate the opposite extreme friendship, in which oversocializing is frequent. People in his novel view pleasure in relation to others – friends – in terms of spending the night with them.
Indeed, citizens of Brave New World know no limits in terms of sexual relations; Huxley screams the statement that such is the direction in which our actual society points. In one particular scene, “The lift was crowded with men…and Lenina’s entry was greeted by many friendly nods and smiles. She was a popular girl and, at one time or another, had spent a night with almost all of them” (Huxley 57). And so, sexual intercourse loses any intimacy and becomes commonplace. According to Richard J. Voorhees, Orwell observed that “there is nothing novel in damming up the sexual instinct and canalizing it into leader-worship, hatred, and war hysteria” (102). Thus it is that Orwell transcribes reality into his book based on history. Such an element lends starkness to the distortion of both familial and filial bonds.
The concept even bleeds over into the novels of Anthem and Brave New World, in which there exist no “families.” The latter explains that formerly, “humans…used to be viviparous” and were “born” (Huxley 23-24). In the current time of the story, however, babies are artificially formed using surrogates and other specific technology. Huxley introduces such gross science in order to paint the society’s grossly appalling view of life, and by extension, that of family relationships. Anthem evokes one of Equality’s disgusting memories, in which he recalls being summoned to the Palace of Mating. There exists a Time of Mating each spring, and birthing is thus controlled. Despite the natural process of intercourse, children may never meet their parents. Equality remains true to the status of the Victim, for he alone comprehends the wrong in the process, dismissing it as “an ugly and shameful matter” (Rand 41). He also believes in chastity between two lovers outside of marriage; upon meeting a girl whom he adores, he is overcome by the urge to protect her from the practices of the Palace of Mating (Rand 44).
1984’s Winston reminisces upon having a wife at some point in the past. Sexual activity was maintained only as a citizen’s duty to the government he recalls, for his wife intended to be patriotic. Winston observes such patriotism as if he stands outside of it, and onlooker. The novel even introduces the existence a “Junior Anti-Sex League” (Orwell 47). Apparently, any sense of intimacy within sexuality is violated.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood graphically conveys to the reader a perverted, awry take on sexual intercourse. Offred, the novel’s Victim, visits the Commander’s room each month to participate in a mandatory “rite.” She describes:
“My red shirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for. There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.” (Atwood 94)
Obviously, Atwood spares on words in yelling fact the Authority, who enforces these ritual laws, ultimately aims for sexual intimacy to be dead. After all, this activity takes place regularly for the average handmaid. Bereft of individuality and personal value, sex becomes another tool for the Authority’s purpose.
Thus, the Victim faces great difference in viewing sexuality and family coherence. The Authority fears autonomy, with which intimate family and friends interfere. Orwell held true that “neither is there anything original in distorting the normal feelings of the family to political ends” (Voorhees 102). The Authority desires society’s lack of diversity, and marriage and friendships both constitute hindrances to that goal.
The aforementioned goal may have another solution, the Authority realizes. Language tends to outline and characterize a people – a common fact of our modern world. “Language…with reflective thought…is what sets apart humans from animals,” states J. Daryl Charles (322). So, to maintain its humanity, society must upkeep a language. So, too, the Authority recognizes the essential definition. As humanity inevitably leads towards uniqueness, the Authority would desire, expectably, to sever the chain; bereft of variety within a language, one tends to be less human, and, therefore, less disparate with respect to society.
This regulation gives the Authority yet another item of conformity over which a prospective Victim must hurtle, increasing the pressure on dissenters. Bernard Marx, ever a misfit, exemplifies this conflict. Page upon page of Brave New World recounts disapproval after disapproval from Bernard regarding social trends. The book as a whole manipulates language into merely what society wants; Mustapha Mond himself declares, “We believe in happiness and stability” (Huxley 222). For that reason, the material needs are central to the masses’ thinking. Bernard abstains from the masses, and friction is bound to occur. A nonconformist like Bernard, Winston shies away from verbalizing the linguistic wave of his day, “Newspeak.” Orwell fosters friendship development between Winston and comrade Syme, a philologist “engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary” (Orwell 48). Syme emphasizes the enjoyment entailed in his job, which is the condensing of the culture’s language (51). Thus, Orwell paints a picture of two opposite men conversing, two men who are professional truth twisters. One dislikes his work, the other finds patriotism in it. Winston, a Victim, is tested in his ability to keep silent through this relationship, “not trusting himself to speak” (52).
