Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and James Joyce's Dubliners

Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, is a thought provoking novel set in a future of genetically engineered people, amazing technology and a misconstrued system of values. Dubliners, written by James Joyce, is a collection of short stories painting a picture of life in Dublin Ireland, near the turn of the 19th century. Though of two completely different settings and story lines, these two works can and will be compared and contrasted on the basis of the social concerns and issues raised within them.

One of the first things stressed in Brave New World is the idea that there is no real discrimination. Though it is true that there is a class system, the classes are derived from the fact that people are genetically engineered to fit a certain role in their lives. For example, there are five classes as follows: Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon and Gamma. Each of these classes is then subdivided into three sections: Plus, Normal and Minus. An Alpha Plus (highest in the class system) would look down on and think less of a Gamma Minus (lowest in the class system). This form of discrimination, however, is not really discrimination in that it has no moral basis as each person in each class is conditioned from birth to be completely happy at their station in life and especially glad that they aren’t of a different class. Aside from the fact that there is no moral basis behind this, for there to actually be discrimination, those being discriminated against would have to know that it was happening and in Brave New World such realizations do not occur. Due to this same fact, there is no gender or racial discrimination either, not even the mention of a nationality; all people in the civilization are simply people. That Huxley created this world of equality may have been an ironic stab at the time in which he lived. Within Dubliners, however, the attitudes toward nationality and gender of the time it was written are present, though not in any astonishing proportion. There is evidence of this in the following quotation from “The Dead';.

-Well I’m ashamed of you, said Miss Ivors frankly. To say you write for a rag like that. I didn’t think you were a West Briton.(Joyce 188)

Though not an extremely discriminant remark, its prejudicial tone is evident. The use of discrimination within Dubliners is not largely important to the story lines except in that it adds more realism to Joyce’s stories as the discrimination reflects the views of the time.