1984 Essay

Alex Bujaj Ms.
O'Connor Period 8
Utopia/Dystopia Essay April 7, 2015
Dystopia is a lilting word with a dash of humor in it when pronounced aloud; and so is utopia.
Nevertheless, the definitions behind them are very serious. A dystopia is defined as an awful, terrible
place; utopia as a perfect one. In Orwell's novel 1984, he combines the concepts of a utopia and a
dystopia. Its characters live under a brutal, totalitarian state, but their government brainwashes them
into believing it is a perfect world, or a utopia. Utopia and dystopia, similarly, appear in the simmering
stew of American rhetoric and life. Although some may claim Ameica is a utopian country due to its
guaranteed freedoms and widespread first-world living conditions, it seems more like a dystopia when
one considers the abundance of neurologically and psychologically deleterious television screens,
which can quite prophetically be grooved in parallels in Orwell's 1984.
So-called first-world living conditions (barring even for this essay the multiplicity of places in
which this is not the case, in which people in America live in poverty and danger, not in first-world
living conditions) are not so first-world when one considers the plethora within well-off America (and
even not-so-well-off America) of televisions, for research has shown that the pulsating flicker-rate of
turned on TV screens induces within the viewer alpha brainwave states, switches the majority of brain
activity from the left hemisphere to the right hemisphere, and, finally, stimulates opioid receptors by
causing the release of endorphins within the brain (which is to say, causes chemical happiness); the
alphawave state is associated with greater receptivity or suggestibility, daydreaming, and inattentive
wayward thoughts (as opposed to the normal betawave state associated with rational thinking and
performing mentally aerobic exercises such as reading, writing, solving math problems, and speaking
well) in this state, it is far easier to advertise products to the viewer and to influence the viewer's
emotions (which see next clause); brain activity in the right hemisphere is correlated to emotional
decisions and reasoning, whereas the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for rational thinking
and reasoning; moreover, a certain area in the left brain-hemisphere is responsible for separating
illusion from reality, such that, neurologically, physiologically, the average television viewer believes
(or their body believes) that what they are seeing on the screen is real; when this switch from left- to
right-hemisphere functioning is considered, it is very possible that people could, indeed, be traumatized
by or desensitized to certain violent or scary situations shown on TV or movie screens, just as a woman
in Orwell's novel complains that, they didnt oughter have showed [the frightening scene] not in front
of the kids they didnt it aint right it aint [sic] (Orwell 9; Moore). Finally, the sheer pleasure TV-
watching induces by releasing endorphins within the watcher's brain is such that TV-viewing could be
called addictive, or, euphemistically, habit-forming; families who were asked for a study not to
watch TV at all could not resist for longer than a few months, claiming that they felt depressed and
lonely after a while without it (Moore). The widespread acceptance of and usage of an addictive
glowing screen forcefeeding distorting notions about reality fabricated by a few buddy corporations
into its viewers' subconsciousnesses throughout America is quite the dystopic thought, also pointed out
by Orwell's conception of a telescreen always turned on and blaring propaganda, announcements,
and exercise routines in every Outer Party member's home. William Gaddis, in his posthumously
published novella Agap Agape (pronounced, a-GA-pay a-GAPE, the first one being a transliteration
of the Greek word for divine, Platonic, Christian love), bemoans also this abundance of simple,
dumbed-down mechanized pleasures in America, not just limited to televisions but also appearing in
things such as the player piano, the computer, and popular novels and music; or, rather, if one wants to
be picky, the narrator of the novel, an old man with a terminal illness undergoing surgeries and taking
prednisone as a painkiller (which is heavily implied to influence the rambling, disjointed, sometimes
ecstatic style of his roughly one-hundred page long monologue) complains about the stupidity of the
masses and overabundance of chaos and entropy in the modern world due, paradoxically, to an
information overload and excess of mechanization and simple, addictive pleasures like TV, in one case
ranting, for example, entropy drowning everything in sight, entertainment and technology and every
four year old with a computer [grammar sic]; which is to say, he complains of the dystopic quality of
America (Gaddis 2).
To conclude, the train of true happiness has already departed, leaving all Americans loitering at
the bare and run-down station of addiction; however, despite the possible fact that the world one lives
in is dystopic, one shall always have the simple pleasure of laughter to cheer one up.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gaddis, William. Agap Agape. New York: Viking, 2002. Print.
Moore, Wes. Television: Opiate of the Masses. The Journal of Cognitive Liberties. Vol. 2, Issue No.
2. 2001: pages 59-66. Web.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Signet Classics, 1977. Print.

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Alex Bujaj Ms.

Utopia/Dystopia Essay April 7, 2015

which can quite prophetically be grooved in parallels in Orwell's 1984.

by Orwell's conception of a telescreen always turned on and blaring propaganda, announcements,

America (Gaddis 2).

Gaddis, William. Agap Agape. New York: Viking, 2002. Print.

2. 2001: pages 59-66. Web.

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Signet Classics, 1977. Print.

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