Anthem offers the picture of a future of conditioned sayings, as does Brave New World. Equality, as he writes in his journal, exudes the effects of society-structured diction. The function of such conditioning lies in repetition during one’s youth: “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen” (Rand 21). Thus, the Authority may distort even the language of a bedtime prayer into its pluralistic ideology. Mindless repetition – hypnopaedia, more specifically called – is also quite conducive to Bernard Marx’s world. Analogous to Orwell’s placement of Winston in Minitrue is Huxley’s position of Bernard in the vocation of hypnopaedia specialist. As such, the character distinguishes material and conditioned bliss from humanity; “Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth. Idiots!” he exclaims (Huxley 47).
It is clear that the dystopian authors have designed their novels’ plots such that the Victim’s inner strife becomes evidenced. Often the Victimhood provides a stark irony because of its position with the Victim’s specific occupation. In all three novels, though, language becomes yet another toy for the Authority, for “it does achieve the effect of dulling one’s senses, one’s ability to think, and thus, one’s capability to act ‘freely’ as a moral agent” (Charles 322). The Authority-Victim conflict is perpetuated.
IV. The Deterioration of the Victim’s Confidence
The Authority must answer questions. What must be done in order to eradicate these dissenters? How can one locate and differentiate the Victim, the autonomous one? What are his weaknesses? Such are the fears fueling the Authority’s executive power. The regime well understands that “[d]ifferentiated group membership will bring about differentiation in attitudes and perspectives, that is to say, ideological diversity” (Feierabend 736). This “diversity” endangers the very base of pluralism, the ideological cornerstone of the Authority. Therefore, dissenters ought to be converted or purged from society. Of course, the former method of eradication has been tried, as earlier explained. Usually this eradication does not succeed; the Victim remains secure enough within his mind. Force seems to be the Authority’s next and only other suit to play.
Since force is a threat in itself, fear is instilled in the Victim. In other words, the Authority views it imperative that the tables be turned, that it deflect the threat. The Victim must feel pressure. 1984, Brave New World, and Anthem each divulge media of pressure directed at him. Extraction is the name of the government’s game.
A recurrent precursor to this Authoritative pressure presents itself in rumors. As rumors perpetually saturate a culture, the Victim, still a citizen, observes stereotypes of the penal system. Each dystopian novel has its version of gossip, its mode of expressing prospective punishment. Brave New World sets apart a geographic section of the earth as a sort of quarantine for those not belonging to society. The Reservations, as the area is called, comprises the only land fit for those the Authority deems backward people. Bernard, the book’s initial Victim, views this secluded area as a horizon of freedom from the perversion of his culture. Although not exactly a punishment applicable to him, it can be demoted to the level of insane asylum in Brave New World’s society. It serves the Authority’s purpose of expelling persons of autonomy from its domain.
1984 demonstrates much inter-civilian intrigue. Even children are taught to spy on their parents and to report to officials. As another example of rumors, citizens consider the Thought Police with the highest sort of fear; “[o]nly the Thought Police mattered“ (Orwell 2). In other words, the Thought Police are the only Authority officials for whom the Victim must keep constant vigil. Throughout the novel, the element of fear is linked with these invisible watchers. “[One] had to live – and did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized” (3). Thus, the reader can fathom the indispensability of the Victim being able to put on an act, to conceal his mind. A guard must erect itself, an ever-functioning eye for one’s appearance in all places and at all times. To be caught amounts to one’s interrogation and supposed torture in the Ministry of Love. Society in 1984 must cope with this reality, the reality that “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” (2) and tracking you.
Thus, the Victim experiences much indirect threatening. A sort of sanctuary becomes imperative, a “hiding-place.” Each dystopian novel allows for some such spot for the Victim to drop the act, so to speak, and revel openly in his desires. In 1984, Winston revisits the antique shop in the proles’ domain multiple times; in Brave New World, Bernard resolves to leave “civilization” and enter the “Reservations;” and in Anthem, Equality discovers an underground tunnel from the “Unmentionable Times.”
Each Victim character clings to his own secure place, supposedly unviolated by probing eyes. Items from the past, destroyed, as Feierabend suggests (735), attract the Victims. This concept applies to 1984 and Anthem, though not Brave New World, in which materialism is the component of the Authority’s ideological grip. In 1984, Winston indulges in writing a past-age diary, and the material is a sponge for his pent up emotions concerning his threatened uniqueness. He purges himself thus: “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER…” (Orwell 18). Obvious to the reader is his discontentment for his position with the Authority.
