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Sexuality In Brave New World Essay

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Is sexuality always used to challenge the norm in Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘The Devil’s Wife’ and in the novels Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf?
I will open my essay with an Oxford English Dictionary definition of the noun ‘norm’. I will argue that all three texts do use sexuality to challenge the norm, however they do not always use sexuality to challenge it. For instance, in ‘The Devil’s Wife’ I will show how Myra Hindley’s sexuality creates empathy for her, even though she is generally a despised figure. I will also illustrate how Carol Ann Duffy challenges norms without using sexuality in the poem. Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World challenges the norm of monogamy, though it conforms to others and surrenders …show more content…

Sexuality challenges norms as monogamy is a source of shame in this extract: Lenina ‘blushes scarlet’ when Fanny discovers ‘there’s been nobody else except Henry’ (Huxley,1932, p.34). However, as Atwood implies, like most fictions all romantic relationships in the novel are heterosexual (1993, p.7). This is obvious in this passage as Lenina’s romantic/sexual interests are men. The concept that sexuality is controlled, that ‘the interval’ ‘between desire and its consummation’ is ‘shorten[ed]’, does not challenge the norm (Huxley, 1932, p.37). Instead, it reiterates seventeenth-century norms where similarly, sex was ‘controlled’ ‘for the greater good of all’ (Foucault, 1981. …show more content…

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