Zamyatin, Huxley and Orwell: Science in Dystopian Fiction

In dystopian literature, one of the principle themes is technology. The soulless, miserable worlds depicted in the books are often soundtracked by the unthinking hum of machines. Listening to my computer hum right now, instant parallels suggest themselves; but did Huxley, Orwell and Zamyatin really have a point when they implied that the fruits of technology will lead us to a dystopian world?

Just before George Orwell was born, the first radio receiver had received its first transmission. To think, that was just over a century ago, and since then, the speed of scientific advance has, well, rocketed. The Wright brothers came along with their plane in 1903; Einstein thought up his theory of relativity in 1905, a year after the first tractor was patented. In 1908, the first Model T car was sold, followed in 1910 by Edison's Kinetoscope, an early film projector. Then of course there were tanks, zippers, gas masks and stainless steel, toasters, circuits and early robots - and all before 1920.

New inventions were flooding the market, making daily chores easier, entertainment easier, warfare easier. With this speed of advance, the average person had barely a moment to rest between buying the newest time-savers. Governments trialled their newest weapons during the destructive First World War, and at the same time, plied their people with all the most inventive methods of propaganda. It was certainly a time of great change, but with any change, there comes a backlash.

Dystopian literature can be seen, partly, as the backlash to this rapid technological change. Added to this, developments in political ideology that came with Marx's socialism and developments in economics that came with mass production and importation also had to have their backlash. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells had brought us the first recognisably modern European Science Fiction in the 19th century, but nothing quite rivalled the explosion of dystopian concepts in the early 20th century: suddenly, writers were clamouring to portray unpleasant worlds as a comment on their rapidly changing reality. A global disregard for human life during the First and then the Second World War was bound to leave the individual feeling marginalised, and with emotionless technology increasingly favoured over human hard work, there was nothing for it but to speak up.

One of the earlier texts I am studying came from Russian-born author Yevgeny Zamyatin. A student of naval engineering and a Bolshevik, Zamyatin took part in the Russian socialist revolution of 1905, and so experienced immense political change first-hand. His novel We was written in 1921, after he had witnessed the devastating effects of World War One. The book depicted a world in which no individuality was permitted, with numbers instead of names, propaganda keeping people in line and the whole world governed by One State. This is a clear precursor of books such as Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984.

Aldous Huxley, born in the UK in 1894, claims that he had not so much as heard of We when he wrote his career-defining Brave New World (1932), though satirical writer Kurt Vonnegut insisted that its plot must have been "cheerfully ripped off" from Zamyatin's work. Huxley's book is perhaps more confused in its intentions than We, because in many ways, the reality of the World State is utopian. There is no illness, misery or suffering. Yet, one cannot help but feel that its restrictive, unchanging blandness is grotesque. The world he portrays is defined by its technological advances - all the drugs and entertainment and synthetic materials - and yet it restricts all future development to maintain the new social equilibrium.

George Orwell, by contrast, cannot be said to have created any sort of utopia in 1984 (1949). Orwell proved himself a critic of a whole host of ideologies across his writing, but 1984 is one of his most disturbing and lastingly relevant novels. Airstrip One, or England, is a dirty, miserable world of paranoia and unending war. People are 'vaporised' and erased from history if they overstep any of the government's many lines. Thinking anything unorthodox is punishable by death. Through the use of constant surveillance technology and perpetual revision of history, freedom has become slavery.

These are the three texts I am going to focus on during my study, though Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, Anthem by Ayn Rand and The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster are all useful references as far as technological advance is concerned. Since that radio received that first transmission in 1901, how much closer to an Orwellian dystopia has science brought us? Medicine, computer, AI and war technology have advanced beyond those authors' wildest dreams, but were their predictions about the effects correct? Are we living in a scientific dystopia?