Brave New World-A Sterile Society

“Cleanliness is next to Fordliness”, was an attitude impressed upon the people of Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World. A society free of disease and suffering was achieved through a technique of conditioning called hynopaedia. “Civilization is sterilization”, was a hynopaedic slogan used to achieve the ideal society. This idea was manifested through the anesthetizing people’s emotions, the sterilization of humans and the cleanliness of society.

The Brave New World sterilized people of emotions through the elimination of families and the promotion of soma. To eliminate close bonds between two people promiscuity was advocated. This was achieved through hynopaedia during childhood. Through this technique intimate relationships between people were eliminated. People of Brave New World did not know what a family was. At the mention of the words mother and father, during a tour of the London Hatchery, the students became silent and many began to blush. Soma was another devise used by citizens of Brave New World to let them escape and forget their emotions. It was a tranquilizer widely used in Brave New World. It allowed people to go into a trance whenever they wanted to escape their surroundings. This was shown when Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx were visiting the reservation. During the Warden’s speech to the couple, Lenina Crowne swallowed half a gramme of soma to escape the boredom of the Warden’s speech. The soma allowed her to seemingly be paying attention when in reality she wasn’t listening or thinking of anything.

The attitude of civilization is sterilization was also achieved through the sterilization of the female population. Bokanovsky’s Process made it possible for the Brave New World to control the amount of fertile women in society. Even with the advancement of scientific technology human ovaries were still needed for the manufacturing of embryos. Fertile women were encouraged to undergo a hysterectomy. In return for selling their ovaries, women received six months pay. Around seventy percent of the women in Brave New World were infertile. These women were called freemartins. Freemartins were produced through injecting female embryos with a dose of a male sex-hormone.

The society of Brave New World believed civilization should be composed of clean and robust people. The nurses in the Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning Rooms were described as, “trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps.” This image expressed how everything was done in a systematic and sterile way.