Imagine a life of luxury and happiness. Sounds like a dream . . . but what if it was reality. Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World explains how society turns into a dystopian future. He shows a world where humans are developed and controlled in means of stability. Aldous Huxley was raised in a family well-known for their intellectual and scientific achievements (Magill 952
-956). Therefore, he became a genius and even a prodigy for being brilliant and creative (Napierkowski and Stanley 32-34). He grew up to be a famous author, making science fiction and futuristic novels. After learning about Aldous Huxley and examining the influences around him, there are three prominent similarities between his life and the book. Hallucinogenic drugs, tragic world events, and new technology are just a few relationships included in Brave New World.
Traveling and learning about different religions played a major part in Huxley's life and novels (Napierkowski and Stanley 32-34). The most influential religions to his life were Hinduism and Buddhism. These two religions taught him the connection between the mind, body and soul. Inspired by these teachings, Huxley wanted to see if he could get a closer sense of self and be more introspective, so to enhance the world experience he took hallucinogenic drugs (Rollyson 468-470). Another type of drug called soma was used in the novel Brave New World as a mood-stabilizer. In Hindu sacrificial ceremonies, a similar hallucinogenic drink inspired the name “soma” (Hochman 65). This fact relates to ceremonies in the novel where soma is passed around a table while phrases are spoken about Ford in a scripture like manner.
Ford is a real person, but he is also a character in the book. Aldous Huxley wrote the nov...
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...s exciting world, but soon finds out that it is an abomination. Aldous Huxley took events, experiments, and life experiences to write a novel about human creation and a dystopia. Brave New World is a scientific idea of the future that many feel could or already came true.
Works Cited
"Aldous Huxley." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol 6. Detroit: Gale, 1999. 32-34. Print.
“Historical Content.” Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol 6. Detroit: Gale, 1999. 62-64. Print.
Hochman, Jhan. “Critism.” Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol 6. Detroit: Gale, 1999. 64-67. Print.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Bros., 1946. Print.
Rollyson, Carl E. Notable British Novelists. Vol 2. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2001. 468-470. Print.
The novel Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley has been reviewed over time by many different people. Neil Postman is a man who has read Huxley’s novel and came to conclusions himself about the comparison between the novel, and the modern day problems we have in today’s society. Postman has made many relevant assertions as to how our modern society is similar to what Huxley had written about in his novel. The three main points I agree on with Postman is that people will begin to love their oppression; people would have no reason to fear books; and that the truth will be drowned by irrelevance.
Imagine a world where everything is controlled by the government. Imagine a world where science, literature, religion, and even family, do not exist. Imagine a world where citizens are conditioned to accept this. This is exactly how the world is portrayed in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The focus of the World State is on society as a whole rather than on individuals. Some characters from the novel have a harder time accepting the conditioning. Through these characters, we learn the true cost of a government-dominated society. In Brave New World, Huxley conveys that a totalitarian government will provide happiness and peace by abolishing individuality and free thinking.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is written with the idea of a totalitarian society that has complete social stability. Huxley demonstrates how a stable world deprives a person of their individuality, something that was also lost in Anthem by Ayn Rand. Brave New World exemplifies the great sacrifice needed to achieve such a stable world. This novel envisions a world where the government has complete control over people in its mission for social stability and conformity. The outcome of this is that the government has created a society with no love, freedom, creativity, and the human desire for happiness.
The world was in utter shambles when Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. It was the middle of the depression, unemployment was high and the stock market low. It was the age of sterilizing the mentally ill, and the age of mass manufacturing by machines. Scientific progress was on the rise, and Henry Ford was considered a savior. Huxley's imaginary world of scientific perfection was far from perfect. The texture of his imaginary world is nearer to nightmare that to heaven on earth (Watts 72). In creating the prophecy, New World State, scientific evolution, in trying to create a superior society, is only as perfect as its' creator.
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision,” professes Howard Roark, attempting to validate his expression of identity while prosecuting himself during the trial of the Cortlandt Homes (Rand 678). The futuristic society within Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel, Brave New World, introduces a paucity in the freedom of the individuals, through a lack in the way the society is allowed to think, to the submission of the actions of the individuals, to the conformity in the overall daily lives. Born in Surrey, England in 1894, Huxley was born into a society in which technological advancements were held in high praise and with full excitement. Striving to one day become
Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” highlights the theme of society and individualism. Huxley uses the future world and its inhabitants to represents conflict of how the replacement of stability in place of individualism produces adverse side effects. Each society has individuals ranging from various jobs and occupations and diverse personalities and thoughts. Every member contributes to society in his or her own way. However, when people’s individuality is repressed, the whole concept of humanity is destroyed. In Huxley’s “Brave New World”, the concept of individualism is lost through hyperbolized physical and physiological training, the artificial birth and caste system, and the censorship of religion and literature by a suppressing government.
Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place. This is because Huxley endows his "ideal" society with features calculated to alienate his audience. Typically, reading Brave New World elicits the very same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has notionally vanquished - not a sense of joyful anticipation. Huxley's novel presents a startling view of the future which on the surface appears almost comical. His intent, however, is not humor. Huxley's message is dark and depressing. His idea that in centuries to come, a one-world government will rise to power, stripping people's freedom, is not a new idea. What makes Huxley's interpretation different is the fact that his fictional society not only lives in a totalitarian government, but takes an embracive approach like mindless robots. For example, Soma, not nuclear bombs, is the weapon of choice for the World Controllers in Brave New World. The world leaders have realized that fear and intimidation have only limited power; these tactics simply build up resentment in the minds of the oppressed. Subconscious persuasion and mind-altering drugs, on the other hand, appear to have no side effects.
Huxley also uses satire to show that consumption is becoming a religion in America. Henry Ford is a god in this novel because he invented the assembly line. The assembly line creates a means for mass production of items. In the novel, mass production is how people are born. Because of this, Ford is an ideal god for the World State. He symbolizes a religion that lets a ruler rob people of their individuality for progress and stability. People in the novel use the name of Ford like people today use God’s name. Bernard, when talking to Lenina, said, “…’for Ford’s sake, be quiet!’” (90).
By placing the start of the calendar at this year he makes a parody of our modern neo-Christian calendar. Henry Ford was an industrialist and though he worked tirelessly to make his fortune he never claimed to be a spiritual person. So by replacing Christ with Ford's invention the whole meaning of religion falls apart leaving these people open to and susceptible to what the world controllers want them to believe.
The world changes so rapidly, so how could anyone predict the future? People have different beliefs of how the world will be in the next few generations, but a main concern is whether the society will improve or downgrade. Huxley is a renowned author, but after Brave New World, he can be perceived as a theorist. Aldous Huxley suggests that happiness is slowly becoming an emotion that relies on superficial experiences as it is in Brave New World.
Alduos Huxley, in his science fiction novel Brave New World written in 1932, presents a horrifying view of a possible future in which comfort and happiness replace hard work and incentive as society's priorities. Mustapha Mond and John the Savage are the symbolic characters in the book with clashing views. Taking place in a London of the future, the people of Utopia mindlessly enjoy having no individuality. In Brave New World, Huxley's distortion of religion, human relationships and psychological training are very effective and contrast sharply with the literary realism found in the Savage Reservation. Huxley uses Brave New World to send out a message to the general public warning our society not to be so bent on the happiness and comfort that comes with scientific advancements.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, portrays a future society where people are no longer individuals but are controlled by the World State. The World State dominates the people by creating citizens that are content with who they are. Brave New World describes how the science of biology and psychology are manipulated so that the government can develop technologies to change the way humans think and act. The World State designs humans from conception for this society. Once the humans are within the society the state ensures all people remain happy. They program these humans to have needs and desires that will sustain a lucrative economy while not thinking of themselves as an individual. Huxley describes the Worlds State’s intent to control their society through medical intervention, happiness, and consumerism which has similarities to modern society.
Most importantly, Henry Ford and his assembly line and the Industrial Revolution were ubiquitous throughout the novel. Huxley extolled Ford’s pioneering industrial techniques and elevated him to the status of a god. Geoff Andrews writes, “In Brave New World he gave Fordism a status beyond the "philosophy of industrialism": that of a new religion in its ability to answer all social questions.” An example from the novel that demonstrates this is, “’Speak up,’ says the D.H.C. ‘don’t keep his Fordship waiting.’” One can see the status that Henry Ford carries with the fictional society. Additionally, because of the Industrial Revolutions’ influence on Huxley, the story depicts a society in which humans are artificially made and “assembled” within a factory. In the introduction, Huxley describes the hatchery, “’And this,’ said the Director opening the door, ‘is the Fertilizing Room.’” With the account of the hatchery, the author furthermore elaborates on human production methods, “The procession advanced; one by one the eggs were transferred from their test-tubes to the larger containers.” One critic noted, “The bizarre case of a product supervising a production line.” It is clearly shown from these descriptions that b...
In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates ways in which government and advanced science control society. Through actual visualization of this Utopian society, the reader is able to see how this state affects Huxley’s characters. Throughout the book, the author deals with many different aspects of control. Whether it is of his subjects’ feelings and emotions or of the society’s restraint of population growth, Huxley depicts government’s and science’s role in the brave new world of tomorrow.
In 1932, Aldous Huxley wrote a thrilling dystopia titled Brave New World. Centered on a man struggling in a world where emotions have been forsaken for peace and stability of the entire community, the novel has a shock factor that is quite electric. Though it was popular in the 1950’s with college students because of its portrayal of sex, the true merit of Huxley’s work can be found in its predictions for the future. The practices in the novel are alarming similar to many aspects of today’s society. The approval of drug use to induce happiness, the constant effort to make life better through technology and the everlasting trust in the government are all characteristics shared by our society and that found in Brave New World.