Individuality In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Zaroff told me that he kept his prey in his basement, and I shall set them free, Rainsford thought. He went down to the basement where he found 10 captains held chained to the wall. It was dark and damp. The air smelled musty and dank like a dark bat cave. As Rainsford approached the prisoners they all started to shout in fear.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World as a satire of a utopian future, never hesitating to call to question all that society holds dear: religion, love, freedom, and most importantly, individualism. Huxley incorporates this absence frequently in the novel to accentuate the importance of being an individual and having beliefs and values. The novel is centered around the loss of individualism and the belief that an individual is no longer their own person because they’re no longer an individual, or everyone belongs to everyone, as it is said in the book. From birth everyone is conditioned to be of their class, and those in that class are all the same, from the clothes, to the job, to the events attended.

Society stresses the good of the community over the individual. In Aldous Huxley’s twentieth century utopian novel Brave New World, Huxley illustrated the loss of individualism with degrading repetition. Repetition and conditioning from a young age mold the minds of the individuals in the brave new world. The Director of the Hatchery uses similes to convey their propaganda to the children, “rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob” (Aldous Huxley, 28). Huxley warns us of the danger of losing our individuality throughout the book by exaggerating the loss of individualism and stresses that no people are worth more than others.

As it is seen in Brave New World, the World State has controlled so much of their lives that they have lost their consciousness through conditioning. In other words, the World State has controlled their minds so much that the people are unaware that they have lost their person freedom but since conditioning has failed on Bernard, he is able to recognize the loss of individuality in the World State. The government controls because they would rather have others lose their personal identity than have them be a threat to society. Therefore, if the country progresses to being all-powerful and invading the lives of individuals, there would be conformity and a loss of individuality.

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

In Brave New World, the community is given priority above the individual; and although this priority may seem like a sort of devotion, the way in which Huxley illustrates it strips a person of any form of individuality. William Matter sees that in Huxley’s Brave New World, “individuality must be repressed because it invites a malleable social structure” (Matter 95). This elimination of individuality causes no depth of feeling, no creativity and no intellectual excitement. What makes a person an individual is to have a sense of himself as being separate, distinct, and unique. This sense of self includes both the joys and sorrows of one’s life.

Truth and happiness can be used in hundreds of different trivial ways, thoughtlessly. Merriam Webster defines truth as a “a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as {fact}” and happiness as “a state of well-being and contentment”. Modern lexicon tends to mash the two together, like knowing the accepting facts are essential to ones physical and mental well being. So naturally when we discuss human issues in societies, specifically those of the fictional variety we apply our mashed set of ideals based on truth and happiness on each of these different societies . In Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, by conventional societies ideas the citizens of the world state know nothing of traditional reality and by the standards of the traditional world are far from a state of contentment, but if examined by the ideals of the society in question the overall appearance is quite different. the population seems happy because they don’t know the truth. In fact the characters that do know the truth are far unhappier by both societies measures.

People are defined by the morals they uphold. People become individuals through interpretations of their teachings. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, John’s morals define him as an individual; his actions are based on what he believes is right. The teachings John receives allow him room for analysis, his interpretation defines who his is. By contrast, the teachings of the New World allow little deviation in its members interpretation. The New world destroys the individualism of its members and causes them to become, rather than individuals, a blank mass of people all part of the same figurative organism which is their government. John represents the benefits and downfalls of individualism in comparison to the New World which has its people define themselves as a community rather than as individuals. John is an example of individualism while Lenina is an example of a member of the New World. Both Lenina and John ultimately give into their individualism and end up worse off for it; the message of the novel is then that people are better off identifying themselves as a community, rather than as individuals.

As we started class discussion, we spoke of individuality. In some people's reflections on their diaries for class discussion, there was too much of it in “The Brave New World”. Some said there was not enough. What is individuality? Individuality is a person beliefs or way of their life.

Brave New World Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World to show how science affects people in both a negative and positive way. He showed how much the World State society values industry and advancement of their technology. He wrote about how they had very different morals and values for social stability and how they idolized Henry Ford for his creation of mass production and assembly lines. Our world and the World State contrast in many different ways.

Many people wonder what it would be like to live in a perfect society; one in which everyone is equal, happy, and virtually living easier lives on a day to day basis. A society is defined as the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. The perfect society would hold a more ordered community, obviously. However, perhaps this utopian dream could carry a society that hides malicious motives in order to keep up appearances. Aldous Huxley illustrates this idea in his timeless work of science-fiction, Brave New World. Huxley illuminates a malicious government that hides its true motives from an unsuspecting society by using

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

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.

We are a generation of pioneers - we exist on the cusp of a new world, a world explored by Aldous Huxley in his 1931 novel, Brave New World. Within these last few centuries, humanity has experienced a rapid technological growth, and this train shows no signs of stopping. Such a thing is not noteworthy, but merely the natural course; it is logical that as more advances are compounded upon one another, the overall rate of advancement will surely increase, for each stage makes it easier to progress further. As Moore 's law states," the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every 18 months" (Excerpts). His observation has proven to be accurate, and it is applicable to more than just computing technologies. We exist in a world where the rich hold power over the poor and this has always been the case - but with the technological gap between the two classes quickly expanding, it is clear that we will soon face a harsh ultimatum: will we use this power to control, or to enrich? It is as Voltaire once declared, “Un grand pouvoir implique une grande responsabilité,“ or, “With great power, comes great responsibility” (“Oeuvres De Voltaire Volume 48”). [Yes, this line did exist before Spider-man!]

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