A Brave New World By Aldous Huxley: Chapter Analysis

In Aldous Huxley’s novel a Brave New World, published in 1931, there are several attacks on society. Throughout this essay it will be seen what these problems were and if they were fixed. If the problems were fixed, it must be determined when they were. The primary focus is to answer whether we have changed for the better, women’s role in society and the social classes. In the end it will be obvious that a perfect society is impossible but we have made improvement.

Derived from “polis” meaning city-state, politics as Bismarck refers to is an art of total government control, exercising complete authority and power by creating, introducing and enforcing rules made by collective decision. However in both texts, “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley and the film “The Giver” directed Phillip Noyce, the roots of politics stem from the art of total and limitless control. The novel Brave New World presents a futuristic society that has tried to create a perfect community where everybody is happy, they use science to mass produce people and condition them to do and want only things prescribed to them, taking away freedoms such as the freedom to think for one self. While, “The Giver” sets a story in a society which at first is presented as a utopian world. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "sameness”. The main character Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the memories of the past. Through a variety of literary techniques, the notion of politics as an art rather than a science is thus explored in both texts.

In chapter 10, the D.H.C states " murder only kills the individual - what is an individual anyway? " The individual is not acknowledged as existing, however, John's act allows him to have complete control over his individuality. His demise is not formulated in the Predestination Room, but rather by his own action. Additionally, the reader may experience a sense of "hope" as a result of John's suicide. John will no longer suffer from the prying eyes of society.

As for intelligence there have been three capacities and virtues that should be targeted for moral enhancement, which are the sensitivity to the features of situations, thoughtfulness about doing what is moral, and the proper capacity for people to make proper judgments. The continued progress in the modification of learning, cognition, memory, the capabilities of decision-making will help assist the moral enhancement with these tasks. There have also been many neurochemicals that have been used to enhance cognitive abilities, which include increased attention span and cognition span. Drugs like OxyContin have also been used to help with empathy, and to make people feel happier. It may be believed that a drug like soma was only possible in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, but perhaps not. Utilitarian’s have been pushing for human enhancement that uses drugs, genetic engineering and nanotechnology to ensure the maximum amount of happiness possible while attempting to eliminate any pain. Proponents believe that this would reset the brain’s thinking patterns, and allow people to think more positively by keeping our minds engaged, rather than in a constant dull and depressing state. Many anti- depressant drugs are attempting to do just this. It is safe to say that moral enhancement is not just a potential innovation, but a technology that is already beginning.

John The Savage has also been raised differently compared to the people in the World State, so he does not understand how people in the World State do not feel the emotions he does. John The Savage gets very upset when his mom ended up passing away. He wanted time to grieve, but the World State has trained people to take soma and has also trained them to not care about death, since they can just produce a new person to take the dead person’s spot in the community. John gets very upset when the children in training act disrespectful and jump around her bed. John also does not share the same feelings when it comes to relationships. The people living in the World State are trained that sex is not a sacred event and it is just something everyone does. Lenina tries to have sex with John, but John does not feel the same way. John feels he has to show Lenina he is worthy of having sex with her before it just happens. John also wants a long-term relationship and in the World State, everyone is open to everyone and there is no such thing as a long-term relationship unless approved of a marriage: ‘”The Savage was reading Romeo and Juliet aloud—reading (for all the time he was seeing himself as Romeo and Lenina as Juliet) with an intense and quivering passion”’ (Huxley 184). This quote

According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, bravery is “possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance” (Agnes 178). Oftentimes, people are commended for acts of bravery they complete in the heat of a moment or overcoming a life-changing obstacle. Rarely one is commended for simply living a brave life, facing challenges they do not even understand. The characters in the Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World live a peculiar lifestyle demonstrating bravery for just breathing. Although Huxley’s ideas are surfacing today, the dystopia he creates is unrelatable . The genetic make-up of these men and women is different, creating a human lacking basic function of life. In Western Europe an individual forms in a laboratory, “one egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress” (Huxley 6). The dystopian way of reproduction rarely involves a man impregnating a woman. Huxley’s characters are born in a laboratory. These class divided people are manipulated to be personality less , sex-driven, dumb-downed, assembly line workers. Brainwashing from birth conditions them to go through the motions without doubting their purpose. Government controllers are not looking out for the egg at all, simply manufacturing them to keep the

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World introduces us to a futuristic technological world where monogamy is shunned, science is used in order to maintain stability, and society is divided by 5 castes consisting of alphas(highest), betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons(lowest). In the Brave New World, the author demonstrates how society mandates people’s beliefs using many characters throughout the novel.

