Eugenics and social order in Aldous Huxley`s Brave New World and Margaret Atwood`s Oryx and Crake

The scientific and industrial revolution of the nineteenth century has led to urbanization, over-organization and mass-production. These changes had dramatic effects on the lives of workers. They were regarded as the part of a machinery to run the factories. Efficiency and progress were the catch-phrases of the era. Eugenics, an old idea which can be traced back to Spartans, was revived. The principles of the Theory of Evolution were applied to form a theory of better human breeding. This thesis is both a summation of the origin and nature of the eugenics movement in Britain and its reflections in literary Utopias and dystopias. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, which are reactionary dystopias, have been analysed in context to their involvement with eugenics to form the social order in their respective societies. The positive aspect of the application of eugenics as a social movement and Utopian theme for the creation of ideal societies can easily be nullified by the coercive manipulations of those in power. In the chosen works this possibility and its disturbing consequences have been examined through transformed complex worlds created by the literary imagination of both authors.