Comparing John and Winston

These statements relate exactly and it’s no surprise because both of the characters that say them aren’t happy with the society that they are talking about. Winston doesn’t want purity, goodness, or virtue because the party has told him what those things are and he hates everything the party stands for. John’s defiant speech in Brave New World is about how he wants a government that doesn’t intrude upon people’s personal beliefs just like what Winston wants. Both John and Winston are talking about how the society is keeping people controlled so that the society can function, but that the increase in functioning the societies gain is not worth the misery and lack of freedoms that they say the society instills upon them. It’s interesting comparing John and Winston because at the bottom of it all they have the same issues with their societies when the governments go about controlling its’ citizens in very different ways. In Brave new World the government tries to make its citizens happy by making them believe that they are lucky to be alive and to be in the position they are in their society by means of hypnopaedia or controlling the oxygen amount in their embryo. In 1984, the government doesn’t care about happiness, all they care about is people following in line by fear. People in Brave New worlds society are happy where as people in 1984 are miserable. So Winston’s and John’s arguments about what they want in a society because although they both want less control, John loves virtues and goodness but Winston’s society has shown him misery and fear of those things so he wants the lack of control but, unlike John, he wants a society with nothing to guide you but human instincts.