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Every society around the world offers different jobs and roles for an individual to succeed in and define them. Whether you are a garbage man, doctor, teacher or a celebrity, you have distinct qualities define someone. Adlous Huxley wrote Brave New World, a dystopian novel based on a utopian society with the ultimate goal of universal happiness. The futuristic novel was written in the midst of the great depression. Huxley may have created a society through his work to abolish the problems like unemployment, debt, poverty and war but there was no humanity and there definitely was no individuality. The government stripped everyone of any chance of being an individual by restricting religion, literature, family unit, and control over their life.
The government genetically fixates over one life before each caste citizen is born controlling every detail about them including what level of society they will belong to. Each person is born into the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon caste- Alpha being the highest rank and Epsilon being the lowest. The caste system is the only thing that distinguishes one human being from another which is portrayed when Lenina says, “Everyone works for everyone else. We can’t do it without anyone. Even Epsilons...”(Huxley 91) The alphas may be the smartest and most beautiful but they are equally as talented to avoid any competition. The Epsilons are the exact opposite, they the least attractive and intelligent on the reservation. Helmholtz Watson, smart intelligent and attractive, is the perfect example of an Alpha. Although one group may be more superior to the other, no one feels inadequate because everyone knows they are contributing to the social and economic prosperity in society. Brave New World...
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...dual in the New world you must conform or die. Mond as well as the rest of the world state believes that “The whole premise of this form of utilitarianism is that people should be happy and live in a stable society. Therefore, one must ban anything that would interfere with happiness.”(Smith)
In Brave New World, the totalitarian government takes full control over humanity resulting in no humanity at all because there is no individuality. All an individual can do is obey to what is expected of them. This scarcity of identity has led to a society of false happiness. People are defined and shaped into who they are by the struggles they face and how they cope with their journey. In fact, life is the ability to grow or change and without sadness, disease or any problematic situation; there is no opportunity for hope,to define themselves and to experience true happiness.
Social stability can be the cause of problems. After reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, we are informed that “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!” Now is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice? Questions like those are addressed throughout the book. Huxley wants to warn us of many things, for example the birth control pill, the way that we can colon ourselves and many other things. He wanted us to know that many of the experiments that they do to the caste in Brave New World, we were later going to do investigate more ourselves or start doing them to others. We have all, at a point; come to a point to the question where we ask ourselves “is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice?”
Through hypnoaedic teachings, reservation contrasts to the “Civilized” world, and John’s critique of the society, the reader sees Huxley’s point of view of the importance of an individual. With hypnoaedic teachings, Huxley creates the society and the values. Inside the reservation, Huxley contrasts the society of the reservation to that of Lenina’s society. Finally Huxley’s main evaluation and critique of lack of identity is seen in John’s character. John’s horrid descriptions in his point of view on society demonstrate to the reader the importance of an individual. Since there were absolutely no conscious men or women throughout society, ideas of ignoring death, God, and beauty creates a world where men and women sacrifice true happiness (Where pain and hard work are involved for a greater happiness) for a “smooth running society.” The picture of the society to the reader is horrifying and quite terrifying. Overall, within our society, the importance of the individual is not a problem. People, even teenagers, are encouraged to show who they are inside. One can truly see the idea of the importance on individual through the new openness to different sexualities. Overall, within the book, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, Huxley demonstrates the need for conscious individuals through a horrifying
This could state that the citizens of Brave New World are genuinely happy, this is more a result of ignorance and blindness rather than a truly fulfilling sense of bliss. However, one person in Brave New World tried to consent to his individuality in the society and he ended up being a dangerous citizen. The person that objected to his individuality was Bermard Marx, who’s an Alpha plus and does not believe in the promiscuous nature of his society.
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.
Brave New World: Helplessness How can one distinguish happiness from unhappiness if unhappiness is never experienced? It's the bad that makes the good look good, but if you don't know the good from the bad, you'll settle for what you're given. Can people judge their feelings without a basis or underlying "rubric" to follow? Such rudimentary guidelines are established through the maturation process and continue to fluctuate as one grows wiser with a vaster array of experiences. Aldous Huxley creates a utopia filled with happiness, but this is merely a facade to a world which is incomplete and quite empty since the essential "experiences" are replaced with "conditioning."
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.
