Category: Brave New World

Brave new world is a book written by Aldous Huxley in 1932. The story is about a future world in which everything is done to make life more beautiful and try to make a perfect world. The majority of the population agrees with this way of life but some people don’t like the way this society works. So we are going to try to see if life in this book is a utopia or a dystopia. We will first start with arguments in favour of utopia and then in favour of dystopia and we will end with a conclusion in which we will give the answer to the question.

Firstly, it is a perfect world because there is no poverty. Not everyone has the same standard of living because there are social classes, but in spite of this everyone has a job and the vital needs of all citizens are met. In our world this is not the case, there are many countries where poverty is present and people are starving. In Brave New World people do not live in poverty and do not starve to death, so we can speak of a utopia.

Secondly, in this world there are no wars. Since the beginning of their lives people have been conditioned to be able to live together in the best possible way. This starts at a very young age, a social class is chosen for all people and they are told that this is how society works. So people are used to living with social classes, it doesn’t bother them and so there is no conflict. Thanks to this Brave New World is a world of peace where there are no wars.

Also thanks to the system set up in Brave New World people don’t get sick. Everyone comes from artificial fertilization, the embryos are modified during their development. Nurses such as Lenina Crowne inject vaccines into the embryos so that no one can get sick. Because of this everyone is immune to all diseases for the rest of their lives.

Then a solution was found so that people are no longer unhappy. In Brave New World everything is done so that people don’t have problems and are happy. In spite of this, sometimes people may feel bad. To solve this problem a medicine has been created: soma. It is a drug that people take when they are unhappy, it makes people happy and makes them forget all the problems. Thanks to soma there is no unhappiness in Brave New World and everyone lives a happy life.

However, because of the system in place there are many inequalities. It is because of the social classes that have been created so that the world can function better. The more people are part of an upper class, the more privileges they have and the better life they have. We can see it in the book when Lina and Henry come home from their golf game. They are part of a higher social class and travel by helicopter while others take the monorail. It is also explained that the Alpha and Delta live in houses while the others live in barracks. The upper classes have many more privileges whereas they did not do anything for that but were just created to be part of the upper class.

Then the citizens don’t have a lot of freedoms. Everything is decided and chosen for them from the moment they are born. They are created to be part of a social class and have decided for them what they are going to do with their lives. When they are small they are educated not to like some things and to like others. As an example we can quote the beginning of the book. When people are still babies they receive electric shocks when they approach a book or a flower. This frightens them and they don’t like it for the rest of their lives. Books because they are considered subversive, that means it could cause people to turn against the system. And flowers because they are free and everyone is free to pick them.

Another argument is that children are mistreated. When people are still babies they are educated with electric shocks and sirens. This is not at all an ethical way to take care of a child. Yet they do it with every child every day. This proves that it is not a perfect world because in a perfect world one could educate children without hurting them and terrorizing them.

In conclusion, this world can make us think of a utopia. Everything is done in it so that people are happy and don’t have problems. It makes sure that they can live together without problems and that they lack nothing to live for. There is even a medicine that cures misfortune. On the other hand, if we look a little further, we can see that this world is not utopian. The solutions that have been found have created other problems. Citizens have almost no freedom and have a life that has been chosen for them. On top of that there are huge inequalities between the different social classes.

In the novel Brave New World society is very organized and stable, however, this comes at a cost. The author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, is sending a message to the future through Brave New World, which is that the advanced stability and organization of society comes at a cost. This cost is culture from the past, individual freedoms, feelings like unhappiness or love, and uniqueness. This message is why Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World.

First, the world of Brave New World has mainly eradicated the remnants of past culture. This includes books of poetry like ones by Shakespeare, religion, as well as religious items like the Bible. This quote supports the idea that stability comes at a cost, “‘You’d have a reason for chastity!’ said the Savage, blushing a little when he spoke the words.

‘But chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability. And instability means the end of civilization. You can’t have a lasting civilization without pleasant vices.’” (Huxley 180). This quote is from the conversation John has with Mustapha Mond where John says that if their society had god they would have more redeemable qualities but Mond explains that they don’t need god primarily because of those qualities, because they will create upset and disruptions in the society of Brave New World like stopping industrialism, and stability.

Next, another cost of the society’s stability is individual freedoms. In Brave New World everyone’s job and social class are assigned at birth. If you are born a Delta or born a factory worker then there is no way to change jobs or social class. People are conditioned to like their classes/jobs and not want anything more than what they have. The ability to have the exact number of people you need for a job or to have the exact number of people you need for menial labor jobs is because of this and it keeps the society stable and organized, but individual freedoms are almost completely gone unless it’s choosing who you want to have sex with or when to take soma. This quote demonstrates how no one ever wants to move through any jobs or social classes because of their conditioning, “‘My word,’ said Lenina, ‘I’m glad I’m not a Gamma.’” (Huxley 47). This quote shows one of the characters Lenina repeating a phrase she was taught as a child when she was being conditioned about how she’s happy in her social class and she doesn’t want to be any other class. All of this shows how there are very few individual freedoms in the society of Brave New World.

Also, feelings like unhappiness, and love aren’t present in their world. This is because those feelings don’t promote the stability and organization of the Brave New World society because those feelings in themselves are unstable and chaotic at times. In the novel Lenina and John have a conversation where John confesses he loves her, Lenina takes this to mean that he wants to have sex and John gets angry with her and hits her. He wanted to have love instead of only sex but Lenina is conditioned to never need or want love but instead want sex. Also, whenever anyone is unhappy they take soma which they always have on their person, so no one is ever unhappy because of the soma. These both show how the stability of the society partly relies on feelings like these not existing.

Lastly, uniqueness has all but been taken away except for in Alpha, and Beta groups. The Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons are all created through the Bokanovsky’s process where many identical twins of an embryo are created and are all put to work doing menial labor. This means that they will always have enough people for a factory or other menial service because the people are constantly being made in identical exact amounts that certain jobs need. This is shown when John is attacked by many identical people who are all deltas and gammas who have been through Bokanovsky’s process taking away their uniqueness.

In conclusion, Aldous Huxley sends a clear message through his work Brave New World that the cost of a stable and organized society takes away many of the things that are good about our society. We have individual freedom, we have culture from the past praised instead of destroyed, we have the right to feel all feelings including unhappiness, and we are all unique in some way. Huxley’s message to the future is that this cost is too great for long-standing stability and organization.

The dystopian novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley is receiving a lot of attention these days because of the similarities between the society depicted in the book and society today. Huxley presents a society controlled with a drug that induces an artificial state of happiness and that is easily controlled because it has been brainwashed into triviality. In an article by Tony D. Sampson titled “Brave New World: the pill-popping, social media obsessed dystopia we live in” he discusses the two primary modes on control in Huxley’s book. First, the widespread use of joy-inducing pharmaceutical, soma and second, a hypnotic media propaganda machine that works less on reason that it does through “feely encounters” (Sampson). These are components that are present in our society.

