‘Everybody is happy now’

April 10, 2013 by brandonellington Leave a comment

In Atwood’s article, she starts off by comparing two novels: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World.  The first novel was written by George Orwell in 1949 which gave society a vision of a brutal mind-controlling totalitarian state; meanwhile, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932 which showed society a different and softer form of totalitarianism.  Atwood goes back and forth deciding on which novel shows society how totalitarianism can influence them.  She bases her whole article mainly discussing the novel Brave New World.  Atwood asks, “What sort of happiness is on offer, and what is the price we might pay to achieve it?”  Her question is one that is very debatable.  “Brave New World is either a perfect-world utopia or its nasty opposite, a dystopia depending on your point of view” (Atwood).  Sex is often a main topic in utopias and dystopias.  In my opinion, it is difficult to comprehend what Atwood means when she talks about sex and who can do what, with which set of genital organs and with whom.  One of the main questions Atwood tries to answer throughout the article is “How does Brave New World stand up 75 years after being published?”.  Huxley, the author of Brave New World, uses language and events that somehow make it able to stand up in today’s society.