The Application of Utopia in Brave New World

The Application of Utopia in Brave New World

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World illustrates the loss of morality when

established standards are replaced by amoral criteria. In his novel,

Huxley criticizes the practical applications of Utopia in actual society.

Huxley's depiction of love, science, and religion support the

ineffectiveness of implementing Utopia in everyday life.

In Brave New World, Huxley shows contempt for the human emotion of

love. The people that make up his imaginary society have no conception of

love or any other passion, and actually scorn the idea. Huxley believes

that along with passion comes emotional instability. The Utopian state

cannot afford any kind of instability and therefore cannot afford love.

The destruction of the family is one example of the effect of

Utopia's absence of love. In a world of bottled-births, not only is there

no need for a family, but the idea is actually considered obscene. The

terms "mother" and "father" are extremely offensive and are rarely used

except in science.

Huxley uses Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, to portray the

vulgarity when he explains the obscenity of life before Utopia to a group

of students:

And home was as squalid psychically as physically. Psychically, it was a

rabbit hole, a midden, hot with the frictions of tightly packed life,

reeking with emotion. What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane,

obscene relationships between the members of the family group! (37)

In an earlier passage, Huxley shows the effects of Mond's

explanation on one boy, "The Controller's evocation wa...

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... without religion or a god. This belief is

portrayed throughout the novel.

Brave New World presents a frightening view of a future

civilization which has forgotten current morals and standards. Instead of

humans controlling science and their lives, science controls humans, and

World Controllers decide all rules which are intended to mold society into

a stable community. Huxley's criticism of this community portrays the

impractical application of Utopia in actual society.

Sources Cited and Consulted

"Aldous Huxley: Brave New World?" http://www.huxley.net/ pp. 1-36.

Birnbaum, M. Aldous Huxley's Quest For Values. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1971.

Firchow, P. E. The End of Utopia. Associated Univ. Presses, Inc., N.J.: 1984.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Collins, 1989.