'Deprivation of sexual freedom is a key component of dystopian control' comparative essay on dystopian literature
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Comparative and contextual study (H472)
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Exemplar comparative essay on sexual freedom in dystopian literature - focuses on three dystopian novels: Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale', Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' - includes valuable context, quotes and critics quotes - grade A
'Deprivation of sexual freedom is a key component of dystopian control.'
Discuss how far you agree with this view.
Sexual freedom is often a core element in the attempt at control by dystopian oligarchies
over the mass population. However, whether it is the deprivation or the encouragement of
such desires that is most successful in maintaining dystopian societal control is up for
debate.
Both Atwood and Orwell depict societies that revolve around sexual control as a means of
power in their dystopian novels. Although sex is a large part of Offred’s world, it is the lack
of freedom surrounding who she is permitted to have sex with and when that makes her
situation so confining, causing Cavalcanti to brand it as “monthly rape”. Stemming from her
fears surrounding human impact on the environment, Atwood creates a world where fertile
women are dehumanised as ‘two-legged wombs’ – essentially aiding the dystopian control
by weakening their self-respect and significantly reducing a chance of rebellion. Although in
1984 the outer party members do have marginal choice over who they have sexual relations
with, it is engrained into society that this should only take place in a marriage as a means of
producing children. In fact, much like in Brave New World, the Party plan on ‘eliminating’
natural birth so to make sex entirely unnecessary. By enforcing the ideology that sex is
solely an act for purpose of reproduction, both authors remove any passion associated with
it, thereby building societies that attempt to eliminate love between human beings. This
appears to be the ultimate goal for successful dystopian control, as by destroying love, the
inhabitants feel ostracised and too alone to strive for a better way of living.
However, in his dystopia ‘Brave New World’, Huxley proposes a rather contrasting
perspective: that a perfectly functioning dystopia would require complete sexual freedom.
Extremely shocking to a contemporaneous reader, and even marginally to a modern one, his
society is built on the idea that ‘everyone belongs to everyone else’ and from a young age
children practice ‘rudimentary sexual games’. Sex is purely recreational and is not used for
reproduction, ‘fertility is merely a nuisance’ that is solved through pills, womb extraction
and cloning, which now seems increasingly plausible, due to scientific developments such as
IVF and Embryo Screening. This makes control over the population easy as ‘everybody’s
happy now’ and there doesn’t seem to be any reason to fight against a life of bliss. Though,
one key similarity is that this method also aims at abolishing strong affection and emotion,
such as love. This is made clear by the arrival of John, who has not been ‘conditioned’ out of
the human ideal of ‘monogamy’ and becomes so unhappy by the absence of love in the
society, that he kills himself – unable to conform to the ‘false, lying happiness’ that the
others follow. Chaos such as this is avoided by the evolution of human relationships
enforced by the World State, giving them happiness with sexual freedom without the pain
or power of love.
The aim of all three societies to ‘outdate’ love through manipulating sexual freedom is clear,
but it seems that ultimately the deprivation of such freedom backfires for the dystopian
leaders that impose it. In both ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘1984’, the protagonists are so
agonised by the lack of true human connection, due to the strict rules of the societies, that
they are willing to break these rules for the possibility of love. Offred falls in love with Nick
and Winston with Julia, both couples silently rebelling by simply being together. Offred’s
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