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Literary analysis of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
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A Different World;
A Different Person
All forms of art have greatly influenced my life and have had an enormous effect on me as a person. Throughout high school, of all the great works of literature, poetry, and other types of art that have given me a feeling of joy, my senior year I discovered one piece of literature that stands out and opens my eyes to the world around me. Art, literature and music not only intrigue and inspire me, but also despite all of the thought provoking choices at hand, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, has had the greatest affect on my opinion of the world.
I believe that this story is similar to what our society is becoming and has opened my outlook on the world. Aldous Huxley greatly described an innovated world in which all matters of truth and individuality are gone. The characters in this book are born into a caste system, in which they are conditioned to think and act according to which caste level they belong. Although, he did not predict that the human race would actually yield to this sad, loveless lifestyle, surprisingly they adapted rather quickly. After reading Brave New World, I was not only rudely awakened by the lifestyles of this race, but also shown what is truly important. With cloning being one of the new discoveries in today’s society, I can see how mankind could become a sea of walking machines, easily compared to those in Brave New World. From birth, the characters are told how to act, think and dress. To an extent, our soci...
There were quite a few changes made from Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World to turn it into a “made for TV” movie. The first major change most people noticed was Bernard Marx’s attitude. In the book he was very shy and timid toward the opposite sex, he was also very cynical about their utopian lifestyle. In the movie Bernard was a regular Casanova. He had no shyness towards anyone. A second major deviation the movie made form the book was when Bernard exposed the existing director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Bernard himself was moved up to this position. In the book the author doesn’t even mention who takes over the position. The biggest change between the two was Lenina, Bernard’s girlfriend becomes pregnant and has the baby. The screenwriters must have made this up because the author doesn’t even mention it. The differences between the book and the movie both helped it and hurt it.
In Brave New World, it is necessary for the characters to have sex with multiple partners as a way to satisfy their emotional needs, namely love, and this contentedness takes away reasons for starting a rebellion. Early in the text, the Director of the Hatchery in London leads a group of aspiring around the lab as he explains: “Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channeling of impulse and energy. ‘But everyone belongs to everyone else,’ [Mustapha] concluded, citing the hypnopaedic proverb” (Huxley 40). In their society, there are no exclusive relationships. If one person likes another, they are able to take action immediately and do not have to wait for delayed gratification. By making everything inclusive, there is no build up of internal dissatisfaction and this keeps the citizens pleased with their lives. As Mustapha says to John in a later conversation about happiness in the society, “being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesque of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt” (Huxley 221). There is no strong desire to obtain something, especially regarding emotional relationships, and thus no strong desire to change. Adding that to how the community offers many recreational activities to fulfill social and consumer needs, focus is distributed widely and the citizens become compliant with happiness because they have to reason to change their lifestyles. Later in the book, John enters Lenina’s life and his unconditioned ways throw her off. For the first time time, she could not sleep with someone as she wanted “and so intense was her exasperation that she drove her sharp nails into the skin of his wrist. ‘Instead of drivelli...
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley deftly creates a society that is indeed quite stable. Although they are being mentally manipulated, the members of this world are content with their lives, and the presence of serious conflict is minimal, if not nonexistent. For the most part, the members of this society have complete respect and trust in their superiors, and those who don’t are dealt with in a peaceful manner as to keep both society and the heretic happy. Maintained by cultural values, mental conditioning, and segregation, the idea of social stability as demonstrated in Brave New World is, in my opinion, both insightful and intriguing.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World illustrates a colorful, fantastic universe of sex and emotion, programming and fascism that has a powerful draw in a happy handicap. This reality pause button is called “Soma”. “Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.” ( Huxley 54 ).
Today there are strong debates and questions about the extraordinary breakthroughs in science such as cloning, in communications through the Internet with its never ending pool of knowledge, and the increasing level of immersion in entertainment. People facing the 21st century are trying to determine whether these new realities of life will enhance it and bring life as they know it to a great unprecedented level, or if these new products will contribute and perhaps even cause the destruction of society and life. To many cloning, censoring, and total immersion entertainment are new, but to those who have read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the topics are reminiscent of the horror that is found in Huxley's fictional utopian world where the dehumanizing of man is achieved in the interests of "Community, Identity, Stability," the world state's motto.
An analysis of satire in Brave New World. While reading Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, readers experience a world unlike any other. A world where being promiscuous and the use of drugs are not only legal but considered a "must" for a fully functional member of society. This world isn't a world full of democracy or the democratic process, it's a world where a virulent caste system dominates.
