Brave New World Essay, Research Paper
On a superficial level Brave New World is the portrait of a perfect society. The
citizens of this Utopia live in a society that is free of depression and most of the
social-economic problems that trouble the world today. All aspects of life are
controlled for the people of this society: population numbers, social class, and
intellectual ability. History is controlled and rewritten to suit the needs of the state.
All this is done in the name of social stability.
When one looks beneath the surface of this ?perfect? society it becomes evident
that it is nothing of the sort. Eugenics, social conditioning, and anti-depressant drugs
have solved many of the problems faced by many modern societies; poverty, class
tensions and overpopulation; but at the costs of individuality and with that their
humanity. The citizens of ?brave new world? are engineered to suite the needs of the
state. Individual expression is impossible because everyone is conditioned to think
alike. Brave New World is a book about a future that seems more viable and less
brave with each passing day as our values become more materialistic and as our faith in
God dwindles slowly to be replaced by technology. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New
World to increase our awareness of this frightening future we seem to be progressing
towards so we can prevent it from happening.
In the futuristic society of the novel, God has been replaced by science and
technology as a source substance and meaning in life. As a consequence the words
?Christ? and ?God? are replaced with ?Ford.? This is done because Huxley believed
that the shift in emphasis from God to technology occurred, to a large extent, with
Henry Ford?s introduction of the Model-T.1 Instead of using the Christian calendar
this date is used as the opening date of a new era; the date is After Ford (A.F.) 632.
This shift in importance is symbolized by substituting the Christian Cross with the Ford
T.2
The motto of the new World State that now controls the world is ?Community,
Stability, Identity.? This motto emphasizes the importance of the society over the
individual. Community emphasizes the importance of the individual as a contributor to
society. Identity is used to refer to the various castes which divide the society, their
various tasks and their class distinguishing uniforms. Stability is the main goal of the
World State. The World state was founded on the principles of controlled eugenics
and social conditioning, the elimination of the family, and the belief that homogeneity
of thought and behavior all lead to a stable society.
The novel opens with a tour of a factory where the unborn citizens of ?brave
new world? are being created. They are not born viviparously but in an assembly line
resembling the kind that Ford first invented to produce cars. A process called
Bokanovsky ?budding,? is used to produce as many as ninety-six children from a single
sperm and ovum. The diversity of social functions within a society is dealt with by the
creation of five different classes – Alpha, Beta and so on. There is no friction between
the classes however, like in modern society, because they are conditioned through
sleep teaching to grow up thinking that their genetic inheritance and social positions
are ideal. Those in the upper levels of the intellectual strata do not resent their
inferiors who they give orders to and those who observe others in a superior position
pity their superiors because they carry the encumbrance of responsibility that their
position frees them from. The goal of all conditioning is, as the Director of Hatcheries
- who guides the reader through the factory – puts it in the first chapter is to make
?people like their unescapable social destiny.?3
In order to uphold a state of social stability various methods of social control
are used. After birth each person goes through a process of ?conditioning? that makes
them eagerly seek the pleasures of sex and sport and fearfully avoid non-social
activities that isolate people from each other. Tastes for beauty are conditioned out of
existence. A taste for books are conditioned out the people of lower castes because
they don?t have any practical use in their lives. This is done using a process to a
similar experiment by Pavlov, who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell
ringing instead of the physical presence of food. For example, Deltas are made to fear
books giving them electric shocks and sounding alarms every time they touch books.
Children learn to fear activities that have no function to their position in the planned
state.
No citizen of ?brave new world? is able to express opinions or judgments of
their own since it is impossible; for the uniformity that exists on the assembly line
where each fetus passes exists throughout the life cycle. A child?s entire mind is
shaped by the state; their IQ, education, morals and class awareness. This is done
through a process called hypnodaedia; where lessons are repeated several times while a
child sleeps throughout the course of their childhood. The lessons that each child
receives in their sleep form the mind of the adult that they become.