Anthem permits Equality to foster his love for things forbidden in society. He, “each night, when the stars are high and the street sweepers sit in the City Theatre,…steal[s] out and run[s] through the darkness to [his] place” (Rand 35). This place of which he speaks is his tunnel. There, he possesses and experiments with stolen items – everything from candles to manuscripts. Equality values knowledge, especially as its genesis lies in his insatiability to conquer the unknown. And though he concedes that his actions are evil in the sight of society and the Authority, he clearly states that “there is no shame in [him] and no regret” (35-36). Thus, he stands firm mentally.
Bernard opts to veer from any material desires, since he flees, in a sense, to the reservation. When the Warden of the “uncivilized” region attempts to unnerve Bernard and dissuade him from the area, Bernard replies casually. His words are “Perhaps…we ought to think of going” (Huxley 102). Lenina, on the other hand, proves the depth of her society-inculcated values. Huxley contrasts the two individuals – one a Victim, one a product of the Authority. The sight of a naked reservation Indian appalls only her (Huxley 110). This trip to a place bereft of societal norms, as Bernard realizes, enables the reader to understand the Victim’s aspirations. The Victim yearns to be able to exercise his desires openly. In totalitarian circles, such would be inextricably dangerous.
As another gesture on the part of the Victim to maintain emotional confidence, he seeks out friends. Fitting matches are rare, of course, where the Victim is concerned. Secrecy in relationships, both filial and affectionate, can amount to safety from the vigilant Authority; for any gathering of individuals who view themselves as individuals embodies a threat to pluralism.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale renders a similar sort of epilogue to relationships found in 1984. The two books’ Victims parallel each other in that both Victims ultimately face the reality of having a friend turned traitor. For Offred, the Victim in Atwood’s piece, the Authoritarian spy seems to be Nick. At the end of the novel, he leads the group ordered to take her into custody. “I expect a stranger, but it’s Nick who pushes open the door, flicks on the light,” she describes. “I can’t place that, unless he’s one of them. There was always that possibility. Nick, the private Eye. Dirty work is done by dirty people” (Atwood 293). He talks as if he has no qualms for his actions, despite his numerous intimate times with her. As she is led away, questions mentally torture Offred; she feels disillusioned by the fact that the second-closest man to a lover in her life appears to be “on their side,” the Authority’s side (Atwood 293-294).
This brand of disconcerting betrayal occurs in 1984 through the character O’Brien. An inner-party member of the novel’s Authority, he acts, as does Winston, to convince others of his allegiance to them. He speaks to Winston and Julia, Winston’s secret partner, to informally induct them into the “Brotherhood.” O’Brien informs them of their duties on such an undercover rebellion against the Authority (172-173) and assures them that he embodies no totalitarian minion. In this way, the sense of trust that O’Brien seeks to kindle between him and the Victim becomes apparent. Reflecting Nick’s duplicity, O’Brien reveals his genuine identity later in the novel, during Winston’s torture in the Ministry of Love. In response to Winston’s awe, O’Brien taunts, “You knew this, Winston”…“Don’t deceive yourself. You did know it – you have always known it” (Orwell 239). What else ought Winston to think, when a supposed fraternity of individuals becomes his very predator?
Brave New World and Anthem also exhibit disenchantment within relationships for the Victim. The disappointment originates in superficial relationships: Lenina and Bernard, and Equality and International 4-8818. Whereas the first pair creates a couple, the latter pair represents a fraternal bond. Nonetheless, each case has been designed for failure by the respective authors. The authors’ goal in mind simplifies to the portrayal of discouraging symptoms of friendship; in other words, the Victim cannot thrive when love, or friendship, constitutes illegality, whether filial or born of eros.
Upon the return from the reservation, Lenina and Bernard seem to have differentiated themselves from each other, estranged all the more; Equality names International “friend,” although the latter must abstain from exploring the tunnel with the former. Equality beseeches his friend not to report the finding of the tunnel to the Authority. International responds, “The will of the council is above all things, for it is the will of our brothers, which is holy. But if you wish it so, we shall obey you. Rather shall we be evil with you than good with all our brothers. May the Council have mercy upon both our hearts!” (Rand 34). Yet, beyond that, International has barely any role in the novel: his influence to serve the Victim initially has expired. Key is the idea that relationships cling to time, which causes weariness. Such exhaustion stems from monotone rebellion. How long can one stand against the Authority, directly or indirectly? The reader observes as Winston finds himself and his lover Julia arrested while relaxing in hidden room in the antique shop. Simply, the Victim’s guard becomes lax. Exhaustion yields vulnerability, and vulnerability begs capture. “Now we can see you,” condescends the Authority official, commanding Winston into submission (Orwell 221).
