Suppression of Will in Dystopia: An Analysis of Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World, and 1984

Dystopian fiction as its own subgenre often falls under a more general category of science fiction or speculative fiction. Dystopian worlds are often darkly mirrored reflections of present society and include the author’s beliefs, complaints, and predictions about modern culture, more specifically about the trends in modern culture that the author believes could lead to the dystopian world he or she depicts. Within this subgenre, three works stand out as particularly thoughtful and evocative novels—Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, and George Orwell’s 1984. These books each portray a society similar to current modern English and American society, but with dystopian differences including a suppression of individuality and free will. In these three novels, one unifying theme is needed for the government and those in power to suppress the will and intellect of the populace through methods of control including distraction, a ban of and cultural attack on learning and critical engagement, and the use of technology and information to misinform and control.

It is important to discuss what each novel treats as “intellect and will” as used in this paper. For A Brave New World, intellect and will are described aptly as the “flood” that the government is trying to control: “Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier” (31). A strongly flowing current of water is the metaphor for will driven by emotion. In Fahrenheit 451, the danger of curiosity is the manifestations of intellect and will, as seen in the relationship between Guy and Clarisse. In 1984, the connection is direct and literal—the book is based on a conscious targeted suppression of will and intellect as connotatively defined. Each book treats the suppression of intellect and will similarly, but it is important to make the clarification.

Distraction as a suppression of will is one of the least disturbing elements in the dystopian fiction of these three novels; however, it is still insidious in its ability to cause people to accept the life they have without question because they are distracted from their true problems. In Huxley’s A Brave New World, distraction comes in the form of unrestricted sexual activity and the recreational use of a psychedelic and sedative drug known as “soma,” which is described as “[e]uphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant” (37). Huxley introduces both of these early in the novel during the scene between Bernard Marx, Henry Foster, and The Assistant Predestinator as Foster and The Assistant Predestinator begin discussing Lenina as a sexual object. When Bernard becomes irate with the conversation—a violation of social norms indicative of him asserting his will through passion—he is offered soma to distract him and return him to complacency. In Fahrenheit 451, distraction comes through media and other distractions. Bradbury introduces the topic in a conversation between Guy Montag and Clarisse. As Clarisse introduces herself, Montag remarks, “‘You think too many things,’” (3). In response, Clarisse mentions the forms of distraction in this dystopia: “‘I rarely watch the “parlour walls” or go to races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess’” (4). In contrast, Montag’s wife, Mildred, who is so immersed in media distraction that she does not even recall her own suicide attempt (8–9).  In 1984, the distraction is less overt as in the other two novels. Orwell does not use distraction as a political tool, rather he inserts politics into the normal tools of distraction. The televisions of 1984 are two-way communicators that are always blaring propaganda. “The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely” (4). Orwell shows how popular tools of recreation such as television can become tools of suppression instead, and that what people think of as routine distraction can actually be a form of suppressing and subverting thought and will.

The ban and cultural attack on learning and critical engagement is something the three novels share in common, and it is an important component for suppression of intellect and will. In A Brave New World, this ban is filtered through an emotional lens. Knowledge banned in this dystopia is both external facts about the world and emotional knowledge of one’s self and each other. Mustapha Mond explains the danger of learning in the dystopia, “‘Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy’” (152). He later likens art to science, linking both kinds of knowledge—emotional and rational—as dangerous. Of course, this is different from the technology that exists, which is advanced and beyond even current technology. The difference Mond is making is to science as tool for inquisitiveness and the pursuit of new knowledge. The games people play for leisure have gotten only more complicated, not new games (though they have new names). In Fahrenheit 451, the ban on learning is expressed literally through the burning of books. The opening of the novel shows the main character delighting in burning book “while the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning” (1). The “wind turned dark” is a poetic image to describe smoke, but it also builds theme referring to the world that is turning dark because knowledge is being lost. The ban and attack on learning and critical engagement in 1984 are through language, what the book calls “Newspeak” and which the character Syme explains its role in suppression of will and intellect perfectly: “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (67). The language people are forced to speak is designed to limit their learning and critical engagement. 

