The dystopian themes of both Cuarón’s Children of Men and Orwell’s 1984 place the protagonists in the position of making the difficult decision to either rebel against their society or remain sangfroid for their own safety. Their characters make the decision to lash out against their society when given hope that something they do can make a change within their world. From a psychoanalytic perspective, this theme in dystopian works helps us better understand ourselves and what drives the audience to make changes in their world. Both Cuarón and Orwell explore man’s nature to strive for change when faced with inequality, given something to cultivate hope for revolution, in their own dystopian works. In this case, the motifs presented in both works, …show more content…
Multiple times, Theo passes foreigners being beaten, bullied, or put into cages. He acts as if it disturbs him but not enough to do anything about it. He minds his own business, goes to work, goes home, and generally sticks to a routine. However, Theo is given no choice but to reconsider his apathy toward the treatment of foreigners when he is introduced to Kee, an immigrant who happens to be pregnant. Before this, the possibility of fertility was a far away hope. Now, Theo sees that Kee is holding the potential saviour of the future, and he realizes that the society’s treatment of foreigners could destroy the hope that fertility may ever be regained. Kee’s baby gives Theo a reason to act out against the morality of his dystopian society. He is then willing break whatever laws necessary to protect Kee and her baby because of the danger her status as an illegal foreigner puts her in, a contrast to his behavior before when he barely paid attention to the treatment of these people. The chance to change the world gives Theo a reason to …show more content…
For example, many may not donate to cancer research until a family member falls victim to the illness. This is because psychologically, people will brush things under the rug unless they are directly affected and believe that their effort will make some sort of change. This can be explained by the naturally occurring defense mechanisms our brains unconsciously apply and the concept of pluralistic ignorance. Defense mechanisms such as repressing the grim reality of your surroundings, or rationalization that leads to the normalization of abnormal occurrences, can lead to a person unconsciously disregarding prominent issues around them. Pluralistic ignorance, on the other hand, is when you are already aware that there is an issue, but you don’t think anyone else is aware of this issue, so you keep it to yourself. When Theo becomes directly affected by the immigrant extermination crisis when faced with a pregnant foreigner, and Winston realizes his effort could make a change when discovering that the Brotherhood is real, they have no reason left to remain blind to the inequality of their society. Kee’s baby places Theo in a place where he is suddenly too deeply immersed into the crisis of immigration extermination to apply his defense mechanisms, and the Brotherhood destroys Winston’s pluralistic ignorance. These motifs change the