Sampson refers to Huxley’s belief that it is easier to sidestep intellectual engagement and to appeal instead “to emotional suggestibility to guide intentions and subdue nonconformity.” The article draws a parallel between the use of the drug soma in the novel to induce happiness and the drug Prozac, a neuro-pharmaceutical that is widely used to create a sense of happiness. He also points to the use of Ritalin for ADHD to control behavior. As Neil Postman describes it in “Amusing Ourselves to Death, “In Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure” (Postman). It is as though Huxley had the ability to peek into the future through a when he described that by taking soma would allow you to “Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology” (Huxley) which is the case with some of the drugs available now

The article compares Huxley’s College of Emotional Engineering with contemporary social media such as Facebook and Instagram. Interestingly, in the novel, the Bureaux of Propaganda is housed in the same building suggesting that individuals’ emotions can be controlled through advertising and promotion. The Bureaux focuses on emotional suggestibility and produces feely scenarios, and propaganda for the masses. To illustrate the manipulation that can be done by social media, the author discusses a 2014 experiment done by Facebook to elicit approval or disapproval with a thumbs up and thumb down on news feeds. The goal of this experiment was to prove that social media could have positive and negative influence by manipulating the emotions of the recipients of the news. As frightening as it sounds, this manipulation is already happening with the use of social media. The current political climate shows that the emotions of unhappy voters can be influenced by “joyful encounters with celebrity politicians than those experienced with the dry intellectual elites of conventional politics” (Sampson).

The impact of social media on society is in a vast scale as it involves billions of people around the world who use it constantly to the point that it is like an addiction. The last presidential election is an example of how negative information about certain candidates was used to influence the voters impression about the candidate and even to incite violent behavior. Tweeter and Instagram are pervasive in that everyone can express and opinion and create false narratives. The news cycle keeps getting shorter and shorter because every second of the day comments are made in cyberspace and devoured by a receptive audience.

The rise of social media has created society obsessed with following “celebrities” that have no talent and may have done nothing more than be on social media showing off their designer goods, travels, mansions, relationships, makeup, or any other insignificant aspect of their lives. Social media has made Huxley’s fears come true that “we would be become a trivial culture preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy” (Postman). In sharp contrast, people do not read books, just trivial articles in the internet. Although “What Orwell feared were those that would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one” (Postman). Sadly, this prediction has come true.

Sampson describes the society in “Brave New Word” as a “dystopian society that is not controlled by fear, but rendered docile by happiness. The mantra of this society is “everybody happy now.” Everyday people are conditioned to think that their happiness depends on consumer goods and if they are feeling sad there are drugs that can make their troubles disappear. The mantra about consumerism in Huxley’s novel “Ending is better than mending”(Huxley) forewarns us of the future when people will buy more and more goods with the belief that they will bring them happiness and status, and will work constantly in order to afford to pay for them.

The novel “Brave New World” although first published in 1932, is contemporary as it reflects many aspects of how our society is today. We should be careful not to completely be lost in trivial pursuits and drugs that keep us from living a more meaningful life and in the end cause us to give up control of our destiny to those who want to take it away from us.

Sources

1. Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World. HarperCollins Publishers, 2006
2. Postman, Neil, Article From Amusing Ourselves to Death
3. Sampson, Tony D. “Brave New World: the pill-popping, social media obsessed dystopia we live in.” http://theconversation.com/brave-new-world-the-pill-popping-social-media-obsessed-dystopia-we-live-in-72511
4. Stonestreet, John, Rivera. Roberto. “Trump, the NFL, and Us, America’s Descent into Triviality.” https://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/breakpoint/trump-the-nfl-and-us-america-s-descent-into-triviality.html

Unequivocally, scientific conditioning cannot completely remove fundamental human nature. Although the conventional society presented in Brave New World increases socio-economic ‘stabillity’, it solely represses the potential for human growth. Through satirising the like of H.G. Wells and Aquinas’ theory of human nature, Huxley iterates the point that eugenic breeding and other spiritually impoverished solutions cannot cure the ills of civilisation. Alternatively, through the adoption of Thomas Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’, The Picture of Dorian Gray advocates a more hedonistic and debauched perception of the human condition. It is true that Aristotle once argued that ‘all human things are incapable of continuous activity’1, suggesting that even pleasure cannot continuous. Therefore, as it were in Dorian’s case, the pursuit of pleasure is a futile and otiose venture, of which the consequences are historically fatal. In this sense, Wilde satirises the idiosyncrasies of an antiquated Victorian attitude during the decadent fin de siècle. Perhaps being liberated from a repressive society encourages debauchery, but to be conditioned to seek no emotional pleasure in fundamentals like sex is a step too far. Ultimately, societal conditioning cannot completely remove basic human nature, as both novels discuss the theory that society changes, but innate characteristics stay the same. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs contends that we are conditioned to perpetually crave the need for air, space and beauty, or rather Art in Dorian’s case. However, both novels address the idea that to become repressed or intemperate of these values, then you will suffer the same fate of either Dorian, or John the Savage.

It is imperative to consider that both novels dramatize the unspoken inequity of a feudal society, by bringing the destitute and the affluent face to face. More particularly, the central theme of Brave New World is dehumanisation. The novel suggests that a number of trends in the modern world are eroding the idea of human beings as unique individuals, each with his or her ‘soul’, and it depicts what might happen if these trends were to prevail. The middle class oligarchs of society such as advertisers, employers, psychologists and politicians find it convenient to group people into categories by factors like personality types, levels of education and interests. Their agenda turns us from complex individuals into stereotypical ‘C2s’, ‘aspirers’ and ‘extroverts’. After we have been identified, we can be targeted by advertisements and products which reinforce this limited sense of who we are, and encourage us to continue to walk along the same restricted path, with the theoretical risk that our lives could become predicable or packaged. The worst horror of Brave new World is the D.H.C’s piety through his slogan of ‘Community. Identity. Stability’; science has given the Controllers the means to reach into people’s personalities and adjust them so that they conform to the categories assigned to them, in order to achieve social ‘stability’. Perhaps rather interestingly, Aldous Huxley’s grandfather, the distinguished scientist T.H. Huxley, contended in his book, ‘Methods and Results’, that science might one day reveal human beings to be nothing more than conscious machines, our thoughts no more control our actions. Brave New World reflects upon this, ultimately showing us a society where people have been so influenced by the ideas of T.H. Huxley that they have begun to treat each other like ‘turning machines’ which are fundamentally ‘being manipulated’ by those superior to them. Conversely, despite the extent of the human conditioning in Brave New World, characters still, as Maslow argues, crave the need for air, space and beauty, and perhaps rather interestingly a significant scene occurs on the roof with the Epsilon elevator operator. In spite of the Alpha’s ‘conditioning’, the Epsilon begins to longingly cry ‘Roof…roof’, ultimately revealing underlying feelings of dissatisfaction against the convention. There is a very similar scene in Fritz Lang’s 1927 film, ‘Metropolis’, in which women and children from the underground suddenly glimpse at the riches of beauty, as they notice the upper world through open elevator doors. Perhaps then, although we can be controlled by ‘alphas’ in society through advertisements and products, but genetically, our characteristics stay the same. Therefore arguing as Matt Ridley did, that Brave new World is rather ‘an environmental, not a genetic, hell’2.