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley warns of the dangers of science and technology and their impact on society. In the world he describes, humans are genetically modified and developed in factories, and the population is controlled by drugs and hypnopaedic conditioning. Although this is a fictional society, it is a very possible future based on the direction science and technology are already heading. Advancing science and technology are some the largest threats to society, and action must be taken to prevent a future similar to the one described by Huxley.

Using science to control and separate people into groups, keeping the best and brightest of us in entertainment-fueled stupors, constant distractions will be the death of identity and the death of true creativity, spirituality, and art. Corporations and manufacturers becoming increasingly conglomerated, synthesized, and obsessed with themselves and selling their product. This is a future, a reality where “mother” and “father” are disgusting slurs. How can anyone- especially someone like John- tolerate a world where everything that had meaning to him, out in the reservation, is specially and systematically made meaningless? He didn’t and could not. The novel abruptly ends with John’s final action, the true day of the rope. His death was a statement from Huxley- the “march of progress” will be the end of true feeling. It’s surprisingly prescient and poignant, even decades

When John arrives in London and experiences how the people in the World State behave and live, he is disgusted. John is a character that chooses to be honest with himself, and with others. He chooses to be unhappy because he does not agree with how everyone else is living. Instead of behaving like the people in the World State, he decides to live how he knows is right. He is upset with how everyone is conditioned and realizes the dehumanization of society that is taking place. He is perturbed by realizing everyone is living by lies. Mustapha Mond tells John he is “claiming the right to be unhappy” and the savage defiantly agrees with him (Huxley 242). John continues to disagree with how the World State operates until his

The Russian Revolution and challenges to the British Empire abroad raised the possibility of change on a world scale. At home, the expansion of transportation and communication, the cars, telephones, and radios made affordable through mass production, also brought revolutionary changes to daily life. With this new technology, distances grew suddenly shorter and true privacy rarer. In Brave New World, such technologies and more have been introduced to The World State, and this society brings to life these exact fears of distance between people: While people in industrialized societies welcomed these advances, they also worried about losing a familiar way of life, and perhaps even themselves. Huxley’s novel also attempts to show how science, when taken too far, can limit the flourishing of human thought: “The lower the caste,’ said Mr. Foster, ‘"the shorter the oxygen.’ The first organ affected was the brain. After that the skeleton. At seventy per cent of normal oxygen you got dwarfs. At less than seventy eyeless monsters.’” (Huxley, 70). In World War I, humanity had seen the great destruction that technology such as bombs, planes, and machine guns could cause. Huxley believed that the possibility for such destruction did not only belong to weapons of war but to other scientific advancements as well, such

The New World, a man-made Utopia, governed by its motto, Community, Identity, Stability (Huxley 3). A man-made world in every way. Human beings fertilized in bottles. Identity, gender, intelligence, position in society, all predestined. Human beings classified in the order of precedence: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Every one conditioned to be a certain way. Every one works for every one else (Huxley, 74). All man-made to ensure social stability. Is society in the New World truly better than in the 2000s? Are people in the New World truly happier than we are in the 2000s? Do we in the 2000s have any thing in common with the New World? Are there significant sociological differences between

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World focuses not on technology, but technology as it modifies people. For example, Harry Potter isn’t a book informing the reader of the blood types or dental care necessities of wizards, but rather how wizards affect the world. Huxley reveals a high tech and seemingly revolutionary future; a world where people are manipulated and dictated down to their emotions, daydreams, and preferences. In this book, science and technology imprison humanity. Science is corrupted and somewhat dangerous; its powerful technological advances threaten society. The people rely solely on technology for all their basic functions. This results in a lack of control by the citizens and gain of control by those in charge. In Brave New World

The color of the groups uniform determined how intelligent and skillful the people were mentally. A certain color(grey) determined if you were clever, an Alpha, and another color(green) determined if you were vapid, an Epsilon. More specifically, every individual was made to believe this in their sleep. As Huxley states, “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki… Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid”(Huxley 27/28). Huxley is stating that brain washing begins since one is born and occurs when an individual is not aware of what is going on in their surroundings.

How would you feel if you were exiled? Most would say this would be a terrible experience. However, several theorists have many different views on the impact of being exiled. American theorist Edward Said claimed, “It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” But on another note, he said it is “a potent, even enriching.” Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, expands on this idea of exilation. Throughout the novel, several characters are faced with being exiled, whether it be from their home or community. In particular, a man by the name of John seems to experience the bulk of it. John’s experiences show that being exiled is