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Brave New World Annotated Bibliography

Decent Essays

Bibliographic Information
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946. Print.
Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, England in 1894 and died in Los Angeles in 1963. He lived during the post-modernist era.
Key Question
“...COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY” (Huxley 1).
Throughout the plot of the novel, these three words hang on a sign over the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, which compromises the slogan for the society.
The slogan for London’s society is extremely similar to the slogan of its counterpart 1984 due to fear of authoritarianism.
“...you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired sayings of Our Ford’s: History is bunk” (Huxley 34).
Quoted by Mustapha Mond, instructs his citizens to …show more content…

“You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the higher art” (Huxley 226).
Mustapha Mond responds to John Savage’s protest, saying that John has a point, but that in this society, happiness is the greater good and great literature can only come from unhappiness.
Most pieces of work in the real world come from emotional experiences and they are not always of happiness.
Title
Aldous Huxley’s repeated phrase and title “Brave New World” represents the climax of an unprincipled society in which technological advances changes the lives of many.
Setting
This novel took place in futuristic London after World War I where people were set out to find a new utopian society.
Theme
A commodified society is harmful to human creativity.
Throughout the novel, the “utopian” society changes human behavior so that individuals seek to consume items and services. This modification means that any individual that makes the goods or services purchased will be able to stay employed so that the society’s economy remains stable. However, reliance upon commodification stops any attempt at original …show more content…

Aldous Huxley argues that certain structures in our modern society work like drugs, just like working in this dystopian society. He often argues that the use of advertising specifically targeted toward a group of people for the way that it hypnotizes individuals into buying a specific product.
“Lenina was still sobbing. ‘Too awful,’ she kept repeating, and all Bernard’s consolations were in vain. ‘Too awful! That blood!’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, I wish I had my soma” (Huxley 116).
Human impulse can both stabilize and destabilize a society.
In Brave New World, authorities encourage individuals to sleep with as many people possible as often as possible. In previous generations, marriage controlled these sexual impulses but when people tried to confine them, such institutions unraveled. By abolishing marriage and encouraging these sexual behaviors, the leaders of the new world have gotten rid of the inherent dangers.
“‘But every one belongs to every one else,’ he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb” (Huxley 40).
Character
John the

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