Similarly, The Picture of Dorian Gray discusses the wealth and dissidence of a Victorian society entering what Wilde coined, the fin de siècle. Due to bad harvests precipitating an agricultural slump6 towards the end of the century, the landed aristocracy maintained a precarious dominance over society, and many shared the determination of Lord Henry’s brother to marry a rich American, as new industrialists joined the ruling class. Meanwhile, the agrarian poor streamed into the cities in search for work, but few found work with a substantial wage. Consequently, this caused a great rift between the affluent and the destitute; though more people had the vote, it was not enough to halt political unrest and even fear of revolution. The rift grew to the extent that on Victoria’s golden jubilee year, 1887, the country witnessed ‘Bloody Sunday’, a massed protest in Trafalgar square that was callously dispersed by the police. Like the industrial feudal divisions created during the ‘fin de siecle’, literature too became divided over its depictions of the capital. The opulent inhabited the west end; the East End, which was once associated with a respectable working class, was now considered as ‘Darkest England’, as General Booth of the salvation army called it, charged with criminals and a desperate and diseased poor on the brink of insurrection. Despite taking you through nearly every place in London from the A-Z handbook, rather strikingly, Wilde fails to mention the middle class suburbs, department stores and ordinary homes. London in The Picture of Dorian Gray reflects Dorian’s own divided nature: he embodies the best and the worst of the society in which he lives. Dorian would commonly be known as a flâneur- a wealthy wanderer who spends his time, as Walter Benjamin puts it, ‘botanizing on the asphalt’3.4 This also involves being observed, and ultimately, the streets are set on which the flâneur displays himself, or melts into the crowd at will. Crucially, Dorian crosses the borderlands between social extremes. When Dorian speaks of ‘this grey, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins’, he expresses the ambivalent relationship of British Victorians to their capital. This ‘supposed’ London subsequently becomes for Dorian, a truer reality than his own world of art and privilege. The ‘coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence’ provide an intense experience that allows him to forget his own terrors. Conversely, it also reminds the reader that the ugly face of poverty shown here was a reality, one to be especially feared if no social change was forthcoming. Dorian has ultimately been conditioned by the duplicity. His once love for art has been conditioned into a grotesque lust for opium, pain and sex.

By the same token, Huxley’s Brave New World and the social background of the 1920’s discusses how the mass culture of a modern capitalist society is caricatured in several features of the World state, a world in which recreation, gossip based journalism, religion and careerism occupy people so much so that they never have time to reflect on who is controlling their behaviour and why. In this sense, Huxley’s critical view is at least as relevant now as it was when the book was published in 1932, since today journalism is perhaps more intrusive, the cinema more pornographic and drug misuse more widespread. Following the deaths of over 8 million people in the Great War, the 1920’s became a decade of widespread disillusionment and dissidence against the archaic morality of old. Crucially, a significant proportion of the younger generation adopted forms of cynicism and were ready to advocate new forms of behaviour. In scientific circles, ‘Modernist’ approaches such as Einstein’s theory of relativity, Freudian psychology and surrealist art called into question notions and customs which had previously been taken for granted. Consequently, Brave New World depicts sexual philanthropy, drug abuse and the replacement of religion with hysteric partying, as part of Huxley’s satirical attitude towards his own period, as much as he is predicting the future. Huxley also satirises H.G. Well’s depiction of the human condition, arguing in an interview in 1963 that Brave New World was a ‘parody of Men Like Gods, but gradually it got out of hand.’ The resemblance between the two is clear; Well’s ‘Men like Gods’ depicts a utopian society which has been created after five centuries of war. Wells’ society survives through eugenic breeding and careful education. Imperatively, Huxley derides the ideals of 1920’s ‘progressive’ thinkers, who proposed, like Wells, that scientific innovation and a shift in social organisation from the individual to the collective would bring about a much greater world for humanity. Brave new World contends that this is rather ironically a naïve view, and that such a change might instead bring about uniformity, passivity and spiritual impoverishment. Moreover, Huxley also ridicules the other proposed solution for humanity; he argues that the romantic alternative of rejecting science and embracing nature is an inadequate and a false goal. The greatest example of satire in the novel is encapsulated in chapter 18 (pages 227-8), where the ridicule on journalism supplies a form of comic catharsis after the earnest debate between John and Mond, and, by doing so increasing the impact on the final horror. Subsequently, Brave New World was designed to mock and discredit the proposed solutions for the uncontrollable and ever changing human condition.

Lord Henry, the sovereign leader of cynicism, plays the role of a World state scientist in the Fordian convention through his private conditioning of Dorian Gray. From the beginning of the novel, he intends to dominate young Dorian until he has penetrated his mind, and his own ideas return to him on Dorians lips. While his praises of Dorians beauty suggest erotic longing, his desire is not rooted in sex, but in scientific despotic power. To achieve this, he relies on the power of words- at first his own to implant a desire in Dorian by hypnotising him into believing that he is already there: ‘You have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror’(pg 18). But he is also content to use the words of others to allow the ‘mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music’ in the book he has given Dorian to work their ‘poison’. Similarly to H.G. Wells, Lord Henry adopts a form of eugenics on his protégé, to the extent that towards the end of the novel, he smugly reflects on the ‘perfect type’ he has made Dorian. However, like the supposed naivety of the ‘progressive’ scientists in the 1920s, Lord Henry becomes totally unaware of the nefarious consequences of his design. His experiments with Dorian are accompanied by ominous precedents: ‘He had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others’ (pg.47). While there is little information about Lord Henry’s past, it seems clear that the degree of belligerence to the self-implied in the word ‘vivisection’ has left him almost emotionless. Moreover, his dealings in social Darwinism5 and his contempt for private philanthropy leads him to rather ironically believe that ‘the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an over expenditure of sympathy’ (Pg. 35), which therefore avers that in future, the weak and feeble should be allowed to die out. Through playing God and eugenically breeding Dorian in his own image, Lord Henry becomes a figure of satire for the likes of Huxley to ridicule and deride in his own vivisection of ‘progressive’ ideas on humanity and the human condition in 1932.

