No one wants to live in a dystopia, so people strive for a utopia-like world. Sometimes society tries too hard like having a string central government control, too much technological control or just having excessive rules. And so it ends up becoming the citizens worst nightmare. These kinds of situations are what the novel 1984 and the movie Brazil deal with. In 1984 and Brazil, though both protagonists were in similar situations, their characteristics and government bureaucracy contrasted greatly.
Though the plots were similar for both stories, neither protagonist had the characteristics of a hero but were both were affected by females whom became the catalyst for the rebellion. In 1984, the main character, named Winston, established a habit of writing in a diary to express his discontent with the overly controlling government. He writes that This was not illegal but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp.(Orwell 6) So the thought of this detection really made him act paranoid about everything. When he noticed that Julia was following him, he assumed she was an agent and wanted to, smash her skull in with a cobblestone.(Orwell 8) After realizing that Julia was a rebel, that encouraged him to want to take action as a rebel and take on a revolutionary philosophy. He already thought about how to succeed in overthrowing the government and decided that, If there was hope, it must lie in the proles (Orwell 69). He believes that, if they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning (Orwell 69) He thinks the rebellion would work best if the proles revolt, and he realizes that although they are poor, they are the only ones who have the freedom to accomplish such a task. Winston always thought about the future and the next generation and knew that something had to change, which made him want to rebel.
In the movie Brazil, the main character Sam also worked for his government, working as information retrieval. Yet unlike Winston, he was an underachiever who inadvertently became a rebel or terrorist because of the woman in his dreams. Sam is a prime example of an underachiever because in the beginning of the movie his friend tries to tell him to get a better job because he thought that Records was a dead-end department and that it would be difficult to get noticed and promoted there. Sam was actually happy about that because he did not want to get noticed nor promoted. When Sam was called into his bosss office, his boss was upset because Sam received a letter offering him a promotion. His boss knew that Sam was too good for his current job but did want not to lose him. In fact, his boss even forged Sams signature to reject the letter of promotion. Sam suspected it was his mom who got him the promotion, and when he confronted her, he told her that he did not want a promotion, and urged her to leave him alone and that he was comfortable with the way his life was, even though he lived in a run-down apartment. This shows that Sam is content with his underachieving life. While Winston wanted to be a rebel, Sam unintentionally rebelled because of love. When he met the girl of his dreams, Jill, he wanted to know more about her, so he took the promotion which gave him more access to confidential files. Since Jill was being considered a rebel or terrorist because of her questioning about the wrongful arrest of Mr. Buttle, the authorities wanted to shut her up. However, Sam fell in love with her and wanted to save her, so he forged some signatures on the appropriate computer files and faked her execution. He did this to end the police search for her. This action got him in trouble and later led to his torture. Before all the commotion, all Sam did was day dream about being a rebel, but in an act to save Jill he became one.
Though both protagonists had similar fates, the governments they fought against were different. In 1984, the government had one powerful figure head called Big Brother. He is the party leader and is practically worshipped all over the city with his picture at every corner and a caption saying, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. (Orwell 2) The government is also interested in controlling the thoughts of its subjects. Nothing else really matters to the Ingsoc party because once citizens thoughts are controlled, then everything else can be controlled. For example, through their use of double think on the slogan, WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell 4) The government is trying to make the people think that what they want, they already have, war makes them feel peace and tranquility. They begin to be brainwashed to not want freedom because it is slavery and not knowing what is going on in the world will make them stronger. The citizens believe that they are protected, and that they could not be happier. The government makes the citizens feel like they live in a perfect society, and that only an idiot would want to rebel. The partys use of propaganda is its most powerful weapon because it plays mind tricks on the citizens. It brainwashes the citizens so that it could control every aspect of their life; it even goes so far as to change the past.
Unlike 1984, the movie Brazil did not have an organized government. In fact, no one seemed to be the leader since Sams father passed away. When Sam put in his fathers code, ERE I AM JH given to him by Mr. Helpmann in order to access the elevator, no one was there to act as the boss. The only person who was supposed to be the boss was in a wheel chair. Also the authorities did not seem to care about anything other than paperwork. After the bombing in the mall, for example, instead of trying to figure out how the explosion happened, Sam was lectured for having a messy desk. His boss was claiming that an empty desk is an efficient desk. Another example is Jills attempt to get Mr. Buttle out of prison for being wrongly arrested. She ends up running from department to department without making any headway. She is essentially drowned in paperwork, and the man she is trying to get out of prison is wrongly killed by his government.
Both tales have a protagonist that doesnt really fit the role of a hero, and each hero ends up failing after all is said and done. Winston Smith was a man who wanted more in life and always hated his government while Sam Lowry did not want much at all and yet inadvertently became a rebel. So they are both antiheroes who work for their governments, and the paths that they take lead them to a similar fate. Additionally both their governments differed when it came goals and prioritization, like how 1984 cared about control, while Brazil would rather worry about paperwork than actual terrorization. They both were a dystopia-like government. Even though each may have been striving to be a more utopic society
Works Cited
Brazil. Dailyscript. 1983. Web. 11 Nov. 2009
Brazil. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Perf. Jonathon Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian
Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, and Kim Greist. Universal, 1985. DVD
Orwell, George. 1984. New York Penguin Putnam Inc., 1961. Print
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