Comparing the Rhetorical Grammar of Aldous Huxley & George Orwell

Aldous Huxley and George Orwell are both highly intellectual authors that have both

written polarizing novels detailing inevitable dystopian futures for the citizens of the world.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was published in 1931 and George Orwell’s 1984 was

written in 1949, creating the assumption their literary tone would be similar. However, this is far

from true as both authors shared completely different views on their take of our future. The Cold

War was ongoing during Orwell’s time and he was very vocal about his opposition to the war

and the overreach of government. While Huxley wrote Brave New World, America was

suffering through the great depression and the aftermath of World War I. Interestingly, Orwell

was a student of Huxley’s while attending Eton College. While reading both 1984 and Brave

New World, one can’t help but notice a distinct similarity in style between the two and wonder if

Orwell was inspired by Huxley. To better compare the two, I would like to analyze how the two

authors incorporate punctuation and infinitive verb phrases and how they add to the overall

message of the novels.

On the surface, both authors incorporate similar rhetorical approaches to creating a

dystopian illustration of the future through dark, ominous tones throughout their novels. Aldous

Huxley tends to use short phrases and very specific words with an intellectual tone that highlight

his warnings for the future, emphasizing the disillusioned society we will all be a part of.

“Savage,” “oh brave new world, oh brave new world” and “depressing” are a few examples of

the short phrases he uses that express a dark tone. George Orwell offers a very similar, ominous

message, but his rhetorical approach differs by the use of longer, more descriptive sentences. His

tone “slummy corner of town,” “even the outline of your own life lost its sharpness,” (Orwell,

18) and “The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.”
(Orwell, 121) are much longer than Huxley’s but tend to express the same ominous tone.

Although both Huxley and Orwell are expressing a similar inevitable message, they do it in very

different manners. Huxley incorporated shorter, one word one words while Orwell’s diction

spanned over a phrase or sentence and was much more subtle, yet illustrative.

Throughout Huxley and Orwell’s novels, there is a significant amount of figurative

language that allow the reader to get fully engulfed within the world created by these authors. A

great example of this is the imagery and personification in Huxley's Brave New World details

the Fertilizing Room in the first paragraph of the novel, creating a very futuristic, sterile

atmosphere independent of warmth or love.

"Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the
room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some
draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the
glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness
responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands
gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost.
Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and
living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious
streak in long recession down the work tables" (Huxley, 5).
Orwell, on the other hand, incorporates only imagery to describe the uniformity of those

in the novel. He beautifully illustrates an outcast through his use of imagery in the following

example:

"…A smallish, frail figure, the meagerness of his body merely emphasized by the
blue overalls which were the uniform of the Party. His hair was very fair, his face
naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades"
(Orwell, 2)
Both Huxley and Orwell incorporate imagery to illustrate fear and conformity which add

to their vision of the future. Another great quote from Brave New World, "His fordship

Mustapha Mond! The eyes of the saluting students almost popped out of their heads..."(Huxley,
25). His use of imagery to express his disdain of an ignorant admiration for those who rule us

may have even been a reflection of his personal feelings towards government at the time.

Throughout the novel, he sprinkles dark tones of impending doom and ultimately closes with

"Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right;

north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south- west; then paused, and, after a few

seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east.."

(Huxley, 176).

Additionally, both authors provide the reader with a third person point of view, however,

Huxley takes the reader slightly further into the minds of his characters by creating a third person

omniscient point of view, providing the reader with insight into all characters' thoughts

throughout the novel. For example, we are able to see Lina's inner thoughts when she offends

Bernard on page 39 of Brave New World – “He couldn’t look more upset if I’d made a dirty

joke-asked him who his mother was, or something like that.' Thought Lenina." Orwell's 1984,

on the other hand, provides the reader with a third person limited point of view. Through the

narration, we are only able to know what Winston is thinking. This is an interesting point of

view because it provides the reader with information that shows how extremely uncomfortable

he is around the people he surrounds himself with. We can see this, for example, when he

"thought with a sort of vague distaste —" (Orwell, 3) or his inner thoughts on personal

relationships as simply a "Blow struck against the Party. It was a political act." (Orwell, 73).

