BY ALDOUS HUXLEY Critical analysis of Huxley s dystopian novel
Characters: Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, Lenina Crowne, Fanny Crowne, Henry Foster, The Director, Mustapha Mond, John (the Savage), Linda Conflict: humanity vs. technology; individual vs. society; happiness vs. truth Symbolism: Henry Ford (the World State s God because he developed mass production and assembly lines); Shakespeare (represents art, creativity, love, passion, and beauty all rejected by the World State). Themes: Individualism vs. collectivism; future totalitarian societies; science and technology as a way to control people; the cost of happiness. 2
Written in early 1930, published in 1932, set in year 632 AF. The world was reacting to World War I, fascism and the Soviet empire, the roaring 20 s in Europe and America, the industrial revolution, and the crash of the stock market in 1929. Is Brave New World a blueprint for a Utopian society? No. Huxley was writing a satirical piece of fiction, not scientific prophecy. Satire = the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people, particularly in the context of political and social issues. Dystopia = An imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic. World-state = a state or society comprising the whole world ruled by a centralize power. 3
Essential Question: if it is technically feasible (possible), what is wrong with using technology, medicine, psychology, and genetic engineering to remove mental and physical pain and hardship to develop a more comfortable, universally happy society for EVERYONE? What are some examples of technology being used to control the population of the civilized World State? How has medicine and psychology been used to form a Utopian race of humans? How has genetic engineering played a role in creating a caste (social stratification) system within the World State? 4
An exaggeration? Sadly, no. Brave New World serves as a false symbol for anyone preaching the concept of universal happiness. The Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless, and even sinister place, a world-state. Huxley described it as a nightmare. The comparison he is making is between the fascist, communist government of the Soviet Union and the capitalist, Fordist society of America and Western Europe. Huxley suggested that the price of universal happiness will be the sacrifice of the most important pillars of our culture: "motherhood", "home", "family", "freedom", even "love". 5
In the world-state, happiness derives from consuming massproduced goods and sports: Obstacle golf Promiscuous sex Soma, the perfect pleasure-drug A regimen of soma doesn't deliver anything sublime or lifeenriching experiences. The drug heightens suggestibility, leaving its users vulnerable to propaganda. Soma is a narcotic that raises "a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds. Drugs like soma allow people to use their imaginations to turn themselves into who they want to be, who they choose to be, and through suggestion and genetic engineering, people are free to choose to be happy and obedient (chapter 14). 6
The Brave New World is a "Fordist" utopia based on production and consumption. The production and consumption of manufactured goods is integrated with a life-style of drugs-and-sex. Inhabitants are given no time for spiritual contemplation. Solitude is discouraged. Society is purposely kept occupied and focused on working for yet more consumption (soma, sex, jobs, society, media). Is there a correlation between wealth and happiness? Is consuming media willingly the same as brainwashing? Does technology make it easier to proliferate a homogenous (consisting of the same parts) society? 7
The Brave New World is a benevolent (well meaning, kind) dictatorship: a static, efficient, totalitarian welfare-state. There is no war, poverty, or crime. Society is stratified by genetically-predestined caste (a rigid social system limited to persons of the same rank). Intellectually superior Alphas are the top-dogs followed by Betas; purposely brain-damaged Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons toil away at the bottom of the system as the workers of society. Alphas and Betas are produced, engineered in ideal growth conditions like one would grow a prize flower; Gammas, Deltas, and worst of all Epsilons are purposefully deprived of all the needed elements for growth from egg to embryo to baby. 8
Knowledge of the past is banned by the World Controllers to prevent individual comparisons. The Controllers fear historical awareness would stir dissatisfaction with the "utopian" present. The Savage Reservation is the symbolic history of humanity. There is no depth of feeling, no proliferation of ideas, and no artistic creativity. Individuality is suppressed. Intellectual excitement and discovery have been abolished. Its inhabitants are laboratory-grown clones, bottled and standardized from the hatchery. They are conditioned and indoctrinated, and even brainwashed in their sleep. 9
The Brave New World is often taken as a pessimistic warning of the dangers of runaway science and technology. Scientific progress, however, was apparently frozen with the advent of a world-state. Ironically, Huxley offers a warning of what happens when scientific inquiry is suppressed. The prospect of universal happiness symbolizes the fear of everyday boredom. The world-state comes across as a stagnant civilization. Its inhabitants are too contented living in their rut to extricate themselves and progress to higher things. Superficially, Brave New World is a technocratic society. Yet the free flow of ideas and criticism central to science is absent. The Brave New World re-enforces conformity in innumerable different ways. It feeds the popular misconception that a life-time of happiness will be boring, even when the biochemical conditions of boredom have been removed genetically from people. 10
