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Comparing Brave New World And The Matrix Trilogy

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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Matrix Trilogy by the Wachowski brothers show us unique futuristic societies in which the advancement of technology and conflict have lead to societies that guarantee human survival but compromise individuality. The texts explore personal and political issues through personalities with conflicting ideologies, Utopian and Dystopian situations and events.

Both texts have the theme of comfort versus freedom, strongly implying that an efficient society is dependent not only on complete control, but on controlling subjects who would happily choose it for themselves. Both show societies in which humans are no longer born, but created as useful tools rather than as individuals (The Matrix taking the more literal …show more content…

The eradication of imperfections or human qualities is how each society sought to control it’s inhabitants. In Brave New World humans are created to fit a certain role from test tubes, eliminating the possibility of individual, uncontrolled humans existing. Despite these strong attempts to repress any feelings of individual connections, many characters are shown to experience love, which suggests that certain human emotions cannot be suppressed. The director was made to resign out of embarrassment when it was revealed that he showed feelings of love towards Linda. John the Savage outwardly expresses his love for others, is treated with a manner of disgust and confusion for this - particularly in his love towards Linda, which he doesn’t understand. Lenina responds to Bernard and John’s love as “odd”; yet interestingly she begins to hold the same feelings for the Savage herself, only she doesn’t know how to describe the feeling. Lenina, despite being a symbol of the propaganda’s effects on people - reciting slogans like “Orgy Porgy, Ford and Fun…” - is known to be rather less promiscuous than many of her fellow companions. In chapter eighteen, Bernard, Helmholtz Watson and John share a moment - “In spite of their sadness - because of it even, for their sadness was the symptom of their love for one another - the three young men were happy.” Unfortunately this disrupts and contrasts the ideologies of the World State.
The theme of love is important for different reasons in The Matrix trilogy. When Neo met with the creator and controller of the Matrix system - The Architect - in a scene somewhat reminiscent of the meeting with Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, he was told that complete control was impossible “as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human

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