Utopia and Anti-Utopia - A comparison of Thomas More's Utopia and George Orwell's 1984 (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Hannover (Englisches Seminar Universität Hannover), course: Utopias of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, language: English, abstract: n the following paper I want to examine the relationship between Thomas More¿s Utopia and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. As both these texts offer a wealth of material for interpretation, I want to concentrate mainly on emphasizing the similarities in the desc ription of the political and social systems. I will attempt to underline these very essential resemblances by examining how life in Utopia differs from life in Nineteen Eighty-Four for the individual social being.

After reading Utopia for the first time It seemed to me an important question to examine the world of Utopia from a different angle, by comparing it to the opposite, politically charged Anti-Utopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In comparing these texts I began to ask myself if Thomas More was actually well ahead of his time in constructing the world of Utopia. Taking Orwell's text into consideration, I felt that there was a striking similarity between the texts although they differed in their criticism and point of departure.

What I want to explore in the following pages is to show how the political system of Utopia depends on an unyielding denial of human individuality, a denial that is an essential part of the ideology in Nineteen Eighty-Four. My main argument will be that Utopia is not the happy place it wants us to present, but a system of total control and oppression, very similar to Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although different in its overall impression, Utopia leaves a great deal of questions to the reader. The most striking one is, how the Utopia ns themselves evaluate the laws and rules of Utopia.

Finally, I will attempt to emphasize the interrelationship and logical consequence of Anti-Utopia as a possible answer towards Utopian idealism.