Technology and information are used in all three novels to misinform and control people, directly and indirectly, suppressing their intellect and wills. In A Brave New World, the two most important pieces of technology used for control and suppression include the manipulated cloning of human beings and the chemical drug soma. People are bred to fill different castes, including the lowest caste, the Epsilons. Technology has controlled all reproduction, making it possible to condition embryos meant for a lower caste to be more suitable for that caste. As the Director asks the students, “Hasn’t it occurred to you that an Epsilon embryo must have an Epsilon environment as well as an Epsilon heredity?” (12). This means that technology is used to control the potentials of people, such as depriving the Epsilon embryos of oxygen to harm their brains and growth. As stated earlier, soma is a drug that sedates, and it is used on people during periods of extreme emotional activity, such as when the Controller orders his men to administer soma to Bernard (155). Technology is used to control people from embryo through adulthood. In Fahrenheit 451, technology is employed to distract people, evident in how vapid Mildred Montag is. In her breakfast conversation with her husband, she complains they need a fourth screen in their home, and her husband reminds her that the third screen was installed less than two months prior (9). Technology is also banned in Fahrenheit 451, specifically the old technology of books. Books are a type of technology used to record information, with literacy being a means of accessing that information, and the only literacy allowed is through rulebooks and scripts. In 1984, technology is used to watch the population. Early on, readers are made aware that for all citizens, “Big Brother is watching” (3). In fact, the totalitarian and spying culture as symbolized by Big Brother has become a cultural symbol. This idea of surveillance and control is not new. In his work Discipline and Punish, philosopher and critic Michel Foucault explains the effect of total surveillance in what he calls the Panopticon: “Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (199). Foucault’s allegory is about a prison, but it is fair to call Winston and the other citizens “inmates,” as they are constantly watched and controlled by the technology of the government in an attempt to prevent them from developing intellectual pursuit or to express their will. Knowing that Big Brother is always watching, the power of the government is constant and automatic.

It could be argued that some levels of free speech, thought, and action are permitted in the novels, enabling the protagonists and others to see their worlds in rational, objective ways and that the worlds they live in are not totalitarian and collectivist-minded. The culture that Huxley describes in A Brave New World is not collective in how it views the actions of individuals. As Gorodnichenko and Roland point out, “In a collectivist culture, individual achievements are seen as resulting more from effort more than from ability. In contrast, in individualist cultures, there is much more emphasis on individual ability as a cause of success” (15). The same is true of Winston Smith, who is considered odd from the beginning of 1984. In other words, Winston and Marx should have been considered dangerous not because of their individuality, but by how much effort they put into disrupting the system. To some degree, Montag embodies the most collectivist-minded protagonist of the three as he must work diligently to understand the sense of unease he feels. However, the exact shape and nature of the government—including what could be seen as some freedom of thought or expression exists—is not important. The authors are less interested in creating political works than they are in underscoring the importance of information, knowledge, and the curiosity of learning. As Faber explains Montag’s malaise in Fahrenheit 451, “You are intuitively right, that's what counts. Three things are missing… Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two” (40). Faber is describing the learning process as the necessary piece missing from Montag’s happiness. This is, of course, true, and all three authors echo a general malaise in the characters who have some self-awareness that separates their individual self from their sense of self as formed by the community (Gorodnichenko and Roland 10–12). Individuality, as expressed in these cases, is not the political or ideological example of the individual but an individual as counterpoint to the culture of the world in which he or she exists. These characters—Montag, Winston, and Marx—are not heroes because of their individuality. Instead, they are heroes—they are recognizable and sympathetic humans—because of their intellectual curiosity.

In a dystopian society, nothing is as dangerous as a free mind and the will to change the system. All three intelligent and prescient authors—Bradbury, Huxley, and Orwell—believed and lived in a democratic society, and for them, nothing was as important as the cultivation of a strong mind and the will to act according to one’s beliefs. Each understood how learning and a pursuit of knowledge-empowered people to make them more aware, active, and engaged with their communities and government. A key piece of each of their dystopian fictions is the suppression of intellect and will as a means of controlling people and propagating a dark system.

Works Cited

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Web. 27 September 2013.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Print.

Gorodnichenko, Yuriy, and Gerard Roland. “Understanding the Individualism-Collectivism Cleavage and its Effects: Lessons from Cultural Psychology.” Web. 27 September 2013.

Huxley, Aldous. A Brave New World. Web. 27 September 2013.

Orwell, George. 1984. Web. 27 September 2013.