Individuality In Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a chilling book that is just a little too possible for anyone’s comfort, regardless of the time frame in which one lives. Most importantly, the book heavily questions one’s sense of individuality, as well as if being an individual is worth the consequences. In Brave New World, being an individual brings nothing but pain and suffering, sometimes physical, sometimes mental. Individuality, within their society, is the sole cause of misery and unhappiness. All of the intellectual characters featured in the book, Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, eventually Lenina Crowne, as well as John the Savage, reflect this constantly.
Bernard Marx is the first real individual that we truly see in the book. In a society centered

on unity - “Everybody belongs to Everybody Else” (Huxley, 48) - individuality is unique, uncertain, and wrong. Bernard begins by refusing his happy pills, soma, and refusing Lenina, who only wanted to sleep with him, as was normal in the society presented to the reader. “‘One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy… but I say!’ Bernard had suddenly turned and rushed away.” (Huxley, 66). Bernard deliberately refuses his soma, which would have made him happier. He picks misery over happiness, individuality over happiness. “I’d rather be myself… and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly,” (Huxley, 89). In the end of the book, his sense of individuality ends up getting him exiled to one of the islands, which makes him even more miserable than he was as goldfish amongst a pool of sharks. “But whereas… Bernard had suffered all his life from the consciousness of being separate…” (Huxley, 71). Bernard is painfully aware of how individual he is from his fellow peers, how different he is. Being so separate from them ends up making him miserable.
Mustapha Mond was another individual, another Alpha Plus, the head alpha plus, who was too individual to be happy. He was even offered happiness - but gave it up to be the Controller of other people’s happiness. He gave up his joy, his bliss, his ideal home, for the sense of securing other people’s joy and bliss. “He’s being sent to an island… where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world… I almost envy you, Mr. Watson… Happiness is a hard master - particularly other people’s happiness. That’s how I paid. By choosing to serve happiness. Other people’s - not mine,” (Huxley, 204-205). He is unhappy in the place that he is, but making other people happy is well worth it to him.
Above all that, the most individual of all of the characters is John the Savage.

He was not born with the ingrained sense of unity that the World State promotes, and as a result, is very unique. However, this ends up making him very, very unhappy.“‘...the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy… the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind… I claim them all,” (Huxley, 215). His sense of individuality, so unique and novel in comparison to the rest of the World State, ends up almost forcing him to wish the individuality upon people who realize that all it does is cause misery, rather than the happiness that John the Savage promoted with it. “They had mocked him through his misery and remorse, mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision!” (Huxley, 190). In the end of the book, after the orgy-porgy-ford-and-fun, John’s sense of regret and abhorrence towards what he had done - all side effects of his individuality - drove him to a miserable

suicide.
This Shakespearian end is a common theme amongst most “utopian” society stories, in which the protagonist - just a little too unique for the world in which they live - wind up meeting a horrible, horrible fate. Afterwards, most of the other characters, people without such a sense of individuality, move on with their lives, as meaningless as they are. They move on, completely unmoved. “and one day anyone died i guess,” (Cummings, 25). These protagonists perish a most foul death, and the other characters shrug and carry on. “and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor… ‘You been crying’ he said to Hazel. ‘Yup,’ she said. ‘What about?’ he said. ‘I forget,’ she said. ‘Something real sad on television.’” (Vonnegut, 5). There are many, many other novels, poems, and short stories that support the theme of individual misery and the terrible fate that awaits them.
John the Savage’s actions, much unlike Harrison Bergeron’s, impacted people who didn’t already exhibit a distinct trait of individuality.

Lenina Crowne, a Beta Plus, had shown no outward sign of individuality. Yet, at the end of the novel, she was influenced by John the Savage just enough as to reveal her extraordinary inner self . In the beginning, she was very happy how she was. She did everything that everyone else did, and she was happy not knowing any different. Yet, towards the end of the novel, she began to have a massive crush on John the Savage, something very unique and even moreso frowned upon. When she attempted to seduce John, as was the only way she knew how to display affection, he hit her and fled. “Terror had made her forget about the pain… ‘Go… or I’ll kill you.’ … one arm raised and following his every movement with a terrified eye… she was interrupted in the midst of [her] uneasy speculations…” (Huxley, 176-178). After being struck, she felt a myriad of unpleasant emotions. Terror, unease, fear, all negative, miserable emotions, all as cause of her expressing her individuality in the only way she knew

how.
In a society where happiness is equivalent to unity, and where individuality makes people miserable, there is no difference between one person and the next. They are simply an indistinguishable, perfectly cylindrical piece to a board game that, when lost, can be replaced with nobody being the wiser. In a society where this is normal, when being who you are makes you miserable, then something has to change, whether it’s you, or the society itself. Nearly every unique character featured within Huxley’s Brave New World conveys this point, with their individuality and their misery.