Citizens of Brave New World are extremely hedonistic, for their sole purpose
in life is to pursue activities that provide instant gratification. ?Feelies? are a common
form of entertainment for citizens of all intellectual strata. They are similar to today?s
action-adventure flicks in the way that action takes a front seat to plot and character
development; the only difference is that they involve all the senses. Casual sex is
common-place and is promoted. Commitment is a non-issue because ?everyone
belongs to everyone else.?4 Monogamy is considered sinful. ?Normal? children are
expected to participate in erotic play. In the third chapter a boy in one of the
conditioning nurseries was taken to see a psychologist ?just to see if anything?s at all
abnormal,? because he refused to participate in erotic play.5
The ideas Huxley drew on in constructing the utopian elements of the novel
were taken from ideas expressed by many progressive thinkers of his time.6 The
decline of religion in the early part of the century eliminated the prospect of a final
judgment or some other kind of divine intervention in human existence as fears in the
minds of many philosophers of the day. It was common belief in that day that if
humans were to be saved, they must not look to unseen and imagined forces, they must
look to themselves for guidance; and if not to themselves, but to exceptional members
of society. These people, and not the invisible hand of some imagined deity, were to
guide the course of humanity. The few people of exceptional intelligence were to be
the ones who decided what was right and wrong for the rest of humanity and condition
them to form the ?right? social structure so that all people become what their superiors
wanted them to be.
These assumptions are satirized along with the materialistic definition of what a
man is. In a materialistic view man is nothing more than a complex arrangement of
chemicals, and his contentment lies in the consumption of other chemical elements:
tangible delights and physical activities which require further consumption of material
items.7 Consequently, people pass their time by playing games such as Centrifugal
Bumble Puppy and Obstacle Golf, and satisfying their carnal needs by having
unattached sex. Elaborate social engineering could eliminate their desire for something
different and prevent them from dreaming of worlds any different than their own.
According to this ideology man?s present displeasures and uncertainties could be
replaced by the amenities and certainties that exist in a planned materialistic society.
Brave New World
Huxley?s ironic vision of Brave New World is different from other celebrated
utopian works of his time; like Forster?s The Machine Stops and Orwell?s Nineteen
Eighty-four. Huxley?s utopia is successful within the context of the novel while
Forster?s and Orwell?s visions of the
fabricated them.8 The irony of Huxley?s vision is that instead of depicting the failure
of his utopia (as in Forster?s and Orwell?s case) he depicted his to be one which works
well. Huxley?s goal was to emphasize the irony of the complete success of a
scientific-sociological vision.
This irony reveals to the reader what Huxley thinks man is and the way man
should be. Hulxey believed that man was not only a creature capable of peace,
harmony and perfection under certain conditions; but he is also troubled by confusion,
fear and a need for individuality.9 In Huxley?s view man will continue to act in ways
that are at odds with the expectations of planners like Mustafa Mond. Future men will
continue to fear their own mortality, no matter how many supervised visits they take to
the state crematoria when they?re children. No amount of conditioning will destroy
man?s need to choose a particular person rather than everyone for a sexual partner.
Nor will pregnancy substitutes be able to act as adequate alternatives to giving birth
the natural way. The author also doubted that ?feelies? would provide people with the
emotional experience people need in entertainment. Furthermore, it is uncertain that
their wonder drug ?soma? will do anything more than ease stress; for it certainly won?t
eliminate them completely.
Huxley invented Brave New World to make these points. Following the
opening of the novel that introduces us to the possibilities and securities of Huxley?s
vision the reader is introduced to Bernard Marx. Bernard Marx was rather deformed
and is shorter than the ideal Alpha height; it is thought that too much alcohol surrogate
was used at an early stage of his physical development. Bernard?s imperfection
provide the first crack in the utopia of the future. Bernard, going against his social
conditioning and protocols of society desires a permanent relationship with a woman.
The object of his desire is Lenina, and he convinces her to visit an Indian reservation
with him to pursue his wish.
At the reserve they meet a savage, named John who is the son a woman born in
the civilized world, and got lost in the reserve many years before. His father turns out
to be the director of the hatcheries where both Bernard and Lenina work. His mother
has appalled the Indians and even her son in her attempt to remain ?decently?
promiscuous in the reservation. John is quite literate and is very familiar with the
works of Shakespeare; from whom he has learned about behaviors and feelings that
had been conditioned out of the minds of all ?civilized? people. John represents what
Huxley thought man fundamentally is.10
John and his mother are brought back to London with Bernard and Lenina for
an experiment to find out how savages will react to the civilized world. Bernard brings
John to the hatchery where he works and introduces him to his father, the Director.