Ultimately, the question of the human condition maintains, and consequently will maintain, a blurred line in scientific and psychological circles. In many senses, we are all conditioned in our own distinctive way through genetics and environmental causes to function as unique human beings. Take John for example, despite his antipathy towards the conventions ‘conditioning’ in London’s Hatchery Centre, he too has been environmentally manipulated by the terrible conditions of Malpais. He ultimately associates sex, humiliation and pain with suffering. It is this destructive view that consequently puts further power in his response to the poetry of Shakespeare. Fundamentally, our innate characteristics shall maintain the same, despite the societal changes around us. Granted, science has developed to the extent where we could eugenically breed a superior race of humans by, as Reinhard Heydrich put it, ‘evacuating’ the ‘pockets of evil germ plasm’ of our race. But, even within the extreme and perhaps eugenic conditions of Brave New World, characters such as Lenina, who we presume are content with society, contend underlying feelings of dissatisfaction. Her outward depiction of cheeriness, youth and happiness negate her perhaps rebellious choice of Bernard, who is rather, the most inferior member of his caste. Moreover, the conditioning presented in that of The Picture of Dorian Gray, is hedonistic, debauched and dissolute, but the likes of Lady Narborough, break the conditioned norm, by maintaining a faithful marriage instead of participating in the decadent lives of others. Unlike many in the early 20th century, she knows that this new age is merely a sinful and futile game. In this sense, both novels and perhaps two pieces of great fiction encourage the reader to explore the consequences of the ‘progressive’ plans for the future and the lives we lead.

Have you ever thought of living in a perfect society in which people do not have feelings and have sex and take drugs for happines. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a society in which people have to follow strict rules we are presented with the idea of individuality by the characters Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, and John “The Savage”. Bernard has always been different to the Alphas because he physically didn’t look like one because of his height. Helmholtz feels out of place because he is too intelligent and knows more than he should about the society. John is an outsider, he came from the Savage Reservation and he did not grow up with all of the technology therefore he is an individual. These three characters disagree with rules and do not conform to the norms in the society they live in.

Bernard Marks is one of the main characters in Brave New World who is known for being an individual. He is known for being an individual and different from the rest of since he was young and this is demonstrated by things Bernard says to Lenina. “I want to know what passion is,” she heard him saying. “I want to feel something strongly”(94). Bernard is unsatisfied with the society norms of not being allowed to feel emotions. It makes him different from the rest of the citizens in the world state, and it also makes him different from Helmholtz and John. Bernard doesn’t want to seek truth like Helmholtz and John; he only wants to feel emotions, and that’s why he seeks different experiences such as finding love with Lenina. In this scene we overhear Henry Foster and the Assistant Predestinator talking about Lenina as if she were an object for sexual pleasure. “From his place on the opposite side of the changing-room aisle, Bernard Marx overheard what they were saying and turned pale”(44). In this scene it is the first time we meet Bernard Marx in the novel and right away we observe that he is different from the rest. Bernard turned pale because he was displeased with the society because of how indecent and obscene the men from the world state are towards women. Bernard is an individual for this reason because he has feelings and he disagrees with the norms in his society. Bernard was also jealous of Lenina’s relationship with Henry Foster. Bernard felt jealousy and this is a feeling which people are not allowed to have any type of feeling, and this is another reason why he is an individual.

Helmholtz Watson is another individual in the world state. He is very close to Bernard and they are very good friends. Helmholtz is very smart, he is well respected in the World State. Helmholtz and Bernard are very different, Bernard is too weak to fit into society and Helmoltz is stronger and smarter than everyone. Helmholtz can relate to John, another individual. They both have things in common suchs as being intelligent and reading poetry. “Did you ever feel,” he asked, “as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you weren’t using—you know, like all the water that goes down the falls instead of through the turbines“(69). For Helmholtz, disappointment comes from cerebral limits, not passionate limitations. This is a significant contrast between Helmholtz and Bernard. Helmholtz starts the novel in discontent. Here, we start to see that his concern is ability. Helmholtz’s ability for the composed word drives him to look for more enthusiastic experience than the World State permits. He isn’t substance to utilize just the socially valuable pieces of his ability. Through Helmholtz’s story, Brave New World proposes that the connection between serious feeling and craftsmanship is a basic piece of life for individuals who endure such as John yet in addition for craftsmen, similar to Helmholtz. We can observe that Helmzolts is smarter than the rest in the World state, this is the main reason why he is an individual and doesn’t fit in with the rest.

The last character that is known to be an individual is John also known as “The Savage“. John was born on the Savage Reservation to Linda, who had lived in the World State and been left alone in the Savage Reservation by Tomakin, who doesn’t know about his reality until John shows up in London as a grown-up. His life on the reservation is hopeless, he isn’t acknowledged by different savages and can’t comprehend the method for his very own mother; as a result, he is isolated and is hoping for something better. “I ought to have been there,” the young man went on. “Why wouldn’t they let me be the sacrifice? I’d have gone round ten times-twelve, fifteen. Palowhtiwa only got as far as seven. They could have had twice as much blood from me. The multitudinous seas incarnadine.” He flung out his arms in a lavish gesture; then, despairingly, let them fall again. “But they wouldn’t let me. They disliked me for my complexion. It’s always been like that. Always.” Tears stood in the young man’s eyes; he was ashamed and turned away.(116)“. John’s first appearance shows his most important characteristic which is that he wants to suffer, because he believes suffering is beneficial. John also has a desire to sacrifice himself and this is foreshadowed at the end of the book, when he drew torturous experiences and finally decided to end his life . John spent many years of his life reading and examining Shakespeare. Therefor it makes him an individual for his behavior and different beliefs.

The World State controlled by Mustafa Mond has many rules and beliefs in which people are brainwashed to obey. Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are distinct to the rest of the citizens by having their own unique differences. Therefore they are rejected by society and my lead to consequences such as going to Iceland or just be told to leave the World State. People in the real world are unique some may not be accepted by others but uniqueness makes a person. The topic of individuality answers many questions such as: Should people have to be the same? Should they be rejected by the society because of havings their own uniqueness? And finally what are the consequences of being an individual and disobeying the norms of a society. People in our society should be different and should do, believe, and act in their own sort of way.

October 30, 2019 People frequently prior put social stability at the first place, but the fatal effect is what would eventually cause the destruction worldwide.The development of science and technology has already brought human society into a highly streamlined super-fine division of labor society. Through the development of bioengineering technology, humans have abandoned natural fertility, and the offspring are reproduced by artificial insemination and in vitro culture. Through the multiple means of embryo breeding control and children’s brainwashing education, everyone in the brave new world will become a perfect screw in society when they are adults. Our society today partly indicates Huxley’s technological dystopia as human beings trained as machines, human’s pursuit of temporary gratification and concentration of power restricted our innovative spirit, which is the headstream of our social development.

Genetic engineering and conditioning delivered an absolute stability that suppresses the growth of community. No aging process, and all people not exercising their brain to consider about anything. From a Chinese scientist who is performing gene manipulation, “Still, removing the CCR5 gene to create HIV resistance may not present a particularly strong reason to alter a baby’s heredity.” In the name of securing the baby’s life, the dictator is in fact entering a prison (Confine of thought.) where they merely work for a limited amount of place and could merely perform certain things in the range. When the genetic engineering relates to the current world, there is consistently a critical issue that people debate about the morality perspective sides. In Hurley’s dystopia, there was an unbalanced world, because no standard morality was settled. Genetic engineering and conditioning played role of eliminating the thought of becoming individualism. Since scientists in that world were trying to manipulate the citizen’s brain structures, genes and educations. If it is in the world of non-individualism, everyone follows the rules of the world state, in which everyone is conditioning to not breach the rule. It is like a frog living at the bottom of a well. How creation begins if the frog only sees the world of the well and never has a thought of achieving the world outside of the well. Even though the fog receives a considerably vigorous development inside the well, it is uncalled the creation. Put differently, the frog is merely achieving what he possesses. The people live in the world state develop the similar condition with the frog. Since they were born, they were instructed not to be creative and straightly follow the rule same as the frog never willing to reach the top of the well. What is more, “By correcting the disease genes … we human[s] can better live in the fast-changing environment.” . There are some good examples of how correcting the bad gene could establish the standard of living more efficiently. Up to 92 percent of United State, corn is genetically engineered, but do people recognize the potential danger of what genetically engineered corn could bring? What if the genetically engineered work applies to mortal beings? Does the fast-changing refer to a practical development or negative development? The future fulfills with uncertainty.

