The closed society and its lowdown: The role of deception in the maintenance of individual survival in Orwell's 1984 and Atwood's the handmaid's tale

Philosophical arguments on morality have long "excommunicated" a realist and reasonable approach that, unsurprisingly we come across almost every day, both in our social milieu and in our own lives. When people feel that truthful statements or sincere behaviour will somehow risk or harm their personal well-being, they resort to deception. Then, instead of searching and endeavouring to comprehend the reasons behind it, why do we still condemn those who are forced to apply it? This thesis, having in the background this precursory question, attempts to account for the causes of this necessary and at times obligatory form of demeanour, which, in closed societies, is a most beneficial device for the survival of the individual and the preservation of personal space. It examines Orwell's 1984 and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale as two totalitarian dystopias, and the societies they depict, according to Popper's "open society" theory, while connecting the factors behind the phenomenon of deception to Kuran's concept of "preference falsification". Although these two narratives deal with different types of oppression, they indicate the same result: the inevitability of deception under force. As 1984 reveals the nightmare of a totalitarian regime caused by the IngSoc Party, the Gileadean Republic in The Handmaid's Tale threatens primarily women with its fundamentalist attitude. However, while utilizing a variety of deceptive conduct, the characters in the former novel observe the survivalist and individualist tendencies in a more balanced way, the characters in the latter avail themselves of deception primarily for life-and-death issues. Key words: deception, closed society, totalitarian, survival, individualist