The caste system of this brave new world is equally ingenious. Free from the burdens and tensions of a capitalistic system, which separates people into social classes by natural selection, this dictatorship government is only required to determine the correct number of Alphas, Betas, all the way down the line. Class warfare does not exist because greed, the basic ingredient of capitalism, has been eliminated. Even Deltas and Epsilons are content to do their manual labor. This contentment arises both from the genetic engineering and the extensive conditioning each individual goes through in childhood. In this society, freedom, such as art and religion, in this society has been sacrificed for what Mustapha Mond calls happiness. Indeed almost all of Huxley's characters, save Bernard and the Savage, are content to take their soma ration, go to the feelies, and live their mindless, grey lives.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World portrays a society in which science has clearly taken over. This was an idea of what the future could hold for humankind. Is it true that Huxley’s prediction may be correct? Although there are many examples of Huxley’s theories in our society, there is reason to believe that his predictions will not hold true for the future of society.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, portrays a future society where people are no longer individuals but are controlled by the World State. The World State dominates the people by creating citizens that are content with who they are. Brave New World describes how the science of biology and psychology are manipulated so that the government can develop technologies to change the way humans think and act. The World State designs humans from conception for this society. Once the humans are within the society the state ensures all people remain happy. They program these humans to have needs and desires that will sustain a lucrative economy while not thinking of themselves as an individual. Huxley describes the Worlds State’s intent to control their society through medical intervention, happiness, and consumerism which has similarities to modern society.
Although our world is not extreme as the World State, we are closer than we have ever been to Aldous Huxley’s future prediction of the world. In this dystopian novel, people want what they want, but never what they can’t have. They live through meaningless relationships, extreme censorship, and a substantial amount of soma. Writer, Frances Tapon, says, “Psychologists believe that there are seven factors that influence your happiness: wealth, education, personal freedom, equality, health, social position, and positive life events.” The only difference between what makes us happy and what makes them happy is conditioning. In the World State, people are conditioned from the day they are decanted with chemicals, hypnopaedia, and Neo Pavlova. Humans today have always been told “money is power” and “go to college, get a good job, then you will be happy.” Even though we feel emotions, people will do anything to feel happy just like the World State. Brave New World is our world with a surplus of drugs, sex, and people conditioned to think that their life is happy and
Brave New World is a novel about a dystopian society named “The World State” set in A.F. 632 (632 years after Henry Ford’s Death). In this society, advanced technology is used to mass produce people and condition them into only wanting and doing certain things, creating a caste system. However, doing so takes away people’s freedom to think for one’s self. Certain people are able to step back from the monotony of this society and because of this they feel detached. This scenario adds an element of alienation, this scenario poses as a question, is it better to be happy or individualistic.
Imagine living in a society where there is no sense of independence, individual thought or freedom. A society where the government uses disturbing methods that dehumanize people in order to force conformity upon them. Taking away any sense of emotion, It would be very undesirable to live in a society with such oppression. Such society is portrayed in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. The World State uses social restrictions to create permanent artificial personalities for people within the society. The World State also uses controlled groupings of people to brainwash them further to be thoughtless people with no sense of individualism. Lastly, the World State uses drugs to create artificial happiness for people, leaving no room for intense emotion which causes people to revolt against the World State. Within the novel Brave New World, it is seen that the World State eliminates individuality through social restrictions, government controlled groupings and the abuse of drugs to maintain control of the population.
During the past few weeks my class and I have been reading your book, “ Brave New World”. While reading your book I have discovered a few captivating issues. These issues include the destruction of the family, the use of drugs, and polygamy (obligatory sex). These issues are interesting because of their implications in life today, and the frequent times they are shown in the book. The ways they are used to control people and make their life easier, and the fact that our world seems to be falling into the same state.
In the novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, Huxley's world asserts that in order to maintain stability, individuality must be sacrificed. In Brave New World life is free of illness and old age, scientists are able to produce babies that fit the skills of their future jobs exactly. They have advanced jobs and technology for prevention and improvement in their world. The need for stability illustrated a government solidity demanding robots, they divide humans into various castes. The Worlds State's motto is "community, identity, stability". Maintaing stability plays an important role in their society. "Brave New World" can be interpreted as a science fiction futuristic nightmare. In the novel, in order to stabilize society, "Bokanovksy's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability" (Huxley 7). A world where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling World State, this pharmaceutical anesthetic goes by the name of Soma. Soma is introduced further on into the story for a particular reason such as... Before the World State, the instability caused by strong emotions led to disease, war, social unrest and millions of deaths. In "Brave New World" the consequences of state control are a loss of dignity, morals, values and identity. "'Yes, everybody's happy now,'echoed Lenina. They had heard the words repeated a hundred and fifty times every night for twelve years" (Huxley 74). The victims of the World State hear what they are told to hear, and listen to what they are told to listen to, they are technically brainwashed.
Literature is both shaped by our culture and shapes it. Because of this it is an effective representation of the culture of a time. One can tell how people were affected by the events of the times by how it comes through in their writing. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a prime example of this. The work was targeted at people in a post WWI world. This is a time between WWI and WWII where the world is still shocked by how rapidly the science of war had advanced. People also continue to be appalled with the mass death of a World War caused by such technology and therefore yearn for a more stable world. Because of this yearning, they attempt to create a more stable environment for themselves. Most people had lost faith in the institutions they came to know because those institutions caused the War. Therefore the League of Nations was founded in 1919 only 13 years before “Brave New World” was published in 1932.