Sample Student Utopia Comparison Essay

To preserve the essence of humanity, people must have freedom of

expression, free will, and equality. Any attempt to create a utopia must

respect, honor, and nourish these human needs; for without them the society

will become a dystopia. An examination of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray

Bradbury, 1984 by George Orwell, and The Giver proves that

any social structure that hopes to achieve utopia must insure

that the citizens have equal opportunities to have their basic

needs met, opportunities to pursue personal goals and

aspirations, and freedom to be unique.

To preserve the essence of humanity, people must have free

will so that they can do what they please as long as they do not

interfere with others’ lives in ways that are inhumane. In 1984,

there is no liberty, as is shown on page 89, when the main character writes,

"Freedom is the Freedom to say that two plus two is four." However, because

of the dystopian government, the character is later caught, and through

torture, he learns to believe his government and say that two plus two is five,

which is the government’s way of destroying his free will. In Fahrenheit 451,

the society is built so that citizens cannot get access to books that have

philosophies or idea that would make people become unique, and thus hurt

the structure of the society. The government’s techniques are shown well

through the words of the Fire Captain Beatty, who said on page 67 of

Fahrenheit 451,

“Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of "facts" they feel stuffed, but absolutely "brilliant" with information. They’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give they any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with.”

This shows that the government was creating a dystopian utopia in the

people were not given free will. In The Giver, the character’s wills were

restricted because everyone was forced to be the same, thus making the

citizens lack the free will to act as they pleased.

To preserve the essence of humanity, people must have

freedom of expression. In The Giver people were not allowed to change

their schedules and express themselves. This concept is best shown in the

following quote on page 48 of The Giver, "How could someone not fit it? The

community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made."

Everyone took part in the community, but nobody was allowed to express

themselves differently, which made the society a dystopia. In 1984, the

government called expressions that were not supportive of their government

and social structure “thoughtcrime”, which was a crime of thought that was

not allowed. Since thinking is an important part of expressing oneself, the

system in 1984 showed how a society could not be a utopia because of the

lack of personal expression. Fahrenheit 451 did not strictly disallow

expression, however, it lacked freedom of expression, as the people were

"dumbed down" by the lack of books and the society’s system.

To preserve the essence of humanity, people must also have

equality. Equality is necessary so that everyone can be unique and

different, as well as have equal rights so that they can help each other and

not dominate so that a utopian society may stay utopian. If one did not have

freedom, the society would not be a utopia because of the inflexibility. In

1984, The Giver, and Fahrenheit 451, the people had forms of restricted

freedom in that they could not do as they please without criticism or

punishment from the government. For example, in 1984, the citizens were

tracked, and the main character was caught and tortured for not following his

strict schedule and thinking outside of the very, very, small box that the

government gave him to think in. In Fahrenheit 451 people were equal, but

many people did not have equal rights because the government planned to

weed out the people who thought differently. The Giver also had a distorted

form of equality because people were not allowed to be free unless they were

in very high up positions in the government, and the normal people could

only do certain things.

To make utopia possible and to preserve the essence of humanity, equality,

freedom of expression, and free will must be preserved so that people may

stay human and possess uniqueness.