Happiness represents a feeling in the end. As science advances, people are increasingly discovering that this feeling is controllable. In the lab, the mouse will be happy to die to seek pleasure. If biochemistry science can control all this, achieves happiness still make sense? Being fed represents a maddening thing. It violates human self-esteem. In human’s concept, the person is a rational, capable of making choices, and free. When the people not feeling happiness “What you need is a gramme of soma”. Everyone receives a “happy pill” according to the quota every day, and its effect is similar to that of modern society: it stimulates the nerve center and produces chemical excitement and satisfaction. In addition, Human rebellion and human pursuits appear natural when he is frustrated. Once he is happy and successful, it will be doubtful. The daily allocation of Soma is a guarantee to prevent individual dissatisfaction, social unrest, and reactionary ideasN“Everyone belongs to everyone else, after all.’ In the consumerism, people all are the products of the dictator Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun.

And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts: Nodding, ‘He patted me on the behind this afternoon,’ said Lenina. ‘There, you see!’ Fanny was triumphant. ‘That shows what he stands for. The strictest conventionality.’Topic Sentence power and conditioning

Dictatorship minimizes the freedom of human by completely ruling their thoughts which impedes any inner improvement . In the World State “Everyone belongs to everyone else, after all,’ if this is attributed to the totalitarian government, it actually dissolves the complexity of the problem. In reality, the central government launched political struggles, publicized sacrifices for the country, and punished the rebels and treason. It is more like the solemnity of ‘1984’, but it has not launched a love movement, publicized entertainment gossip, and punishes diseases. senescence. Yes, the social engineering and control that appeared in ‘Beautiful New World’ has not yet appeared in real life. No one has forced us to live in such a superficial ‘happy’ world today, which is our own choice. The extremes of personality lead to anarchism, low efficiency and social turmoil; the extremes of commonality leads to the singular shrinkage of literature and art. When people lose themselves, they also lose the fundamental elements that distinguish them from animals: emotion and creativity.

Managers use scientific methods such as test tube cultivation, conditional restriction, hypnosis, sleep therapy, and Pavlov conditioned reflexes to strictly control the preferences of human beings, so that they can use their happiest mood to implement their own life-saving consumption patterns. , social surnames and posts.

The true ruler is high and ridiculed while controlling the people in the system. Occasionally, those who have doubts or rebellious attitudes to the status are considered to be unsettled and deported to remote areas.

All dictatorships are cruel and wasteful. They deprive the populace of basic rights while enriching a small minority at the expense of rational development. ‘The use of public money in the form of bureaucratic posts, infrastructure or even access to schools as a form of patronage, as well as the ethnic bias in the allocation of these goods, has been widely documented in Africa

In conclusion. Without freedom, one cannot be a person in the full sense. Therefore, freedom is the highest value. Perhaps the power to threaten freedom is too strong now, there is no way to resist it for a long time, but in any case, our responsibility is to resist as much as we can.

Work Cited Page

1. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World: with the Essay ‘Brave New World Revisited’. Harper Perennial, 2010.
2. Snyder, Bill. “Dictatorships Often Survive with Local Support.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, 1 Jan. 2007, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/dictatorships-often-survive-local-support
3. Regalado, Antonio. “EXCLUSIVE: Chinese Scientists Are Creating CRISPR Babies.” MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 25 Nov. 2018, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies/.
4. Xiao Yi Biomedical Doctor: Life is full of life, and the taste of elegance and common taste. ‘When ‘entertainment to death’ prevails, Huxley’s ‘beautiful new world’ Will you come.’ Know the column, 9 July 2018, https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/37911374

Brave New World is a dystopian fiction book published in 1931 by Aldous Huxley and printed in 1932. Mostly set in the futuristic World State in the year 632 AF, after Ford, in of genetically modified citizens in the intelligence-based social organization, the book explained large technological developments in the reproductive technology, sleep-learning, mental influence, and classical conditioning that were combined to create a utopian world that got challenged simply by a simple stranger. Each person was conditioned when they were first born which determined their role in society in the future. The novel’s plot centered on a group of people living in an isolated community where they lived together under a government-controlled artificial intelligence program called the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center. The main character was a young man named Bernard Marx, who had been living in a utopian society for many years. He felt that he was an outsider all throughout the book, but when he met a savage named John, he had realized that he wasn’t alone. The advanced technology had caused people to live in happiness, but restrict their lack of identity and emotion.

Happiness revoked the opportunity among the typical individuals in the public eye, yet Bernard and John prioritized freedom as increasingly vital. All through the novel, citizens in the World State would frequently take a medication called Soma which fulfilled them when they are feeling restless or troubled. Bernard felt that the medication did not give individuals a chance to express their feelings in light due to the fact that the directors wanted to keep everybody at peace and in unanimity. When Bernard arrived at the savage reservation, he felt that “now that the effects of the soma had worn off, of the weakness he had displayed that morning in the hotel, he went out of his way to show himself strong and unorthodox.’ (Huxley 76). After the soma had worn off, Bernard felt free and really felt like he had the option to demonstrate his real character. During his excursion, Bernard and John met. They both shared similar opinions, and they believed they were outcasts. When John came to the World State, he felt like an outcast again and stated, “‘O brave new world that has such people in it.’” (Huxley 93). He didn’t care for the values of the society the World State had. Despite the fact that he was unhappy, he would not take soma and told the citizens that they were being brainwashed and that they were being treated as slaves. John wanted freedom for everybody, but he didn’t accomplish it because he was sent away to live alone. Freedom was never accomplished because of the absence of social instability in the World State.

The theme of freedom and lack of individuality was withdrawn from everyone in the World State because of technological advances, for example, Bokanovsky’s procedure. A fertilized egg was stunned to make ninety-six identical people, and the only way they were different was by the caste they were in. When they were first born, they became conditioned in order to have a role in society. Conditioning individuals at a young age removed their individuality due to the fact that their life was already arranged for them. Happiness was given to everybody, but nobody had an identity in society since it would create sadness and social instability. ”No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability” (Huxley 31). Bernard felt ”as though [he] were more [him]. More on [his] own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body” (Huxley 61). Bernard wanted to be his own independent person. John likewise accepted that he was his very own individual with his very own opinions and feelings. Both John and Bernard couldn’t help but contradicting the totalitarian perspective of Mustapha Mond which was the reason they did not agree with him. Mond was taking the individual’s only characteristic, feeling, and he prevented it with soma. Emotions helped express opinions and beliefs, however, the World State disheartened the qualities.

