Brave New World Poem And Book Comparison

Poem and Novel Comparison: Brave New World
Aldous Huxley and Robert William Service reveal though their works that people often become deceived, which makes them think falsely of reality. The novel communicates Bernard’s thoughts while on the drug soma on the helicopter ride: He “laughed; after two grammes of soma the joke seemed, for some reason, good” (Huxley 105). Huxley’s use of soma as a motif for artificial happiness in his quote reveals that Bernard only seems pleasant and easy to laugh because of a false source of his emotions that cause his “happiness.” Bernard only laughs at the electrocuted animals, the cruel joke by the pilot, because the soma influences his thoughts, words, and behaviors. His deceit, caused by drugs, results in

his having false thoughts and opinions not true to himself. At the beginning of the poem, the deceived author exaggerates that nobody will remember his actions in one hundred years. However, at the end of the poem, he realizes that his generation matters, because they are the ones who shape the future: “And all we are and all we do Will bring the world to be…” (Service 33-34). Service utilizes repetition of the word “all,” and implies that every action done and every word said by his generation will have an impact on future civilizations. Advances in technology and pollution on their planet, for example, among all other choices, will have consequences for descendants of the speaker’s civilization that live in the future. The false assumption of the speaker’s lack of importance that he believes in the beginning of the poem vanishes at the end when he realizes that his helpful and harmful actions will matter in one century. Both works of literature clearly convey the effect of deception on an individual and how deception causes an untrue view of reality.