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I came home from school, eager to begin relaxing for my holiday break. My grandfather was home for the week from his independent living center. My mother already had him hidden off in some room when I came home. She told me I should go visit him. Filled with dread I went down the hall to ?visit.? His seeing wasn?t so good, and neither was his hearing, so I had to yell, loudly for him to notice my presence. He told me to sit down. Since he occupied the only chair I sat at his feet. This felt strange, I felt I was too old, but nonetheless?
He asked me what I was doing in English class. My grandfather was always interested in this, he wanted to be a writer all his life, but his family was too poor to send him to college so he had to be a butcher. I told him we were reading Brave New World and 1984. He smiled a smile of recognition. He told me he remembered when those first came out. Some people found them ridiculous, and some liked them. He asked me what I thought. I told him I hadn?t been thrilled about reading them, since I had loved dystopias since middle school, having read books by Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, Hesse, Vonnegut, Zamiatin, and any others I could get my hands on. I thought it would be redundant, but I as happy we were reading something I knew so much about. I had confused myself with my answer. He looked at me the way parents look at their children when they?re amused. I had always hated this look, so I tried to explain myself. I told him I had done a year-long research paper on BNW and 1984 last year. He continued looking at me, or rather, looking past me in the same manner.
He then asked me if I thought either BNW or 1984 had come true, or if they remained science fiction. I said I thought certain parts of each had come true?He asked me which parts. I said that soma was a lot like Prozac, uniforms of the classes, he interrupted me and asked what I meant by that. I said that people who hung out together basically had uniforms, people of certain cliques wear certain things, and to be a part of that clique you had to wear the uniform. He smiled and told me to continue. I said that cloning, genetic engineering, and much of the technology had become possible. The president had just made a speech much like one in 1984 about how much better our country was doing?So many things.
Then my grandfather asked me how our world was different from both of these dystopias, especially Brave New World. I said things weren?t as strict, class structure, predestination, we weren?t as advanced. I admitted, however, that we were infinitely closer to BNW than 1984. He smiled again. He looked at me and asked me to suppose something. He asked me to suppose, just for a moment, that we lived in a word similar to that in Huxley?s tale. He asked me to suppose, that our class structures were just as strictly defined, but we didn?t need the enforcement. He told me to think of the social structure in my school, wasn?t that set, weren?t there distinct levels. Indeed there were. He asked me to imagine that there are uniforms, each clique wears its uniform with no enforcement. I thought about this. There were indeed uniforms, teen magazines and television defined them. Which led to propaganda. Just watch television, the shows and commercials are brainwashing, instilling morals and fashion and ideals of community identity and stability in everyone.
Now I had done my fair share of research on the web, and I had a question for my grandfather. If this world is a ?dystopia? then how come the leaders or controllers or repressors let people like my grandfather speak, and let books like BNW and 1984 be published, why do people think, and revolt. He asked me if I had not heard a word he said. I looked at him. He told me that if our world was a brave new world, there was no enforcement, had that not gotten through my head? He asked me how it would look if the controllers or whoever banned books. This had been done, and since people believe they are free they cannot stand things of this sort. He told me people need to be allowed to think. The key is getting a system where even if people can think, they cannot honestly think of any injustice done to them, and will not be able to convince anyone that they are living in a corrupt world. He asked me if even now, now that he had said all this, was I thinking I was in a world such as Brave New World or Oceania. I honestly did not believe I was.
I asked him if he thought we were in a dystopian world. He told me we always have been and always will be. But we also live in a utopian world, it depends on who you are and how you perceive things. He said that as long as there is civilization there will always be rules, and people will always break them. There are always going to be people who have lived through times of change, and there is always going to be change. The people in all these stories for the most part were happy, and didn?t know that they were being repressed. In BNW the most people were happy, and didn?t know that there was a huge void in their lives. I guess that?s the key. In BNW and 1984 and almost al dystopias the people don?t know what?s happening. So if there is such a thing happening to us, we wouldn?t know it, or most of us wouldn?t. And our society is so stable (ah, BNW) that even the people who think, like I was, like my grandfather was, don?t really even believe what they?re thinking, and for the few that do?well, they pose no threat.
My grandfather saw that I was deep in thought, so he told me to let an old man to himself, and I left. His birthday was Christmas, it?s a shame he was Jewish. On Christmas morning we went to wake him up, but we couldn?t. There are still a lot of questions I wish I could have asked him, but he left me something to think about, and I?ll always remember that.
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