Oedipus

Oedipus, the tragedy by Sophocles, teaches the readers and audience about the importance of destiny, and that one should not attempt to avoid or escape their fate. Having read the play (twice), having paraphrased and performed the play (twice, as well), and now having seen the play performed as an opera, I can safely say that I have a firm understanding of the plot and messages of the work. When reading the play, I always pictured Oedipus as a greek guy with lightish skin and sandy-brown hair and a beard, wearing a toga or something. I had an image of Tiresias being an old man with no eyes, and always wearing a navy-blue robe. Jocasta, a somewhat old woman who looks very good for her age, an olive skinned woman with dark hair and wearing a maroon robe/gown. I had an image for every character in the play, and none of those images were too far-fetched. When I saw Oedipus performed as a Japanese opera in contemporary roman style, my images were a bit shattered. Not in a bad way, I might add. I never pictured any of the characters singing, which is what they all did in the opera (because it was an opera). It took some characters about 400 times longer to say their lines in the opera than it took them to say when it was performed, and the lines took even less time than that in my head. The aesthetics of the costumes and performance were very archaic, resembling crumbling and ancient stone. This makes sense, of course, because the civilization in which this took place is now very old, and it was, of course, made of stone. There were a lot of things that depicted decay. Even the chorus looked to be assembled of a mix of relics, for those costumes made the citizens of Thebes appear to be long dead. The opera captured the essence of tragedy and death in a way that I never did or could on my own.

Final Boss Essay: The Dystopian Futures of Verne, Huxley, and Orwell. We're All Doomed

The 19th and 20th centuries witnessed the production, publishing, and distribution of some of the most famous, controversial, and critically-acclaimed science fiction novels of all time. Some of these novels came from the so-called “Father of Science Fiction,” Jules Verne. The purpose of this essay is to analyze and examine three particular novels from a period of time that spans almost one hundred years: Paris in the 20th Century by Jules Verne (1863), A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1931), and 1984 by George Orwell (1944). These novels have been chosen for a specific purpose; each of them is set in the future of the point in time in which they were written, and each future depicted by each novel depicts that predicted future to be a dystopian, drastically altered one. What kind of predictions are made about the future in these novels? How are they similar How are they different? What of the overall outlook of the future in these novels? Is there hope for the human race? These questions and more will be considered and, hopefully, answered over the course of this essay; no, this journey... Into the future.

Jules Verne lived from 1828 to 1905, and was a French novelist and playwright who wrote novels that had an astounding effect on the genre of science fiction. These science fiction and adventure novels include Around the World in 80 Days and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. Along with H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback, Verne is widely known to this day as one of “The Father[s] of Science Fiction.” In the year 1863, Verne wrote the novel, Paris in the 20th Century, which was not published until 131 years later, in 1994. The summary of this work is that it takes place in the year 1960, an age in which man has advanced far beyond it’s capabilities in 1863. The main character, a young man named Michel, is pressured into taking up the family business of banking, one of the only fields that matters at all anymore, along with science, technology, and warfare. Art and literature of all kinds have just about lost all meaning to society. However, Michel is very different. He wants nothing more than to be a poet. Quite by chance, Michel meets his long lost Uncle, Monsieur Huguenin. Huguenin is considered a disgrace by the rest of the family for his interest in literature and was estranged from Michel for his entire life for fear that he would be a bad influence on Michel. Michel, needing a day job, takes up work with a ledger at a bank, Monsieur Quinsonnas. Quinsonnas introduces Michel to Lucy, a young woman who is the granddaughter of Michel’s old teacher. Eventually, Michel and Lucy fall in love. Michel also dreams of being a soldier, but this is impractical, as by this point in time, war has advanced to the point where great war machines are used, and there is no need for living soldiers. However, these machines are all so equally and devastatingly powerful that all nations have reached a stalemate and there is no need for war at all. In a society of technology, science, and war, where art and musical progress has no value, there is no news, so Michel cannot even work as a journalist. He is forced to live off of synthetic foods derived from coal. The novel ends with Michel becoming bankrupt as Paris enters a small ice age, where everything is frozen. Lucy leaves him, and Michel spends the last part of the novel wandering around Paris looking for her, until he finally collapses in the snow in a coma. 

Predictions made in Paris in the 20th Century seemed quite accurate, as they included such things as maglev trains, an electric grid that delivered electricity across a wide area, and motorized vehicles. However, the dystopian view of the novel suggests a heartless lack of appreciation for the arts, which seems not to have occurred, but is nonetheless a very grim outlook on the future. While society has progressed wonderfully in science, the arts have faltered. It isn’t the absolute worst outcome, but it’s even farther from being the best.

Aldous Huxley was the author of Brave New World, written in 1931. This book takes place much further in the future, with some drastic changes. Humans are no longer “born,” so much as they are grown. Natural reproduction has been eliminated, and instead, human children are “decanted.” This keeps the human population at a limit of two billion people, and thus allows for plentiful resources. The destiny of children is determined before they are hatched, and people are sorted into five different caste type systems. From highest-ranking to lowest, the classes are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. The Alphas are the most intelligent, while the Epsilons are the least. Each class is subjected to hypnotic propaganda that controls how the individual of that class views themselves and the other classes, along with their society as a whole. This allows the higher castes to be as bright as they can and excel as much as they can, while simultaneously keeping the lower castes in line, preventing them from excelling beyond the limits that they were grown to have. The entire human society, including young children, uses a recreational drug called “soma.” Recreational sex is also encouraged, even from a very young age, and is seen as a social activity and not at all as a means of procreation. All citizens of this society are also conditioned to value consumption over production, with slogans such as “more stitches less riches.” All people in this future die at the age of 60, maintaining youth and health their whole lives. No one fears death, and no one mourns death, as there are no families and thus no strong attachments are formed between people.