The last theme that was presented was the lack of affection and emotion displayed in the tragic society because the ten controllers of the World State would control everyone. Due to the lack of affection, there was also a lack of emotion which meant that known ever felt anything about each other. Because of the advanced innovation of fertilizing eggs instead of pregnancy, women were not giving birth anymore, and this caused them to downgrade in the society. Before the technological society, the world was “full of mothers-therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity’ (Huxley 28). The job of women was enormously undervalued in the World State because the idea of not having a home and family was not idealistic. This impacted men as well because they felt that they had no purpose and that it was an undesirable society. In response to the men, the women began to conform to the society and not become mothers because it was considered indecent. The stereotypical role for women in the World State was to please men although they felt no emotion towards each other.

A shortcoming in the book was the confusing and unexplained ending. Toward the end of Brave New World, a group assembles to watch John frequently whip himself. The following day, John felt guilty for whipping himself so, he kills himself. Throughout the novel, John had always argued that “ Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate.” (Huxley 155). He always put truth before his happiness. When Mustapha Mond awarded him the opportunity to look for truth through selflessness and suffering, John whipped himself. This conclusion urged that the satisfaction empowered by the World State’s Controllers was a more dominant power than what John looked for. It was also not sure if John had ever found the truth at all. All things considered, the novel’s completion would propose that looking for truth must be a social objective. Truth couldn’t be found by isolated people like John.

A chief objection in the book was that no one knew what happened to Bernard when he got sent away because he couldn’t conform to the World State. The novel showed John’s point of view of him living alone, but once Mustapha Mond sent Bernard, Huxley did not talk about him again in the ending. Bernard was given two options, “to be sent to an island, where [he] could have got on with [his] pure science, or to be taken on to the Controllers’ Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership.” (Huxley 155). Bernard had chosen the island because he couldn’t be in the World State because he had felt too much of an outcast. All Bernard wanted was pure isolation from the world, and Mond sent him to an island where he was to live on. The reader did not know if Bernard ever made it to the island and what he did.

The book had more faults than merits. The plot was developed all over the place and the setting varied throughout the book. It was not clear where the actual setting was because it kept changing through every chapter. It was between the hatchery and the savage reservation. Also, there were many things happening at once such as Bernard and John being sent away to different places in the end. A merit in the book would be the fact that the World State was technologically advanced. Instead of having a woman give birth, Huxley described that eggs were fertilized in order to create a human being, and they were also duplicated. The new world had came “‘out of the realm of mere slavish imitation of nature into the much more interesting world of human invention.’” (Huxley 11).

To conclude, Brave New World has often been debated as a utopian or dystopian novel. Although everyone was happy in the perfect society, it also restrained people from being themselves without them knowing it. The three major themes were happiness rather than freedom, lacking individuality, and lacking affection and emotion. Given that Brave New World was published in 1931, Huxley’s future society showed that it was very similar to the present society. John and Bernard, the main protagonists, went against the societies’ values which caused them to be forced to leave. It was due to their lack of conformity and change. By conditioning people at a young age, it allowed the controllers to control everyone. A perfect world may not seem so perfect because it can turn very toxic at a rapid pace.

Common knowledge is that live in a world where people are selfish.The more successful people seem to be the more their ideas and actions seem to revolve around themselves.Society,Technology,Caste system,and sex and drugs have a major influence in the world we live in pointed out by prestigious writer Aldous Huxley. Huxley who was a english writer and philosopher presents these in a novel called The Brave New World. He introduces a dystopian society where Human nature tries to fulfill urges,dreams, and desires. How can one learn from Huxley’s book to not make the same mistakes? Simple not giving into temptation, practice being unselfish,and kind.Then there would be a possibility of making an ideal world.

Huxley’s book that takes place in the future totalitarian society that has lost its morals,and humanity. People are brainwashed and conditioned to believe in a false sense of what is right and wrong. Most of the citizens of the World State are selfish,controlled,and base everything in superficial things that have to do with the value of an individual. Society is broken,one could say poisoned even. There is no true emotions,feelings,or kind gestures.Everyone seems to be shallow, and heartless to the extent they don’t realize they are in the wrong.“It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes—make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness.”This quote from the book shows how people in higher caste in society Mustapha in this case can use their ranking to censor information,and preserve authority over the citizens of the world state.

A big aspect of the book was caste system everyone is assigned into a category fitting their looks,and qualities.Each caste is given a different task ,or job which are done to keep ̈A perfect society ̈ alive. There are five castes Alphas who are on top below them Betas,after Gammas,Deltas,and Epsilons. This increased the number of issues this society has. People aren’t treated equally,not given the same fundamental rights,and freedoms. People are not allowed to choose for themselves. Bonds of family are broken,and one has a predestined future or role once out of an incubator since there aren’t any mothers. Bernard Max has to struggle to find his place in this society this is the case for many of the societies in The Brave New World.

The Citizens of the World State are also manipulated with drugs,and sex. The citizens take Soma a drug used to prevent the people to speak their mind,or try to change the way the society is.This advanced drug takes away human qualities,emotions,and self expression. People take this drug daily,and live as if they were robots. Lenina a character in the book takes these drugs and they help her emotions to seize and become more dependent on soma,which led to her demise. Soma is also taken as part of the religious practices they have in the book while people have orgies. People don ́t have sex for love,but as a way to numb their loneliness,issues,and lust. This is mentioned in the book while Bernard Max who does the ceremony,and the ceremony makes him feel even worse than before after joining this odd ritual.

Technology is by far one of the most important aspects of this book. Technology found in this futuristic world are things like hypnopaedia conditioning,Bokanovsky process,and medical interventions. This Twisted use of technology to play god,and have absolute mandate and control over the citizens lives is wrong. Huxley warns about this in this portion of the book that talks about these in specific. Children are processed,and from birth are coded by sound on how to run society.This implementation of science and technology instead of making a safer,and more stable society it made it worse. Life is ruled over technology,and humans are now expandable. This treat of technology is warned against by Huxley in a storytelling manor,that wouldn’t make anyone want to even attempt to do it. He warns that there is a way to big of a price to pay to be a perfect society. This can include the destruction of individualism in a modern world full of technology advancements. This constant growing reliance on technology will sooner than later ruin human society,and tarnish it. Huxley recommends not having to rely on technology to make the right choices,and succeed in making an ideal society.

Huxley warned of what could happen if we let ourselves astray,and trust our future to machines,and auto destructive behaviors.That we would not live a perfect world rather a living hell where we aren’t really happy, and truly alone.

