Brave New World

Imagine living in a world where everyone is exactly the same, where there are no families, and a personal identity is regarded as a global threat. This is the futuristic society portrayed in Aldous Huxly's Brave New World. To garuntee complete happiness to its denizens, the government raises myriads of people in a single test tube, and then conditions them to conform to their assigned caste, (such as Alpha, Beta, etc.), and to behave in a "safe" manner. This method of upbringing creates a society full of clones completely lacking any personality, conditioned to love only three things: Henry Ford, their idol; soma, a wonder drug: and physical pleasure.

Huxly tells the story through the eyes of several characters, but mainly through those of a deformed Alpha, Bernard Marx, and a young "savage" named John. The story's conflict begins when Bernard Marx becomes romantically involved with Lenina Crowne, and they travel together to a Savage Reservation. While at the reservation, which is one of the few remaining places in the world where people live with out modern conveniences such as soma, birth control, or helicopters, Lenina and Bernard meet a young boy, John, and his mother Linda. Linda, who was originally from the civilized world, had become pregnant several years before and had been lost on a trip she had made to the reservation. Because it was so shameful that she was pregnant, she was forced to stay. Both savages are brought to the new world, and John becomes a celebrity. At this point in the novel, Huxly uses Bernard as a paradigm to show how fickle a person can be, and how the need for acceptance can override a persons morals. Bernard, who had always been outcast, seizes the chance to take responsibility for John, therefore also becoming popular. All of Bernard's criticism of his society quickly vanished when he gained the respect he had dreamed of his entire life. He became to good for his old friends, and believed he was invincible. But, just like Caesar who thought he was "as constant as the northern Star", Bernard's overconfidence led to his downfall. On the other hand, John, who was excited about the brave new world he had entered, becomes disillusioned, and becomes torn when his values and morals clash with those of the new society. Finally, after a mad rampage, he isolates himself in ...

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...se, making a society where people have no attachments to anything or anyone, and everything is replaceable. Huxly provide a strong warning against the misuse of science. Through factories that mass produce children, drugs that take the place of true passion, and conditioning that takes the place of family, technology becomes a dehumanizing force.

When Huxly first wrote his novel, he projected that a society similar to the one he had described could come about in about six hundred years. Later in his life, he stated that he had overestimated, and that the horrors of Brave New World could come about in the next century. His drastically changed outlook is not so hard to believe when one looks at our modern society. For example, marriage has changed from a life long commitment, to a relationship that in about fifty percent of couples only lasts for a couple of years. Cloning, although not yet in humans, and far from being perfected, is no longer only in science fiction novels, but in our daily lives. There are many other similarities between our society and that of Brave New World, making it all the easier to accept Huxly's outlook on society's future.