The Giver by Lois Lowry and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley have many similarities. They both take place in futuristic utopias where happiness is the overall goal. Jonas and Bernard, the major characters in the novels, are both restless individuals who want change. Despite the close similarities, there are many contrasts in the two novels. The childhood, family, and professions arrangements are differently portrayed in the similar novels The Giver and Brave New World.
The similarities in the two novels are few despite of the similar concept the novels have. Both deal with utopias where everyone is happy. They both have individuals wanting to change the way society operates. Every individual in the novel is genetically engineered and conditioned to like what he or she has and be happy. Emotions and feelings aren’t supposed to exist in either utopia. Though the utopia in Brave New World is more technologically advanced than the one in The Giver, they are both more advanced than today’s technology.
Growing up is very different in the two novels. In The Giver, each child grows up in a similar way to the way today. They each grow up in a family unit, go to school with children their age, and play child games like today’s. They grow to live a normal child until they reach the age of twelve, where they begin training for their assigned profession. In Brave New World, the children don’t experience childhood. After they are born in a lab, they are all conditioned what to like and what to hate according to their social placing.
The children entertain themselves by playing very complex games that require much equipment and also by sexual recreation.
The two novels’ family unit system is very different from each other. The family structure in The Giver is somewhat similar to ours today. The families consist of parents and children but each family unit is limited. A unit is restricted to two adult parents, one male child, and one female child. Brave New World has no family structure.
A motto included in the novel states, “everyone belongs to everyone else”. Every adult lives alone in his or her own apartment with no spouse but with many sexual partners.
Professions were assigned in both novels, but in a different manner. When children turned twelve years old in The Giver, they began training for the professions they were assigned. The professions assigned were based on the child’s interests, abilities, and limitations. In Brave New World, social status was determined before the birth of the individual.
With social rank, came professions. The lower classes were assigned professions that required hard physical labor while higher class professions included genetic engineering, education engineering, and emotional engineering, among others. Despite of the injustice of lack of choice, happiness is abundant in the cold world called “Brave New World”.
Though both utopias existed to ensure the happiness of their citizens, two individuals, each from their own society, remained restless with the emotionless world. Only Jonas, the main character from The Giver, strove to change his community by trying to show society that pain is love. Jonas was willing to sacrifice himself to bring back pain and love into the world.
Bernard, a major character from Brave New World, wanted to change the world, but he had different motives. Bernard was only interested in his own advantage. His actions destroyed three lives, but he only cared for his own. In the end, Jonas succeeded in changing society, and Bernard never tried.
The Giver and Brave New World are two very similar novels with many differences. The societies in each novel have different procedures and customs for childhood, the family structure, and the profession designation.
The two major characters from each novel had different intentions in changing the world. With all these differences, The Giver and Brave New World both expressed the same basic conceptpain and love can’t exist in a perfect utopia. .
