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Brave New World - Is Individuality a Threat to Society, or a Gift to Society?

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As man has progressed through the ages, there has been, essentially, one purpose. That purpose is to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is nonexistent, and strife, anger, or sadness is unheard of. Only happiness exists. But when confronted with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we come to realize that this is not, in fact, what the human soul really craves. In fact, Utopian societies are much worse than those of today. In a utopian society, the individual, who among others composes the society, is lost in the melting pot of semblance and world of uninterest. The theme of Huxley's Brave New World is community, identity, and stability. Each of these three themes represents what a Brave New World society needs …show more content…

In Brave New World, every member of society is genetically engineered and conditioned to believe that, “when the individual feels, the community reels.” Yet Bernard speaks with individualistic ideas that are unheard of in this society molded around the loss of being a unique person. Bernard’s friend, Helmholtz Watson is also one who threatens the utopia of Brave New World. Huxley explains the friendship of the two men: “What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals.” They are the only characters that openly discuss their personal ideas. Ideas that in a sense are considered sinful in their society. In the end Bernard and Helmholtz are ejected from society by being shipped off to some foreign island so that they will finally be free to expose their individualism. The settings of Brave New World only offer a choice between cultured slavery and primitiveness. Of the characters in Brave New World few have a mind of their own and most are not able to do things on their own. People exist to voice ideas or to manifest them in their behavior
Through mass production of people, individualism is lost. In Brave New World, all of the people are products of mass production. “Racks upon racks of numbered test tubes.” [5] is the only way to describe them

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