Compare and contract essay: Brave New World and Handmaid's Tale
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Course
Engels
Level
VWO / Gymnasium
This document compares the book Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World and highlights the most important aspects. This was for the SE Test English: Speaking.
BRAVE NEW WORLD &
HANDMAID’S TALE
Compare and contract essay
Myrthe Raaphorst, Anouk Feenstra
Vw6b
, Setting
Both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale are a representee of the future.
Brave New World is stated in the year 2450 A.D, where most parts of the book
take place in England. This is recognised by the different landmarks which are
being used in the book such as the Charing Cross Station in London. But this is
based on how the writer sees the future. ‘The world’ is controlled by the
government in varied usages. The people have maximised happiness, because of
soma and other utilities which are used at birth. They grow in a bottle and they
are being brainwashed throughout their sleep. They are raised by the thought
that they can’t do anything unpleasant without experiencing pain, or other
unpleasant reactions. They are also encouraged to be sexually promiscuous by
the government. This controlling government with new future technology decides
the setting of the book.
The Handmaid’s Tale is imagined in the near future, without an exact date such
as Brave New World.
The story takes places in the house of the commander, the place where Offred
‘lives’, she deeply describes the looks of house. There are also a lot of flashbacks
of time before it all happened, when Offred had her old name. In The Handmaid’s
Tale the government of the U.S created a new government, the Republic of
Gilead, which is a theocratic totalitarian state. In the Republic of Gilead the
control is very strict: women are not allowed to work, to have sex, to have their
own property, to read and to know. Women are domesticized to men. Both Brave
New World and the Handmaid’s Tale have left all past knowledge of the world,
science and literature. It was perceived as dangerous.
The Handmaid’s Tale is similar to Brave New World. Both have societies based on
different ‘ranks’, such as the handmaids, who feel like they are in prison as of the
strict rules they have to follow. For example, the obligation of sex with the
commanders. The ranks can also be recognised by the colours of the uniforms. As
handmaids wear red and the wives wear blue, their rank in the society is shown
by their clothing. Women whom have committed crimes have two options: either
you would become a handmaid, or you would go to the colonies, where the
unwomans live. The Marthas are unfertile women who are obligated to work in
the households of the commanders. The atmosphere is strict, and cool and
somehow tense. The difference between the books is seen in the way how people
regard to governmental control and a way of living. As in the Brave New World
happiness is the main factor, but in The Handmaid’s Tale happiness isn’t relevant
anymore. It seems that all happiness has lost, even for the unfertile wives who
lay their hope on a handmaid. Other differences are discussed further in the
essay.
Dystopian fiction
A dystopian literature depicts events that take place in the future. Brave New
World shows a new way of technology which is way more advanced then we
know today. The technology is controlled by the government and science and
knowledge are perceived as dangerous in both books. The people who think
differently than the society and who experiment, like Bernard and Helmholtz in
the Brave New World, are sent to a place where there are more people like them,
to keep the world in ‘balance’. In The Handmaid’s Tale people who think
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