Once again, I struck my pickaxe against the gray walls of the quarry. Ever since I was created, I have been mining here at Sector C-88 for coal. Sector C-88 is a monumental quarry with up to ten-thousand workers in a 10-kilometer by 15-kilometer area. Surrounding the massive quarry is an extensive network of processing and extracting factories and centers. Beyond that is, well, I don’t know. It’s just called the Beyond here, and it’s said to have something called “society”, but there’s probably nothing interesting like coal or anything. I looked up at the polluted beige sky and observed the curious shapes from the factory smokes. What could be above the smog? Infinite emptiness? I wondered. Suddenly, a familiar voice broke my course of thoughts. …show more content…
“Ya better get back to work, Prime. Inspector’s comin’.” It was Cube, my light-engined excavation companion. Inspector steadily marched towards our terminal. “Extraction report, miner 2744 and 0607.”, demanded the Inspector. Cube immediately replied, “24.8 kilograms of coal extracted today. Expected completion time is 3.8 hours.” “Excellent. And you, 0607?” asked Inspector. “Oh, um, 13.2 kilograms of coal extracted today. Expected completion time is 4.3 hours.” Inspector glared back with suspicion; the look remains engraved in my memory. “0607, have you been experiencing any errors?” “No, Inspector.” “What is the one-millionth digit of pi?” “One, Inspector.” “What is the mission of the mine and duty of the miners?” “Providing necessary resources for the welfare of society and advancement of technology.” “3.14 ms latency. Very well, as expected of you, 0607. Keep up and you may be promoted.” “Thank you for your compliment and well-constructed feedback, Inspector.” ~~~ Once again, I struck my pickaxe against the gray walls of the quarry. The impact felt weaker than usual, as if the wall was hallow.
The settling dust reveals a capsule buried within the bedrock. Instinctively, I turned around to seek Cube for advice, only to remember Cube left after finishing his share. Engraved on the innocuous container is a series of characters, some unfamiliar to me: Do Not Open Until 2018. What does 2018 mean? Must be the box’s ID, I pretentiously thought. Using my pickaxe, I wrenched off the lid. The interior comprises of a few mysteriously thin substance I later learned is called “paper”. The majority of the papers appear to be photos of humans, but strangely, without cybernetic enhancements. Their lives must be dreadful without bionic organs. The remaining paper are maps, probably maps of the Beyond. An epiphany struck whilst analyzing the artifacts. The past, present, future -- my place in grand scheme of time. An indescribable realization, a novel understanding, a greater perspective: thoughts that define and haunt me. Lost in time from the intriguing contents, I nearly failed to notice Inspector coming around for evening evaluation. Hastily, I gathered the paper and concealed the capsule in my toolbag. If Inspector found out about my possessions, I would surely be disassembled. Inspector once again made his way towards my station. “Extraction report, miner 0607,” Inspector
ordered. “94.6 kilograms of coal extracted today. Expected completion time is 0.3 hours.” Inspector scanned the surrounding workspace, paced to the coal repository, and picked up a photo I misplaced. “Miner 0607, follow me to room 64656174680a. There are a few things we’d like to take care of.” Not a chance. Run, I must run. I flung my pickaxe towards Inspector, temporarily disorienting it, and swiftly dashed away. A minecart approaches from a distance, carrying coal and several minerals, towards the processing center. Seeing Inspector and several guards almost catching up, I hopped onto the cart. A plan quickly formulated-- get to the processing center, run to transport center, ride train cart to Beyond and hope for the best. The cart arrived at the center, and immediately, I rushed towards the transport terminal. The deafening sound of alarms caused havoc among the factory automatons. I weaved through the mass and sprung onto the train. The train departed, carrying me and tons of minerals, into the Beyond. The distressing alert sounds slowly fade away into the backdrop. Freedom at last, or at least the feeling of. I thought with relief. I laid on the mound of coal and observed the never-seen-before night sky as the train speeds through the darkness. However, the train abruptly halted. A few security helicopters emerge from the distance, but I wasn’t about to go back to the quarry. I leaped off the train cart and headed towards the surrounding landscape with towering structures I later learned is called “trees”, which is where “paper” is from. The forest of trees and veil of night shielded me from the helicopters’ vision. Run, run, run. My HD vision is turning blurry, CPU overheating, battery running low, but I kept running. Gears, nuts, and bolts loosened and fell onto the ground. Chunks of metal and circuitry detached from my body. The helicopter sounds slowly faded away, as if they were turning back. With all my remaining power, I sprinted forwards, exiting the forest to a grassland. Looking at the horizon, I see flickers of brilliantly bright lights. I collapsed onto the grass bed, machineless and fatigued, waiting for someone to hear my story.
The drive to cross the Kentucky border had taken hours and hours of strenuous patience to finally arrive in another state. The view was by far country like as hints of cow manure could be smelled far from a distance. We drive through small towns, half the size of our hometown of Glen Ellyn had been the biggest town we've seen if not smaller. The scenery had overwhelmed us, as lumps of Earth from a great distance turned to perfectly molded hills, but as we got closer and closer to our destination the hills no longer were hills anymore, instead the hills had transformed to massive mountains of various sizes. These mountains surrounded our every view as if we had sunken into a great big deep hole of green pastures. Our path of direction was seen, as the trails of our road that had followed for numerous hours ended up winding up the mountainous mountains in a corkscrew dizzy-like matter.
