Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World: Complementary visions reconsidered

At a time when both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World are more politically relevant than ever, and when specialist academic criticism of George Orwell’s and Aldous Huxley’s great dystopias has reached a point of saturation, it is salutary to go back to basics and talk about these books as books on their own terms. This paper does so in order to argue that their visions are ultimately complementary and that this complementarity is enhanced by the significant contrast in the novels’ tones, satirical targets, handling of influences and development of common themes. Among the latter, hope, failure, solitude and insanity emerge as the primary keys to the twin visions of a future dystopia.