Sexty,Robert. "Overview of the Business System" ,in Canadian Business and Society, Prentice-Hall, Scarborough, Ontario, 2005, pp5-22
Within Aldous Huxley’s work of Brave New World, there are two characters, Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson that are a part of the world state, but they are isolated and different then everyone else. Bernard and Helmholtz are both Alpha-plus males; they are the highest class within their society. Bernard is physically shorter than all the other alphas, and is insecure about his size and status. Helmholtz on the other hand is very intelligent and physically attractive. Both individuals share a discontent with life in the world state. Bernard is discontent because he does not fit in, but Helmholtz is discontent because he feels that his work is empty and meaningless and he is dissatisfied with life. Helmholtz’ difference, his “mental excess”, within the world state society is the cause for his dissatisfaction of life in the world state and stimulates his desire to reach for something greater.
The story of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley depicts a utopian society conflicted by stability. People are oblivious to the morals and ethics upheld by their ancestors 600 years before and, in turn, are demoralized. Babies are born in laboratories, relationships last no longer than "bedtime", and drugs are provided by government for daily use by their citizens. The drug, "soma" symbolizes estatic rapture experienced by the gloomy looking for escape, material religion for those looking for comfort from a supernatural force, abused aphrodisiac for lovers looking to have a good time, and complete technocracy from a government using a controlled substance to dominate the minds of its people. Soma and its uses reveal a society in ruins using drugs as an escape from reality and life's struggles.
From reading Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future I gathered that if the human mind and body are shaped by tons of genes, as the decoding of the human genome seems to highlight, then biotechnologist will be able to change both one day in searching to perfect the flawed human clay, will modify human nature. Fukuyama asserts his thoughts about what in fact is at stake with biotechnology in which he states, “Is…the very grounding of the human moral sense”. Throughout the reading it became clear that Fukuyama’s purpose was not to delineate the consequences of biotechnology, but to argue that biotechnology threatens both the very distinction of a human being and the existing social fabric. He also asserts that government institutions should be established to evaluate and regulate biotechnological innovations. Throughout his book he investigates ways in which biotechnology may change the human essence with no intention to experience repeat of history and the hopes to stray far away from a post human future. It seems that Fukuyama fears that biotechnology will make monsters of us all to say the least being that human values are rooted in human nature and human nature is rooted in our biological being, which is particularly in our genes. Tampering with human biology could alter human nature, convert our principles and last but not least undermine capitalism.
"'God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.'" So says Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In doing so, he highlights a major theme in this story of a Utopian society. Although the people in this modernized world enjoy no disease, effects of old age, war, poverty, social unrest, or any other infirmities or discomforts, Huxley asks 'is the price they pay really worth the benefits?' This novel shows that when you must give up religion, high art, true science, and other foundations of modern life in place of a sort of unending happiness, it is not worth the sacrifice.
For Jane, “Art is an important subject because it offers people the opportunity to process their surroundings, their troubles, and their existence in a way that is productive and healthy.” (Baker). She also views are an a means of improving students academically by changing the way they think:
The society of the Brave New World is quite different from ours, with their lack of spirituality proving that point. “The pleasure-seeking society pursues no spiritual experiences or joys, preferring carnal ones. The lack of religion that seeks a true transcendental understanding helps ensure that the masses of people, upper and lower classes, have no reason to rebel” . Another main difference, is the absence of mothers and fathers, and the technology that makes it possible. “Brave New World is a futuristic society designed by genetic engineering, and controlled by neural conditioning with mind-altering drugs and manipulative media. It predestines human embryos to certain levels of intelligence, and chemically does away with the concept of old age”. Today, the technology is simply not available to create hundreds of humans from the same egg. Yet another prophecy that differs greatly from those of today, is the use of soma and casual sex. In today’s society both of these things are frowned upon greatly. However, in the brave new world, they are promoted. The prophecies promoted in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, are quite different from those promoted in today’s society.
"A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment.
The arts have influenced my life in amazing ways. Throughout my life, art has been the place I run to and my escape from the world. As I’ve grown older, art has become so much more than that. Every piece of art I create is a journey into my soul. It’s a priceless way to deal with my emotions and my struggles. I create art not only because I enjoy it and because I want to, but because I have to. Somewhere deep inside there is a driving force, urging me to put my heart down on paper. I become emotionally attached to each of my pieces because they are like dashes on the wall marking my growth. Each one is the solution to a problem I have dealt with and overcome.