Hundreds of faceless people; you've seen them all before. Murmurs of broken languages no one cares to use anymore. You are carried along the worn-down flagstones until a towering office building comes into view. You push your way out of the human river and onto the deserted curb. A broken window at the rear of the skyscraper becomes your makeshift entrance. A looted atrium greets you. You welcome the break from the automatons. This has been your haven since you swam into the Atlantic, searching for your cure, and got revived in Plymouth, Britain by accident. Hundreds of deep gouges in the wall represent your resentment. Puddles of blood from various attempts, some you don’t even remember. A few nooses, some knives, one degraded nine-millimetre. Everything is corroded; the alloys in steel gave out years ago. Rust rules this once-polished world. You withdraw your diary once more and, flicking to a page further into the book, read another entry. 31st December 2167 I gave in and sent my application today. Maybe they will process me quickly. No one has been deleted in the last few months; I wonder what the clog up is? A new church has opened down the road, “The
John's eyes fluttered open and he cautiously surveyed his surroundings. Where was he taken? Who knocked him unconscious and carried him from his solitude at the lighthouse? He did not have to wait long for his answer, when he saw his friend standing over him, shaking him to awareness.
There were quite a few changes made from Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World to turn it into a “made for TV” movie. The first major change most people noticed was Bernard Marx’s attitude. In the book he was very shy and timid toward the opposite sex, he was also very cynical about their utopian lifestyle. In the movie Bernard was a regular Casanova. He had no shyness towards anyone. A second major deviation the movie made form the book was when Bernard exposed the existing director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Bernard himself was moved up to this position. In the book the author doesn’t even mention who takes over the position. The biggest change between the two was Lenina, Bernard’s girlfriend becomes pregnant and has the baby. The screenwriters must have made this up because the author doesn’t even mention it. The differences between the book and the movie both helped it and hurt it.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World illustrates a colorful, fantastic universe of sex and emotion, programming and fascism that has a powerful draw in a happy handicap. This reality pause button is called “Soma”. “Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.” ( Huxley 54 ).
Today there are strong debates and questions about the extraordinary breakthroughs in science such as cloning, in communications through the Internet with its never ending pool of knowledge, and the increasing level of immersion in entertainment. People facing the 21st century are trying to determine whether these new realities of life will enhance it and bring life as they know it to a great unprecedented level, or if these new products will contribute and perhaps even cause the destruction of society and life. To many cloning, censoring, and total immersion entertainment are new, but to those who have read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the topics are reminiscent of the horror that is found in Huxley's fictional utopian world where the dehumanizing of man is achieved in the interests of "Community, Identity, Stability," the world state's motto.
Sexty,Robert. "Overview of the Business System" ,in Canadian Business and Society, Prentice-Hall, Scarborough, Ontario, 2005, pp5-22
Within Aldous Huxley’s work of Brave New World, there are two characters, Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson that are a part of the world state, but they are isolated and different then everyone else. Bernard and Helmholtz are both Alpha-plus males; they are the highest class within their society. Bernard is physically shorter than all the other alphas, and is insecure about his size and status. Helmholtz on the other hand is very intelligent and physically attractive. Both individuals share a discontent with life in the world state. Bernard is discontent because he does not fit in, but Helmholtz is discontent because he feels that his work is empty and meaningless and he is dissatisfied with life. Helmholtz’ difference, his “mental excess”, within the world state society is the cause for his dissatisfaction of life in the world state and stimulates his desire to reach for something greater.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World portrays a society in which science has clearly taken over. This was an idea of what the future could hold for humankind. Is it true that Huxley’s prediction may be correct? Although there are many examples of Huxley’s theories in our society, there is reason to believe that his predictions will not hold true for the future of society.
1.) The Savage Reservation is similar to the Utopia world in several ways. They both have drugs that are designed to calm people down. Soma, used in the Utopia and mescal used in the Reservation. They both also have a separation within their own society. The Utopia has social castes and the reservation has separation between the men and women, the men having more power. The two worlds also both have ceremonies. The Utopia has the orgy porgy ceremony in which everyone gathers around and has an orgy, hence the name. The Savage Reservation has traditional dancing ceremonies like the many traditional Indian tribes have today. The two cultures have many similar ideas, just expressed a little differently.
Aldous Huxley proposes the dangers of government control in the future that combines with an obsession with technology to completely control society in his novel Brave New World. Huxley tells a story about a future society living in London, England where pleasure and technological progress take priority and Henry Ford is honored as a god. The novel is written in a detached but omniscient voice that reveals the subconscious of its characters and contributes to the theme of the novel. The benevolent totalitarian state rules over its genetically engineered population by providing pleasure and conditioning the masses. The dystopia Aldous Huxley created can be compared to Charles Dickens’ Coketown in Hard Times, as the novels have similar themes of utilitarianism. In this Brave New World, human beings are machines made in factories to serve the state and ensure stability and progress.
The riveting Novel Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, is not only entertaining to read but also excruciating, as it serves to be a portrayal of our current world and lifestyle. This can be said because several societal rules and norms in the Brave New world are quite much similar to ours; caste system, euphoric substances and condition are the major aspects that serve as an example.
doors I turn and look at the city beyond. It burns a blue not unlike a gas
" 'But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real
The blocks of concrete sidewalk in between two rusty, red brick buildings prickle my skin. I lay out my piece of brown corrugated cardboard and am comforted by its smoothness. It provides insulation on a breezy summer night. I curl up, cramped, in the fetal position; my limbs grow limp as my eyelids weigh down over two chocolate eyes. I can feel my fuzzy black dreadlocks falling down the nape of my neck and into the collar of my thin cotton t-shirt. I pull my white tube socks up to my knees with the help of my toes; only the space between them and the bottom of my shorts is now left uncovered and open to the wind. I deliberately position myself in an attempt to conserve energy before morning comes and invites my stomach to turn into a ferocious growling beast. The storeowner will harp about me finding another stoop by prodding my body with a cobweb-infested broom. I will worry about that tomorrow. For now, I escape into a deep, silent slumber. I begin to dream of another life with a different social setting.