One of the most intriguing aspects to analyze between Huxley and Orwell was their use

of punctuational strategies in their novels. One of my favorites is the use of parenthesis, which

adds to the semantics of their work as well as to add extra emotion to sentences. Huxley used

parenthesis 59 times in the novel and some examples include "(and he closed his eyes)" (Huxley,
136), "(but the light of combat was in his eyes and the lift of his chin was challenging),"

(Huxley, 8), and "(her shining eyes accused him)," (Huxley, 57). It seems as though Huxley

takes this a step further due to his use of third person omniscient point of view. His use of

parenthesis to continuously pull the reader in to the futuristic society he has created. The

parenthesis also serve as a means of providing the reader with third person omniscient access to

remind the reader of the way of life in the future.

(“For you must remember that in those days of gross viviparous reproduction,
children were always brought up by their parents and not in State Conditioning
Centres.”)

While the child was asleep, a broadcast programme from London suddenly started
to come through; and the next morning, to the astonishment of his crash and crash
(the more daring of the boys ventured to grin at one another), Little Reuben woke
up repeating word for word a long lecture by that curious old writer (“one of the
very few whose works have been permitted to come down to us”), George
Bernard Shaw, who was speaking, according to a well authenticated tradition,
about his own genius.” (Huxley, 18)

Orwell, interestingly, having used a third person limited point of view, used parenthesis

23 times throughout his novel to add extra thought and insight only into Winston’s character.

For example:

“He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town
(just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an
overwhelming desire to possess it.” (Pg. 4)

“His father he remembered more vaguely as dark and thin, dressed always in neat dark clothes
(Winston remembered especially the very thin soles of his father’s shoes) and wearing
spectacles.” (Pg. 16)

“The enormous face (because of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought of it as being a
metre wide), with its heavy black moustache and the eyes that followed you to and fro, seemed
to float into his mind of its own accord.” (Pg. 163)
 Infinitive verb phrases were another interesting rhetorical strategy incorporated by both

Huxley and Orwell within their novels. Huxley’s repeated use of infinitive verb phrases, mostly used

as adverbials, sometimes cause the reader to feel the nervousness Winston was feeling many times, in a

manner that emphasized the shortness of the phrases and created a feeling of haste and panic in the reader

(such as in the first example). An infinitive verb phrase is to+verb base, and can be found numerous

times in the following quotes:

“He had been prepared to lie, to bluster, and to remain sullenly unresponsive; but, reassured by the
good-humored intelligence of the Controller’s face, he decided to tell the truth, straightforwardly.”
(Huxley, 149)

“For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work
intelligently- though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as
possible.” (Pg. 5)

Although Huxley generously sprinkled infinitive verb phrases throughout the novel,

Orwell actually incorporated more! Huxley did use a large amount of infinitive verb phrases,

however, Orwell seemed to use more and both used them mostly as adverbials. Some examples

of Orwell’s use of infinitive verb phrases as adverbials are as follows:

“Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped
quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a
swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old
rag mats.” (Pg. 1)

“But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the
impact that it had made on everyone’s eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately.” (Pg. 9)

“He made a halfhearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down, turned, and made off in the
opposite direction.” (Pg. 170)

After analyzing Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984, I was very interested to

see a distinction between the rhetorical strategies of the two authors. Huxley’s Brave New

World contained a significant amount of punctuational rhetoric, which added to the author’s
ability to bring the writer into the minds of many characters. His rhetorical style depended more

on punctuation and diction and tended to use a more descriptive type of grammar. Orwell, on the

other hand, incorporated a lot more style into his writing. He was a lot more descriptive than

Huxley and used more imagery as well. Prior to embarking on this analysis, I was more inclined

to Huxley’s Brave New World because of the content. However, after analyzing, interestingly, I

appreciate Orwell a lot more than I did before.