Censorship and Satire: Unpacking Huxley's Brave New World

Of all of the world’s ironic masterpieces, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of the most commonly banned. It is a political satire set far after the time it was written. This satire has not prevented a long list of bans from being placed on it. The book has been challenged a multitude of times for its inclusion of sexual content, drug use, and anti-theism.
The book opens on a large establishing section that goes into detail in how advancements have allowed for mass production of humans. The controversial character of World Controller Mustapha Mond is introduced here. The latter half of the section establishes the variety of hypnopedia (Sleep-Teaching) that is used on each caste to teach them about civilized life.
The story later shifts to that of Lenina Crowne, a civilized Londoner whose friend Fanny is complaining at how non-promiscuously Lenina acts. Lenina only wants to be with a man named Henry Foster, but, as monogamy is a prime sin of civilized life in 2540 (632 A.F.), Lenina agrees to talk with an alpha named Bernard Marx. Bernard is alienated by his alpha peers for being short and having distinctly non-civilized ideas about life

and love. Lenina and Bernard decide to take a trip to a “savage” reservation called Malpais, a place analogous but slightly changed from that of America’s Native American reservations. After losing their soma at the reservation, our “heroes” meet two civilized people, Linda and John. Linda is a civilized woman who became pregnant on a trip to Malpais and was lost in a storm. Afterwards, she gave birth to and raised John in Malpais, where, despite his enthusiasm for Jesus and Pookong, the natives disliked him for his skin color. After leaving behind the reservation, Bernard talks to the Warden of Malpais and the controllers in London and gains permission to bring John and Linda back to London for an experiment.
When the protagonists return to London, they are each overloaded with the indulgence they have been denied for so long. Lenina takes large quantities of Soma and travels the city enjoying herself. John experiences London’s city life and learns of all the things his birth denied him. Bernard is overwhelmed by the amount of praise and appreciation he receives from his peers for his experiment with “Mr. Savage” and changes his ways in a way that John, for the most part, loses his respect and empathy for the outcast Marx. Linda takes such large quantities of Soma that her entire body shuts down and she dies in the hospital. John is horrified when he sees children undergoing death-teaching running around Linda’s corpse and offering her no respect. This is the point John has his first outburst at the sins of the society in his blood. He yells at the kids and manages to make them leave Linda’s corpse alone. When a nurse confirms that Linda will truly never return from her trip, John loses his mind and attempts to stop the problems of his brave new world at their source, Soma. John finds a troupe of Delta-Minus workers being given their soma rations and attempts to show the workers his truth, but this does not work and John dumps all of the Soma into the river. This starts a riot that causes the police to be called in with gaseous Soma. John is then brought to talk directly to World Controller Mustapha Mond instead of simple imprisonment or execution. Here the two characters explain the main moral quandaries of the plot of the novel and Mond delivers two “merciful” sentences: Bernard and his associates are deported to Iceland to live in isolation with all other radicals, and John the Savage is made to stay in London, with no repercussions to his actions. John is a broken man and isolates himself in a lighthouse by the country. Here John attempts to repent for his sins by drinking a mixture of water and mustard in between sessions of self-flagellation. John plans to become self-sufficient and live out his years alone, but problems begin to arise when the press finds him and begins to report on his actions. John trades insults with the civilized people and threatens them with violence. Unfortunately for John, his actions just excite the Londoners who begin to chant derogation at him until the crowd erupts into a “cleansing orgy” and John is sucked in in one of the most controversial scenes of the novel. The next morning, the press return to the lighthouse only to find that John, filled with grief for the sins of the world he cannot change, escaped the world of depravity he has entered in the only way of which he is capable, by taking own life, his feet turning, “Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles… north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south- west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east...” (Huxley 176)
Despite the far more extensive themes of drug use Brave New World, sexual themes are a more common rationalization for banning the book. This is reasonable, considering the general groups that attempt to ban books fall into certain categories, almost none of which will ever accept that sex is a common topic of literature both as a metaphor and literally. The use of Soma in London orgies only exacerbates the problem of PTA demographics, though. Brave New World largely falls into the category of books that use sex as part of an extended literary device. London’s orgies and “Feelies,” specifically the “Cleansing Orgy” at the end of the story are representative of the prime sin of ultimate indulgence in the belief of John (Allegory of modern man’s perspective on the idiomatic hellscape of London) and are largely the reason that John takes his life. Many censors, however, are unable to see past the night of drug-fueled promiscuous sex to grasp fully the importance of the scene in the establishment of the novel’s plot, theme, and characters. One group of such censors banned Brave New World from teaching in Miller, Missouri for “Making promiscuous sex look like fun.” (Wolf) Theses demographic issued also go hand in hand with bans from religious sources due to many modern religions’ beliefs about sex and drugs.
The most plentiful evil mentioned in Huxley’s great satire is in fleeing reality through use and abuse of the addictive drug, Soma. Apart from aforementioned use in countless sexual acts, Soma is also used to control the populace of London. The caste system implemented at birth and during youth through concoction and hypnopedia can only be enforced to death (which is always at 60 years old, with no previous degradation) through the distribution of Soma. This lulls the population into a state of constant high where all castes will not question the world controllers and will even work happily knowing they will receive their Soma afterwards. Another controversial corollary of the social castes controlled by drug use is the government’s distribution of Soma. Soma is manufactured almost solely to be used by lower ranks. This does not mean alphas will not enjoy the occasional trip, but that they need Soma much less than an epsilon working in a coal mine. It also is implied that most world controllers do not even use Soma.
As if religions were not already under enough fire with the numerous references to sex and drug use in Brave New World, the book’s latter portions include the world controller of London’s very direct opinion on religion’s role in society, including why he is proud to avoid it in London. Mond expresses the sentiment that, “Apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; … now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false-a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.” The book also makes a harsh criticism of religion through the religion of the Natives in Malpais, and with John wanting to perform a ritual to “make the rain come” and “to pleases Pookong and Jesus.” (Huxley 79) This contention had the book removed from Foley High School. (Banned Books: Brave New World)
Brave New World is one of the most banned books in history.

There are many reasons, with varying validity, for this, but these reasons are also part of why many consider the book Huxley’s best work and why it is still relevant to this day. Censors attempt to cover up the book due to the promiscuity of the characters, the consistent use of Soma, and many of the characters’ hatred of religion, but, in doing this, they overlook much of the literary value of one of the most highly acclaimed satires written in all of human history, an act of hypocrisy whose logical conclusion is best summarized in the words of writer Richard H. Beckham, “If we try to prevent people—especially young people—from being exposed to the tragic, we would have to eliminate much world literature which has been universally proclaimed great.”

(Beckham)