Contrasting from Verne’s Paris in the 20th Century, Huxley’s Brave New World offers a wildly different and somewhat less-believable depiction of the future, albeit Huxley’s future is much further along in time. Huxley’s future also seems to be quite dystopian, although in a different sense. In Huxley’s future, society is controlled and altered, where free will and thought is almost completely gone. Everyone has predetermined thoughts and destinies, and true individuality is an illusion. From an outside perspective, the premise is horrible, but if one were to place oneself within the setting of the novel, imagining that one was a part of this future, one would be perfectly content, not knowing that they were missing free will or thought at all. It is almost paradoxical. Can a future really be dystopian if one has no context or means of determining such? Is the future really so grim if one is blissfully ignorant of their own dystopia? Is it better or worse to be aware of one’s grim surroundings?

It might just be possible to find out by analyzing George Orwell’s famous novel, 1984. It follows the story of Winston Smith, who lives in the year 1984 in Airstrip One, which is the former United Kingdom, which is a province of Oceania. The story takes place just after a global nuclear war (possibly a projection of the world after the Cold War, had things heated up). Winston lives in the ruins of what was once England, still ravaged by the effects of World War II. Winston is a member of the middle class, under the proverbial thumb of the Party, the name of the totalitarian government in the novel, and the Party leader, Big Brother. The slogan of the Party is “Big Brother is watching you.” Citizens of Oceania are under constant surveillance from Big Brother, even in their own homes. Cameras and two-way visual tele-communicators are in every home, and they are used as the Party’s way of directly communicating, observing, and controlling each and every individual of the population. The Party even produces oxymoronic slogans to further brainwash the citizens, such as “War Is Peace,” “Freedom Is Slavery,”  etc. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth (ironically named, as the ministry’s function is to produce propaganda and alter historical records). The Ministry of Truth alters the perception of the past to conform to the needs of the Party at the present. In this very dystopian future, people are also void of feelings of love, or any other bond, even within families. People are conditioned to be relatively emotionless, which makes them more compliant. This is not to say that people are completely without feeling, just that most emotions are watered down and subdued. Winston, however, is different from most people. He keeps a secret journal of criticism towards the Party and Big Brother, and risks being identified as a “Thought Criminal,” a criminal of the state whose only crime is thinking or feeling any kind of doubt towards the government. Winston writes in his secret journal “Thoughtcrime does not entail death; Thoughtcrime IS death.” When Winston falls in love with a girl named Julia, things begin to fall apart. Eventually, the Thought Police arrest both Winston and Julia while the two are in bed, and Winston is moved to the Ministry of Love, which specializes in torture and political reconditioning. Winston is physically and psychologically manipulated to believe all kinds of things in an attempt to realign his allegiance to the Party and forsake his love for Julia. Winston is put through many trials, but eventually tells his torturers “I have not betrayed Julia.” In response, Winston is taken to room 101 and is confronted by his worst fear, rats, and when a cage of hungry rats is fixed to his face and opened, he screams “Do it to Julia!” Thus finally betraying his love for her. This is more or less where the novel ends.

Orwell’s novel is even more dystopian than the previous two, and is one of the most iconic dystopian-future novels of all time. This novel even gave birth to the adjective, Orwellian, which describes anything that depicts a grim and dystopian future similar to the one depicted in 1984. The reason for this may be attributed to Orwell’s environment at the time that he was writing this novel; World War II had just ended, and the Cold War was just beginning. At the time, everyone in the world lived in fear, including Orwell. Though the future depicted in the novel doesn’t seem to have too many accurate predictions, the social and political structure is slightly reminiscent of that of Soviet Russia as a totalitarian government, although it is taken to extremes in the novel. While a future such as this seems unlikely in independent countries like America, which has a political foundation built on the principle of freedom, it does seem fathomably possible in places like Russia and other European nations who have had histories of totalitarianism or similar practices. Orwell’s future is so obviously grim, with no attempt to hide the corruption and suffering of it’s government and people, respectively. It is similar to Huxley’s Brave New World in the respect that the citizens are discouraged from feeling love towards one another and are brainwashed to obey the system. However, 1984 differs in the way that at least some of the citizens are aware of the corruption of their world, and do not simply accept it with a smile. Also, much like Verne’s Paris in the 20th Century, it seems that the society in 1984 does not care at all about the arts in any form. Another similarity between the two novels is that in Verne’s novel, women are described as being cynical, unloving, neurotic, and completely career-oriented. This is very similar to the disposition of most of Oceania’s population in Orwell’s work, the only difference being that the description given by Verne implies a bit more free will and thought amongst the people of his novel than that of Orwell’s.

Overall, looking at the selected works of Verne, Huxley, and Orwell and the messages, predictions, and attitudes towards the future of said works, it seems fairly safe to surmise that from the perspective of writers in the 19th and 20th centuries, the future of humanity seemed grim and dystopian. Though there are facets of today’s world that were accurately predicted by the three aforementioned authors, such as maglev trains, electric grids, automobiles, nuclear warheads and their capabilities, and perhaps even the internet, the world today doesn’t seem to be as universally dystopian and depressing as the novels seemed to predict. The advancement of technology and science seems to have accelerated along with the arts, and, on average, people today seem better educated. Though the world has problems such as overpopulation and environmental pollution, progress in this day and age seems to be capable of correcting these problems. If these problems are not corrected, then the Earth will correct them for us by running out of resources and exterminating much, if not all, of the human population, giving it time to reproduce it’s resources. That tangent aside, the world today does not seem to be existing in such a dystopian future, but there is always more to come. There’s still more future to come, and though it may fall apart, it seems best to use the predictions of the past and present to avoid any type of dystopian future. It’s worth a shot.

-Jacob Willis

12/06/13