Dystopian societies demonstrate the human emotion through the use of characterisation, specifically in regards to the way the character expresses themselves through their behaviour and language directed towards both themselves and other characters. This type of characterisation demonstrates the complexity of human emotions. Society affects the human experience through how it affects the human emotion due to the way it is managed. Commonly within dystopian societies, there are many negative side effects which can lead and does lead to negative behaviour. George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel ‘1984’ and Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’ demonstrate this all throughout the novel. By doing this throughout their novels, a sense of dystopia is evident, therefore creating human emotions throughout the novel.
The demonstration of human emotions is quintessential in texts in order to display how expressions of the characters within their dystopian society. By exploring the human emotion within a dystopian society, it expands the audience’s understanding of how emotions are displayed within that type of society and they, the emotions, are controlled. It is said in 1984 that “There was a direct, intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy. For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force? The sex impulse was dangerous to the Party and the Party turned it to account.” This quote demonstrates that while certain emotions such as fear, hatred and ‘lunatic credulity’ can be controlled and manipulated within a dystopian society by a dystopian government.
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However, emotions that are almost human instincts such as sexual desire and the desire to reproduce is difficult to control as it is also associated with love even though love, to a certain extent, but not fully. “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his {Montag} head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.” These are the introductory lines of Fahrenheit 451 which describes how destruction has, supposedly, become a human emotion within Montag’s society. Both quotes from 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 demonstrate how dystopian societies contain anomalies within the human emotions of the people that live there.
By using anomalies throughout Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 it gives the reader a sense of what reality is for the characters in the novel. Anomalies demonstrate the change of human experiences, both individual and collective on society whether it is positive or negative. One of the anomalies demonstrated within ‘1984’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’ is the alteration of certain emotions, which for 1984 is mainly suppression of happiness as well as the ability to have control over one’s thoughts and in Fahrenheit 451 it is the emphasis on negative emotions such as anger and changing it into an emotion of joy. By realising this, the audience notices that that is not what a society should be and that it is not how a society should be run. By exploring human emotions within dystopian satirical texts such as ‘1984’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’ through the characters, human experiences, both individual and collective, are thoroughly recognised.
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