In the Brave New World, children are raised and conditioned by the state bureaucracy, not brought up by natural families. There are only ten thousand surnames. Value has been stripped away from the person as an individual human being; respect belongs only to society as a whole. Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have their own kids. This would seduce their allegiance away from the community as a whole by providing a rival focus of affection. The individual's loyalty is owed to the state alone. One of our deepest fears about the prospect of tampering with our natural (DNA-driven) biological endowment is that we will ourselves be controlled and manipulated by others. Huxley plays on these anxieties to devastating effect. He sows the fear that a future world-state may rob us of the right to be unhappy. 11
John the Savage represents all the qualities of humanity that society is trying to eliminate entirely and John defends the right to suffer illness, pain, and fear against the arguments of the indulgent Controller. John claims the right to be unhappy. What is the price for happiness? Freedom and individuality? Consumerism and pleasure? Experience and reality? Is happiness determined by genetics and background? Wealth and social standing? Health and family? Intelligence and enlightenment? 12
In the end, we are to question Darwin s theory of evolution. It states that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected, no God or factory) "descent with modification". Complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. Contrast this idea with the Brave New World s genetically engineered society where Alphas and Epsilons are created to serve a role in society for the betterment of all. Does our society (Western Europe and America) today function more like an evolutionary process (Darwin) or a static utopian state (Huxley)? What does our society want to be? 13
Again, if it is technically feasible, what is wrong with using technology, medicine, psychology, and genetic engineering to remove mental and physical pain and hardship to develop a more comfortable, universally happy society for EVERYONE? Is John the Savage right in his insistence of remaining human (imperfect but real)? Or is Mustapha Mond right in his decision to preserve a perfect form of happiness (idealism?) When is a Utopian view of the world really a dystopia for the people who live in it? Are we there today? 14
Writing Task #1: Entertainment as a Form of Control Core Question: Have we become a trivial culture preoccupied with entertainment? For this writing topic, we return to where we started with the quotations from Neil Postman s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death (read the excerpt) After reading Brave New World, do you think that Postman was right? Is a constant barrage of entertainment making us passive and self-centered? Are we being controlled and conditioned by pleasure as effectively as we would be by a secret police armed with guns and nightsticks? In other words, how similar is our world to the World State depicted in Brave New World? And what is the trend? Are we becoming, as Postman suggests, more like the Brave New World or less? 15
Some advice on how to respond to this prompt: Have completed your Evidence Log from Brave New World. Finish reading Brave New World, the novel. Have a list of the characters and what they represented. Understand and identify 2-3 reoccurring thematic ideas from the novel, you will see these in your Evidence Log if you did it right. Read and annotate Are we living in Brave New World s nightmare future? by J. Dacre, and Amusing ourselves to death with Donald Trump by C. Teare. Incorporate evidence for your claims (topics) from ALL 3 SOURCES. Analyze and annotate the prompt (understand what it is asking). Organize your ideas; form a thesis or main claim; use your Evidence Log and LitCharts to help you identify that claim. Sketch an outline from your brainstorming. 16
Assignment instructions: Write a first draft, timed essay in class (Module 3, Assignment 7) Peer-edit that assignment (Module 3, Assignment 8) Revise and submit a final draft (Module 3, Assignment 9) The week you return from Thanksgiving break, you will write, edit, and revise the final draft of this essay IN CLASS. Final draft must be submitted to Google Class folder and in paper copy to me. We will go to the library to print. You can refer to outside sources but you should not offer them as evidence (you cannot use them as evidence). This is a major essay, it will take you time. NO PLAGIARISING. You will get a 0 and fail the class. 17
Introduction (topic, prompt, thesis, transition) Body 1 Topic: Evidence: Commentary: Evidence: Commentary: Comparison: Transition: Body 2 Topic: Evidence: Commentary: Evidence: Commentary: Comparison: Transition: Body 3 Topic: Evidence: Commentary: Evidence: Commentary: Comparison: Transition: Conclusion (review prompt, evidence, move forward) 18
Let s get started (sample introduction) Americans today are largely controlled by the media; it has become our culture. Evidence of the influence media has on American citizens can be found everywhere: just this week the Independent s website published an article that details President Donald Trump s satisfaction in hearing that Fox News ratings have soared recently, doubling the numbers of its competitors. He claims the reason for the high number of viewers is their fair coverage of his presidency. The influence the President of the United States has on Americans cannot be understated and is even felt beyond our borders. Around the world, the U.S. President commands the attention of governments, citizens, and media alike. The media parrots sources of power (politics, entertainment, business), and in many ways citizens of planet Earth (especially Americans) are preoccupied, passive, and self-centered. Modern, civilized people are distracted by technology, entertainment, and society, and are slowly falling in line with the society of Aldous Huxley s Brave New World. Sadly, it seems like people are sacrificing reality for happiness and comfort. Inconvenient questions arise: Why is Trump s claim of popularity consumed by the public like culturally significant news? How do media outlets like the Independent affect the public happiness? And finally, how does the American society today compare to Huxley s Brave New World? 19