One of the most enduring beliefs in human culture is the belief in progress. Therefore, as human ability in all areas advanced during the Enlightenment, people believed that progress in science, politics, and human nature would move humanity into a better world of tomorrow. However, events in the twentieth century challenged these beliefs. As the world suffered through two world wars in two decades, the ideals of progress had been reversed. So-called rational progressive governments exhibited human progress in the power of science and capitalistic greed, as technology turned on its makers and used to murder millions. Conversely, other parts of society exhibited human progress as pacification and love; a self-actualized world in the absence of greed. Ultimately, a species that thought itself enlightened allowed terrible crimes against humanity the world over. Out of this reversal came two opposing novels which challenge the belief of progress. In Brave New World and Island, written by Aldous Huxley, both novels are reactions to, and a satirical commentary on modern progress and the world it creates. The reversal of modern progress are observed in society’s abundance or lack of happiness, its reliance on consumption and loosening sexual taboos.

A potent mechanism of progress is the economy. Brave New World’s dystopia reveals a society deeply reliant on industrial capitalism. Huxley uses society’s reliance on consumption and profitability as a blow towards the so-called wonders of modern capitalism. In this era of modernity, society finds God not in religion but in science and industrialization. For example, this is first observed in the almost religious reverence for Henry Ford. In the beginning of the novel, the date of a historical event is mentioned in reference to the production date of “Our Ford’s” first car, the Model T, and all present “made a sign of the T on [their] stomach” in response” (Huxley 20). Henry Ford is perhaps the founding father of modern capitalism, having invented the assembly line and mass production. The World State’s slavish devotion to this father of capitalism satirizes through exaggeration the modern idea that mass produced capitalism is the only viable economic system. Thus, in a false sense of religion, society turns to materialistic desire, driven by consumerism. As a result, another aspect of the modern economy that Brave New World targets is its reliance on consumption. For instance, during a discussion of the conditioning children undergo in the World State, it is mentioned that children were conditioned to love nature. However, this was stopped owing to the fact that “a love of nature keeps no factories busy” (Huxley 18). Instead, the people are conditioned to “love all country sports” but to “hate the country” (Huxley 18). Thus, people travel to play the sports, but never stay, ensuring that they, “consume manufactured articles as well as transport” (Huxley 18). The greed of World State imposed on its citizens exacerbates the dystopian society Huxley illustrates within Brave New World. The great lengths taken to ensure that people consume the necessary amounts of goods reveals the foundations of the modern economic system as built on pure and simple consumption, without which the system would collapse.

Huxley returns to the question of ideal human progress in Island. Whereas Brave New World has illustrated a society that has given in to the trappings of consumption and capitalism, Island has forgone this for the sake of an “oasis of happiness and freedom” (Huxley 13). The island of Pala is free of greed, observed in its co-operative financial system, limited procreation and practical approach to resources means that Pala has survived while the rest of the world has succumbed to the perils of excess, as Dr. Robert McPhail, descendent of the Scottish doctor on whose philosophy Pala is based, explains: Our equations are rather different. Electricity minus heavy industry plus birth control equals democracy and plenty. Electricity plus heavy industry minus birth control equals misery, totalitarianism and war. Thus. in the creation of a utopian society full, Huxley reveals the stark differences in the society of island and in modern society. (Talk about how Island is “free” of greed,, how does this impact the characters). The reversal of this idea is represented in Murugan and Joe Aldehyde. Both characters view societal progress as national influence and economic power. Conversely, Will Farnaby represents a medium of these two contrasting ideals of society’s progress. Initially, Will is as a representation of modern society, a product of secularism and rationalization in his greed for materialistic capitalism.

Sex is a vital part of Brave New World. As a fundamental component to the human experience, sex and love are wielded as tools to control society. Sex in Brave New World’s dystopian World State is enjoyed for pleasure and as a distraction. However, sexuality’s counterpart, love, is nearly non-existent. For example, Linda, a World State citizen who was lost away from civilization for many years, returns to London and meets her former lover, the Director of Hatcheries. When she proclaims that the Director “made me have a baby” (Huxley 131), they are both met with derision, exacerbated when the Director’s son, John, also appears. While sexuality is open and freely accepted, the connections between people that sexuality creates are mocked and shunned from society. In Brave New World, this is done for political reasons, to break down connections between people to maintain conformity. However, this attitude towards sex is also a statement on loosening sexual attitudes in a modern progressive society. The World State warns of the risk of losing the emotional connections of sex entirely in a bid to loosen taboos of an earlier age. These concerns are vocalized by Bernard Marx, a World State citizen who does not buy in to his fellow citizens’ attitudes. Two men are discussing a woman; Lenina Crowne. However, they sexually mistreat her as a new kind of meal, something to be sampled out of curiosity. One of the men suggests to the other that he should “have her”, that is, have sex with her. The other replies: “I certainly will. At the first opportunity” (Huxley 37). Bernard overhears this conversation and is outraged: “Treating her as though she were a bit of meat . . . have her here, have her there” (Huxley 39). Bernard’s contrasting views on sexuality bring Huxley’s satire of changing sexual attitudes into greater focus. Bernard represents the “old” ways, treating sex as sacred, while the other men of the World State contrasts this ideology. In Bernard’s conflict with the other men, he emulates the past’s conflict with the new attitudes toward sex, where sex is just a simple pleasure, to be enjoyed or discarded when desired.

Huxley realizes a humane vision of sexuality in Island in stark contrast to Brave New World. Whereas Brave New World approaches sex as devoid of emotion and love, sexuality in Pala neither trivialized or regulated, instead celebrated with an spiritual reverence. Education towards the “yoga of love” (Huxley 104) begins at a young age, where the populace is encouraged to view sex as expressive. Artificial insemination is used to eliminate hereditary disease and improve the race; therefore, “enrich[ing] the family with an entirely new physique and temperament”. Thus, CONTRACEPTION to further enable expressive sex. Like Bernard in Brave New World, Murugan represents the “old” belief towards sex in his criticism towards Pala’s loosening sexual taboos: “No progress, only sex, sex and sex and of course that beastly dope they’re all given’ (Huxley 164). (talk about homosexual relationship). The loosening of sexual taboos in Island satirizes both the domestication of human passion and “abstinence only” education of the 1960s. Huxley’s pragmatic ideal of sexuality offers an “enlightened” vision of modern society, where sex is a spirital act rather than a blind act of passion or used only for procreation.

