Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go both portray dystopian societies and seem to deal with the question of what it means to be human. In Never Let Me Go, a group of friends grow up at a seemingly idyllic and peaceful boarding school in England. Once they leave, they discover the cruel purpose of their existence, which threatens their relationships. Brave New World depicts a society where human life is almost completely industrialized, and humans are created inside of labs and conditioned to perform specific roles in society. In Never Let Me Go, an isolated society is established where humans are cloned solely for the purpose of providing organs for their normal counterparts and therefore live relatively short
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On the contrary, Brave New World describes a futuristic society where clones make up a large portion of society, and normal human beings are seen as outsiders and are even called savages. In Brave New World, the clones continually aim to achieve happiness and are subconsciously conditioned to accept their positions within the social castes. Any kind of deviation(such as showing emotion or appreciation for art) is seen as threatening to the stability of their community. In Never Let Me Go, however, creativity is encouraged and the clones are given opportunities to show their uniqueness. The novel creates a sense of humiliation that is associated with the fact that being a clone means being removed from society, while Brave New World is the opposite. Everyone is a clone and therefore society encourages its citizens to understand that anything else(such as natural reproduction) is deviant behavior. Although the two novels approach the portrayal of dystopian societies in different ways, they both deal with the related ideas of identity and the loss of free will for the benefit of …show more content…
In Brave New World, subconscious, prenatal programming and conditioning are used to impair the free will of the clones, and they are created to perform specific roles in society. This is to maintain a stable society in which there is no competition or corruption and everyone is satisfied with the role that they have been assigned. Their only goal in life is to acquire happiness and fulfillment from their place in the social hierarchy. An example of this is their “sleep conditioning” in which a voice assures them while they are sleeping that their position in society is the best. This seemingly makes their society more stable because their opinions and judgements do not exist, which further limits the clones from gaining a sense of individuality. In Never Let Me Go, the conditioning is explained in Kathy’s statement, “We know a few things about ourselves… about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the people outside - but hadn’t understood what any of it meant.” Furthermore, the reference of the clones’ death as “completion” implies that the students should take pride and satisfaction in their destiny, because it’s what they were designed to carry out and it’s the sole reason why they were created in the first
On the contrary, Brave New World describes a futuristic society where clones make up a large portion of society, and normal human beings are seen as outsiders and are even called savages. In Brave New World, the clones continually aim to achieve happiness and are subconsciously conditioned to accept their positions within the social castes. Any kind of deviation(such as showing emotion or appreciation for art) is seen as threatening to the stability of their community. In Never Let Me Go, however, creativity is encouraged and the clones are given opportunities to show their uniqueness. The novel creates a sense of humiliation that is associated with the fact that being a clone means being removed from society, while Brave New World is the opposite. Everyone is a clone and therefore society encourages its citizens to understand that anything else(such as natural reproduction) is deviant behavior. Although the two novels approach the portrayal of dystopian societies in different ways, they both deal with the related ideas of identity and the loss of free will for the benefit of …show more content…
In Brave New World, subconscious, prenatal programming and conditioning are used to impair the free will of the clones, and they are created to perform specific roles in society. This is to maintain a stable society in which there is no competition or corruption and everyone is satisfied with the role that they have been assigned. Their only goal in life is to acquire happiness and fulfillment from their place in the social hierarchy. An example of this is their “sleep conditioning” in which a voice assures them while they are sleeping that their position in society is the best. This seemingly makes their society more stable because their opinions and judgements do not exist, which further limits the clones from gaining a sense of individuality. In Never Let Me Go, the conditioning is explained in Kathy’s statement, “We know a few things about ourselves… about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the people outside - but hadn’t understood what any of it meant.” Furthermore, the reference of the clones’ death as “completion” implies that the students should take pride and satisfaction in their destiny, because it’s what they were designed to carry out and it’s the sole reason why they were created in the first