Brave New World Analysis

1552 Words4 Pages

People break bones. X-ray machines allow doctors to see inside of our bodies to prevent any further damage. This is what Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World does. Brave New World peers into the future and warns of the dangers of technology and an all too complacent society. As Critic Dawn B. Sova explains, Brave New World “depicts an orderly society in which scientifically sophisticated genetics and pharmacology combine to produce a perfectly controlled population whose entire existence is dedicated to maintaining the stability of society”. Overall Huxley entrances the reader with a seductive world filled with dysfunction to build emotion and present thematic ideas. Huxley commands and opens the genre of science fiction to warn readers of the …show more content…

Throughout Brave New World, pacified being are created by science to maintain social stability. Critic Dawn B. Sova claims that “blind happiness is necessary for social stability”. In the World State, occupants are “being pacified by the constant, sensuous satiety of food, sex, and drugs” (Izzo). If the conditioning received after being decanted does not keep a citizen content, there is always soma which can “easily [banish]” most “pain and unhappiness” (Sova). Even though some slip through the cracks, almost everyone in the World State is provided with soma …show more content…

Throughout the novel, Huxley presents the reader with a fictional world of blissful misfortune where science has become king. The inhabitants of the new world have had the “expected ills of human life eliminated” so that no one dies of any disease. Also within the new world “blind happiness is necessary for social stability” so the World State gives soma to its inhabitants so that “all emotions are dulled” (Sova). Huxley then shows how as science is in control, life, for some, has become not worthwhile. By showing the downsides to scientific advancement, Huxley critiques modern life for its dependence on science to make our lives better. Secondly, Huxley’s world is missing any true spirit, whereas he believes we do need one to live. In Brave New World “the world is becoming soulless” because it has slowly lost all ability to act independently of science and the government. What makes us unique is our souls; and critic Jake Pollerd states that “for Huxley living means choosing, creating, performing—all the acts and gestures that make us unique.” This explains how Huxley satirizes the soulless world he creates in order to pointedly explain his beliefs. Lastly, Huxley provides the character John as the most civil in Brave New World despite also providing both savage and civilized characters. Huxley first uses John to show the absurdities or “alienation caused by “Freudian”

Open Document