For all of these reasons the Victim inevitably must feel doubt and friction in his mind. Fear deteriorates one’s confidence of uniqueness, while one realizes one’s dire life condition.
V. Epilogue – The Victim Resigns
The question remains – How should the dystopian Victim, then, act? Must he crumble against the threat of the Authority, or dare he continue the vanguard of secret rebellion? The very horrors of such totalitarian regimes shine evidently here. A citizen in a totalitarian society may choose obedience in tandem with life, or choose rebellion in tandem with death of humanity. Offered and implicit ultimatum, the Victim must weigh inhuman life with human death. The choice frames the epilogue for each novel.
In 1984 it is seen that upon capture, Winston undergoes torture, and ultimately, mind transformation. Anthem depicts a Victim who flees the geographical society; only then can Equality exercise his individual mind. Despite the duality of the Victim in Brave New World, both the Savage and Bernard diminish as individuals. As befits a dystopian climax, the Savage, ever the image of the Victim misfit, commits suicide. In all three cases, liberation is needed, liberation from that which kills uniqueness. The Authority never will tolerate uniqueness, individuality; Winston, Bernard, the Savage and Equality each surrender some facet of their humanity in order to survive this intolerance. Winston’s loss is mental – he succumbs to loving Big Brother through the “victory over himself” (Orwell 297). Equality finds himself and fellow escapee, his wife, estranged from life in society. In retrospect, he describes his understanding of pluralistic society, saying that “[Man] may wear chains, but [his spirit] will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men” (Rand 104). So it seems that while he fosters hope, Equality acknowledges that the Victim will remain the victim, in minority. For this reason, he knows that freedom warrants a social death, as regarding society. Clearly, the Savage falls in suicide, a physical death, the price for freedom from the insanity of society. If these deaths are imperative for Victim-Authority cooperation, then does freedom truly exist? Can justice even be said to play a role in the characters’ fates?
The reader, in each of these books, is left with a stark image. It may be the twisting, hanged body of the Savage having convinced himself that only death holds the key to freedom. It may be Winston’s pitiful tears at the end of his torture. Perhaps it is even the vigil Equality keeps with his wife, isolated from society in the mountains. All of these characters represent the sacrifice required from the Dystopian Victim. For their contemporaries, reality has been blurred; what to the reader clearly composes evil is dubbed righteous, and humanity equates to stoicism. For as Atwood’s Victim, Offred, rues when led away from life as she knows it, “…I step up into the darkness within; or else the light” (295).
In conclusion, I find a passage from Rand’s Anthem to be particularly riveting and insightful to the Victim’s mind. Equality speaks:
“There is some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which had been. And this is the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But sometimes, somewhere, one among men find that word. They find it upon scraps of ancient stones. But when they speak it they are put to death. There is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word.
“We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the City. And it was a sight which has stayed with us through the years, and it haunts us, and follows us, and it gives us no rest…They brought the Transgressor out into the square and they led him to the pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer…They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, theirs was the calmest and the happiest face…
“As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours, else we would not be living today…There was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their body. There was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than it is fit for human pride to be. And it seemed as if these eyes were trying to tell us something through the flames, to send into our eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes were begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and from the earth. But the flames rose and we could not guess the word…
“What – even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the pyre – what is the Unspeakable Word?” (Rand 49-51)
The excerpt vividly shows a Victim’s price for self-acceptance, that of a Victim before Equality. In exchange for naming himself “I,” the “Saint of the pyre” is destroyed. Only then may the reader fathom true sacrifice – that of one’s life – for truth. Ever sobering through martyrdom, this image ought to remind us of injustices worldwide, both past and present, in select countries. Such totalitarian regimes truly exist, and Orwell, Huxley, and Rand desired that we acknowledge and be cognizant of the brute horrors of these sorts of governments. Perhaps we are to be convicted, through their words, to be active advocates of liberty and justice.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Anchor Books, 1998.
Charles, J. Daryl. “The New Verbal Order”. Modern Age 38 (1996): 321-329.
Feierabrand, Ivo K. “Expansionist and Isolationist Tendencies of Totalitarian Political Systems: A Theoretical Note”. The Journal of Politics 24 (1962): 733-742.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.
Kessler, Martin. “Power and the Perfect State: A Study In Disillusionment As Reflected In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley’s Brave New World”. Political Science Quarterly 72 (1957): 565-577.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: New American Library, July 1950.
Rand, Ayn. Anthem. New York: New American Library, 1961.
The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Random House, Inc., 1966.
Voorhees, Richard J. “Nineteen Eighty-Four: No Failure of Nerve”. College English 18 (1956): 101-102.