John brings the on-looking workers to a howling laughter when he kneels in front of
the director and calls him father. John?s quaint behavior shocks the citizens of
London. Lenina is shocked with incomprehension when John refuses to have casual
sex with her, and no one understands his grief over the death of his mother. When
John falls on his knees and cries after his mother dies at the Hospital for the Dying in
chapter 14 all the nurse says is ??Can?t you behave??? as if he had committed a grave
indecency.11 She was worried that he might decondition the children at the hospital
who were receiving their death conditioning. She was worried that his crying would
suggest that ??death were something terrible.??12 163 At this point it appears that
John?s views are in direct opposition to those that the World State is built on.
The most important scene of the book is an argument on happiness between the
Controller of the World State and John. The Controller, Mustafa Mond, argues that
reading Shakespeare is dangerous. ?Because it?s old; that?s the chief reason. We
haven?t any use for old things here.?13 In Mond?s opinion, the tragedy found in the
works of Shakespeare and other great writers did not arise from man?s situation; it
once arose from the instability of a particular situation that once existed – one that had
been eliminated. He added ?The world?s stable now. People are happy; they get what
they want, and they never want what they can?t get. They?re well off; they?re safe;
they?re never ill; they?re not afraid of death; they?re blissfully ignorant of passion and
old age; they are plagued with no mothers or fathers; they?ve got no wives, or children,
or lovers to feel strongly about; they?re so conditioned that they practically can?t help
behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there?s soma.?14
This world that is so unpleasant to Bernard is even more unpleasant to John because he
has not been conditioned to fit it. John?s romantic and idealistic views are in strong
opposition to those of the Controller and the rest of society.
John found himself in a dilemma, he had to choose between the squalor of the
reservation and the abject superficial society of the modern world under Ford. He
found a third alternative in a disused lighthouse on the south coast of England. There
he studied Shakespeare and tried to eliminate his carnal desires for Lenina who he
wanted for a lover and not just a sexual partner – like she wanted it. Despite his
solitude and his studying of Shakespeare he cannot get his thoughts of Lenina out of
his mind. He turns to self-flagellation to redeem his spirit and absolve himself of his
sins for he likens salvation and redemption with self-destruction.
The rumors of John?s self-flagellation attract the attention of a filmmaker
named Darwin Bonaparte. Bonaparte secretly films John?s self-inflicted scourgings
and makes a successful film out of it. This draws the attention of the media and also
draws huge crowds of people coming to see the savage perform his odd rituals.
Among the crowd is Lenina. He feels, at the same time, repelled and attracted to her.
He yelled ?Strumpet,? at her and whipped her, then himself trying to purify himself of
his lustful thoughts for Lenina.15 The next day he chose the ultimate escape; he killed
himself. The significance of John?s suicide is that the idealist has no place in a world
with an over-dependence on technology and social control.
To Huxley the tragic ending was a parable of the individual?s struggle in a mass
community.16 Huxley believed that we live in the age of the mass. Politicians,
salesmen and entertainers aggravate our instincts as individuals and force us to move
with the mass. The individual is still protesting as it is pulled along within the mass,
though, none the less the individual is dead. In Brave New World as well as Orwell?s
1984, the individual is under the close scrutiny of the state.17 While the underclasses
of both stories can easily be controlled, the person of independent thought or action of
the upper classes like Bernard and Winston Smith can cause trouble for the state. A
society full of individuals makes progress difficult to come by and the result is a static
state – both of these novels portray a static state.18
In the novel Huxley satirized the growing materialistic beliefs that were
flourishing among the intellects of that time. He worried that these materialistic beliefs
and the increased faith in technology would leading to a society like the one in the
novel. He wrote the novel to raise our awareness on this issue that so we may avoid it.
Huxley argued, through the context of the novel, that a totalitarian society functioning
only to maintain social stability by way of eugenics and elaborate social conditioning
would invariably lead to the death of humanity; death not in the physical sense but in
the loss of man?s essence. He believed that man?s essence was in his individuality, and
once society homogenized it?s citizens, eliminating their individuality, they would cease
to be human.Mr.
Paper by: Nathan Ludwig 1997 12 09
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