Dystopia - 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale

Both Atwood and Orwell present the idea of new worlds as a dystopian society. Orwell describes his New World in Nineteen-eighty Four as a restricting dictatorship by an omniscient ‘Big Brother’ where Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale presents an almost jail-like situation with many references to the Old World.

 

 The beginning of The Handmaid’s Tale uses comparisons of the old and the new worlds which, when describing the Old World, accentuate the unhappiness of the main character and the controlling conditions of their new world. Atwood refers to the ‘gymnasium’ where ‘games were formally played there’ and continues with a list of all memories surrounding the gym including the ‘mini skirts’ and ‘green-streaked hair’. This list is also used to portray how the girls’ identity has been taken away from them going from one extreme of expressing themselves to another where only in secret are they allowed to learn each other’s names. This use of binary oppositions is not used in Nineteen-eighty Four where most of the descriptions given are negative such as the use of pathetic fallacy; the ‘vile wind’ and the ‘cold day in April’ have negative connotations. This reflects the continuity and monotony of Winston’s lifestyle in the new world.

Simple sentences are also used frequently in both of the novels. This constant structure of both texts accentuates the uniformity of the characters’ lives.

Orwell states that ‘it was no use trying the lift’ of which the tone is very matter of fact and conveys the dull monotony of the New World.  Atwood’s uses simple sentences to express the character’s longing of communication with ‘the angels’ and how that was ‘[their] fantasy’. Also, the lack of dialogue in both novels, especially in The Handmaid’s Tale,  depersonalise all of the characters from each other and highlight the cold, dystopian views the authors are trying to convey.

Orwell uses sensory descriptions of the ‘hallway’ which ‘smelt of boiled cabbage’ throughout Nineteen-eighty four. This is used as a way to portray normality and how this dictatorship has become part of Winston’s everyday lifestyle. This idea is also conveyed to the reader when ‘Hate Week’ is mentioned without explanation, assuming the reader is aware of it and positions them in the same world as the character.  The imagery of the helicopter ‘[hovering] for an instant like a bluebottle’ reflects death and decay and also be an allusion to ‘big brother’ being pest-like. This technique of sensory description is used by Atwood when describing the old gymnasium. She describes the ‘sweet taint of chewing gum’ and the ‘pungent scent of sweat’ and although is not appealing imagery it is used in a positive way, as the protagonist reminisces about the old world. 

The theme of vision is used in both The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen eighty-four where the prevention of sight is used to convey the dystopian society in which the characters are living. The girls ‘learned to lip-read’ in the ‘semi darkness’ as a way to communicate and in Nineteen-eighty four Orwell refers to a ‘dulled mirror’ which symbolises how, in the new world, you are unaware when you are being watched and that ‘you had to live in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard and every movement scrutinised’.

 The way other characters who have most power over the protagonists are refereed to as family members creates a more sinister feel to the beginning of the novels. Ironically those in charge in The Handmaid’s Tale are named ‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth’ who patrol the gym with ‘electric cattle prods’. From this the reader is given the impression that these women are the closest the characters will have to family and also can be seen to show the amount of power they hold upon the girls. ‘Big Brother’ in Nineteen-eighty Four however is less of a character and more of a presence and when he is described as ‘watching you’ ostensibly it seems in a caring, brotherly way but when put in the context of a dystopian society becomes much more sinister.