Comparing Nineteen Eighty-Four and Utopia Essay -- compare and contrast

Parallels in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Utopia   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Literature is a mirror of life. In order to reflect their views on the problems in society, many authors of fiction, including Sir Thomas More of Utopia and George Orwell of Nineteen Eighty-Four, use parallels in character, setting, government, and society to link their works to the real world. Characters are the appendages of a literary work, without well rounded characters, a novel is not complete. In many situations, authors use certain distinguishing features of a well known figure in society to shape the character in their works. These realistic characters are the work's link to the outside world.   In the book Utopia, Thomas More presents himself as a character - the opposition to Raphael Hythloday's recollections. Hythloday (whose name is derived from the Greek huthlos, meaning nonsense) is a world traveller who has sailed with Amerigo Vespucci, a famous captain at the turn of the sixteenth century. By using several real-life characters, More links his work to the world around him. In the novel 1984, the supreme leader of the "Ingsoc" party, "Big Brother", is "a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features" (Orwell 5), whom in governing position, political power, and physical features, resembles the once feared Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Another omnipresent character in the novel, Emmanuel Goldstein, is said to be a traitor to Ingsoc, a conspirator to the Party he originated. Goldstein has "a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard - a clever face ... with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose..." (Orwell 16). The image of Goldstein resembles that of Leon ... ...piece. Works Cited Brown, and Oldsey. ed. Critical Essays on George Orwell. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1986. Fox, Alistair. Thomas More, History and Providence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Marius, Richard. "Utopia as Mirror for a Life and Times." 1995. http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/emls/iemls/conf/texts/marius.html (14 Oct. 1998). More, Thomas. Utopia. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1975. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg, 1965. Singh, Paras Mani. George Orwell as a Political Novelist. Delhi: Amar Prakashan, 1987. Works Consulted Crick, Bernard. George Orwell, A Life. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980. Jones, Judith P. Thomas More. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1979. Meyers, Jeffrey. ed. George Orwell, The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.