Why Is Brave New World A Future Dystopia

Gretchen Scheetz

Mrs. Howsare

AP English 12 Final: Literary Critical Paper

20 May 2014

Brave New World: Future Dystopia or Present-Day Nightmare?

Aldous Huxley is a visionary for his philosophy that we as humans will be destroyed if one must adhere to be just as the rest of society, and for creating a dystopia that echoes todays world in the United States. Brave New World is a novel by Aldous Huxley, which portrays life in a future dystopia, and the repercussions of removing intellectual challenges and morality from a society. Huxley’s goal in writing Brave New World may have been to stop a trend that has already begun: society shaming individuals for being different, as well as the mechanization of the modern world.

Brave New World opens to the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where a director is leading a tour of the factory (Huxley, 1). The director explains the background of the New World State, including the castes, moral rules, conditioning, and soma use. Lenina Crowne, a pneumatic and very popular woman of the New World, goes on an excursion to a Savage Reservation with the unusual Bernard Marx. He is strange and rumored to have had alcohol put into his blood accidentally, but she wants to dissipate rumors of her dating Henry Foster, and decides to go with him on the trip. Upon arrival they meet a savage named John and his mother Linda, who once lived in the New World but was accidentally left behind during a trip to the reservation. Bernard realizes that the director is the one who left Linda behind, and that John is his son, and decides to bring both back to the New World with them. John dislikes the World State greatly. His mother uses soma constantly to forget her troubles, and Bernard becomes immensely ...

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...ile we are on a similar path today, it seems that no such jump could be made without a strong catalyst such as the Nine Years War in Brave New World.

In conclusion, Brave New World was likely thought out to be a satire of the American culture and society in Los Angeles at the time of Huxley’s visit. His life experiences, values and ideals can also lead the reader to this conclusion. Through personal anecdotes in Huxley’s articles about his trip, and Firchow and Kings interpretations of his words, the reader can learn much about Huxley’s goals in writing Brave New World. Aldous Huxley was a visionary. While others were following in the footsteps of others, Huxley was blazing a trail entirely his own. Huxley’s dystopia has been hugely influential in the literary world, and will forever continue to affect the way future utopias and dystopias are portrayed today.