‘the philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty Four is Sadism’
Aldous Huxley
links to torture methods used
1984
‘We are warned, by seeing our present selves in a distorting mirror’ …‘we may be turning into if current trends continue’
Mary McCarthy
Links to 1984, clockwork orange, context
‘anyone who wants power will try to manipulate you by appealing to your desires and fears’
… ‘what are we being asked to give up?’
Caryn James
Links to Handmaids tale
idea of brainwashing
‘her choice of female narrator turns the traditionally masculine dystopian genre upside down’
coral Ann Howels
female oppression
marginalised voice
‘women are trained in both self-surveillance and in exercising the surveillant gaze over other women’
Madeline Davies
Handmaids tale?
‘provides an exploration of questions about the control of women’s bodies, intrusion of reproductive technologies’
Gina Wisker
‘writing is an act of faith’ … ‘ also an act of hope’
Margaret Atwood 1980
‘Atwood’s genius lies in showing how extremism corrupts faith into a tool of oppression’
Karen Armstrong 2000
‘Offred’s story is not just about the loss of freedom but the erasure of identity (…) by stripping women of names, histories and agency’
Roxanne Gay
‘Orwell feared there were those who would ban books’ …
‘Huxley feared there would be no reason to ban a book because no one would want read them’
Niel Postman 1985
‘the true terror of 1984 is the realisation that even love and loyalty can be weaponised against the self’
Magaret Atwood 1985
‘Newspeak isn’t just propaganda - it is the systematic destruction of language to make rebellion unthinkable’
Terry Eagleton 1983
‘surveillance…eradicates the possibility of dissent’
Michel Foucalt 1975
(1984) ‘how power seeks to control…thoughts, language and reality’
Noam Chomsky 1951
(Brave new world - Huxleys citizens) ‘their chains are made of soma, sex and slogans’
Ray Bradbury 1980
‘Huxley’s genius was is seeing that the greatest threat was not a ‘boot stamping on a human face’ but a society which abolishes the very desire for freedom’
Yuval Noah Harari
‘Dystopia of emptiness disguised as paradise’
‘suffering is eradicated’
Christopher Hitchens
(Brave New World) ‘humans are not tortured into submission; they are bred for it’
Harold Bloom