One of the most dominant themes of Brave New World is the abundance of happiness and absence of unhappiness. From the conversation between one of the World Controllers, Mustapha Mond, and John the Savage, it is clear that the purpose of life in the eyes of the World State is the maintenance of universal happiness for social stability. To ensure conformity, the government controls society by manipulating the emotional bonds rooted in interpersonal relationships, such as in families. For example, according to the World State, a family unit is viewed as: ‘ [A] rabbit hole, hot with frictions of tightly packed life, reeking with emotion. What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group!” (Huxley 30). Conversely, the World State enforces sexuality over love. The World State’s reasoning is a reflection of their belief that strong emotions under the pressure of social relationships is the main cause of unhappiness. Thus, implementing this idea abolishes natural instincts such as family, monogamy, and romance. As a result, Huxley abolishes these types of relationships in Brave New World. Moreover, he treats family relationships as taboo: “Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. Mother, monogamy, romance […] The urge has but a single outlet. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, […] they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly, how could they be stable?” (Huxley 33-34). Furthermore, natural emotional responses are suppressed by a drug called soma. Soma is utilized by the World State to repress and control its citizens: “It can be taken at no physiological or mental cost” (Huxley 28). Thus, when Lenina’s lover, Marx, suggests to her that he would like to spend more time with her alone, she uneasily answers, “Why don’t you take Soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly” (Huxley 79). Thus, Brave New World’s conformity satirizes modern society’s trade of emotional responses for universal happiness. If true happiness is valuing joy in the face of hardship and struggle, how can it exist in a society so advanced it renders hardship and struggles obsolete? Thus, Huxley encourages the reader to value the right to experience unhappiness, as preserving through sad times is what allows humanity to progress towards a self-actualized world.

The manipulation of happiness in Island allows civilization to create its own version of a perfect utopia. Whereas Brave New World suppresses human nature; thus, creating an imbalance on civilizations’s respective populations, the island of Pala celebrates humanity in its purest form. Huxley nurtures the positive development of human potential by solving the problems that plague Western society. Furthermore, although Pala shares much of the programmed indoctoriation of Brave New World such as birth control, educational conditioning and a ban on the nuclear family, these restrictions are more reasonably applied/ (talk about how pala’s society is beautiful and perfect possible through the enlightenment of Eastern spirituality contrasting BNW religious reverence to Ford and they use drugs and shit as enlightenment not control).

Modernity has enabled so much for humanity. Poverty has been eased, quality of life improved, and people connected, faster and better than ever before. But, as Huxley illustrates in dystopian and utopian societies, modernity is no panacea. Thus, Huxley presents the danger in Western society’s never-ending march towards a “perfect” future. Brave New World and Island satirizes the deleterious effects of modern industrial capitalism, with its focus on consumption and profit threatening to consume the very people who participate in it. Moreover, they observe the loosening of sexual taboos, a trend that risks overcompensating and removing the meaning of sex and love along with the taboos around it. Lastly, Huxley comments on society’s capability to completely repress happiness and eradicate instinctive human nature. It is often said that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. These novels prove that we must also remember our future as well, lest our search for progress overcome us.

Authors reference other texts to construct emphasis on themes, bring out characterization and intrigue the reader on deeper meanings. Published in 1932, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” depicts a dystopian society composed on the reliance of drugs, production of new technology and efficiency of mass production. In the novel, there is constant reference to William Shakespeare including direct quotes from plays and poems.

Huxley portrays the consequences of consumerism through a satirical comparison between the ridicule, advanced society against the ‘normal’ society of the Shakespearean era. He deliberately emphasizes the mocking tone inflicted into the plot; to drag a contrast between the two societies; to display the characterization of characters as well as to represent the theme of isolation.

While the novel references to other texts, the title itself, “Brave New World” is a direct quote from “The Tempest”. The words spoken by Miranda, an innocent, never seen more than two humans in her life, exclaims, “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that as such people in it!”. This displays the similar themes in both pieces of literature such as colonialism or foreignness to the reader/audience and elements of “Brave New World” being a tragedy. Throughout the book, the author uses the character John, part of the uncivilized, “savage reservation”, to remind the reader the common theme of “Brave New World” through the use of repetition. Huxley does this to create irony as both John and Miranda declare this line when they are greeted by a new society.

Furthermore, Huxley uses repetition in order to juxtapose the two societies (advanced society and the savage reservation), showing how different each are but also, emphasizing these two societies are more comparable than they are originally visualized: both societies share the common factor of believing that their society is the “perfect society” and having two isolated characters (Bernard and John) who want to escape their society. Yet, both return to their comfort zone; Bernard did not take the opportunity to go to Iceland and John resulted in isolating himself to continue to pursue his beliefs.

Huxley also depicts the character of “John the Savage” as a direct reflection of Caliban in “The Tempest”: they share the same qualities of being in a society surrounded by people that mock them, want to be isolated and they both engage in the effect of being an outsider in a new world. In the end, both characters are left in isolation. Tragedy occurs when John chooses to live on his own and later commits suicide and Caliban is left on the island on his own. This technique allows Huxley to use an already successful character to express the misery of isolation.

Another Shakespearean drama referenced frequently in the novel is “Romeo and Juliet”. Huxley uses direct quotes from this play to communicate the theme of love between John and Lenina. While Lenina is on a “soma-holiday”, John gazes at her and recites Romeo’s line, “On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand, […] pure and vestal modesty, still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin”. Not only does this display a relationship between John and Lenina but also, that they are from two different societies identical to Romeo and Juliet to the point at which their families were mortal enemies.

The reader can distinguish that John is an embodiment of Shakespeare. John attempts to encourage everyone to utilize Shakespeare to the degree he uses him. He eagerly questions, “Do they read Shakespeare?” while walking past the school library attempting to manifest Shakespeare into the advanced society. John continues, as he introduces Shakespeare to Helmholtz, a poet, “Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, […] O sweet my mother, cast me not away: Delay this marriage for a month, a week”. Huxley included this line from “Romeo and Juliet” to show the contrast between the role of a mother in the two societies. The word “mother” is almost inexistent in the advanced society. Helmholtz’s laughter draws humor in this scenario: the obscenity of having a mother. Again, Huxley uses satire to mock the so-called perfect society by the ambiguous meanings of mother.

One other Shakespearean tragedy that is referenced in “Brave New World” is “Othello”, “Othello, he remembered, was like the hero of Three Weeks in a Helicopter- a black man” thinks John after seeing a “feely” with Lenina. Huxley attempts to show the reader that similarities can be drawn. John is attempting to relate to this new world by looking through the eyes of Shakespeare or Othello. Moreover, there is a reference to “The Merchant of Venice”, “What’s in those (remembering The Merchant of Venice) those caskets?”. It shows how John applies his real-life situations in terms of Shakespeare. The effect that it gives the reader in showing how one copes with a foreign world: by relating the world to a recollection of comfort.

This piece of literature also references the historical figure, Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company. Ford is seen as a god even to the extent of the calendar as the measurement of years are in A.F. (After Ford). His principles of mass production are taken to produce babies and “pneumatic” (a word that originally was to refer to an air-filled tire) to describe attractive women. This allusion forms an element of religion, time with the fundamentals of technology. It gives the reader an interesting approach on how the perfect society was created being an influential piece of history.

The inspiration of Shakespeare to create a novel that drags attention to how consumerism and advancement of technology can lead to forgetting the significance of historical literature and religion. Huxley uses Shakespeare as he would remain relevant for years to come. “Brave New World” employs Shakespeare and historical referencing for producing emphasis, drawing contrast and similarities, creating characterization, portraying common themes as well as generating a satirical, sarcastic tone. These techniques give the effect, towards the reader, of showing comparison together with a representation of a deeper meaning.