Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

When readers read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, they are taken the World State, a dystopian society where the citizens are attracted to material goods, immediate happiness, and drugs that distract themselves from reality. Do Readers begin to wonder if the society we live in today become a dystopian society? While comparing societies, we begin to realize that our society is almost identical to the World State. Our societies are very similar, but we will never become a dystopian society like the World State, for we are not controlled by material goods, immediate happiness and drugs, we are controlled by our emotions.

It is weird that Aldous Huxley wrote this book in 1931 about the world he was living in during that time and how it is similar to the world we live in today. Nowadays, drugs are still being used and people are still engaging in sexual encounters with multiple partners. Things are no different than they use to be. People still to this day are using drugs and committing adultery as if there aren’t any diseases out there. In the story they introduced a drug named Soma. This particular drug was the narcotic they used to escape the world they lived in.

“And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you 've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”

Aldous Huxley is the author of Brave New World and several different literary works. He was born into an aristocratic family in an English county called Surrey in 1894. Huxley probably received the best education a young writer could’ve gotten in England, attending Oxford University. In 1963, he died at the age of 69 in Los Angeles, California.

In a world that is perfect, human beings do not have to depend on drugs to keep our world in balance. In a Brave New World by Aldous Huxley there is always a perfect drug called soma that keeps everyone happy, which they have based their society on. This drug makes everyone want the same thing and they always look forward to their next dose. While accomplishing their particular jobs these people are made to be happy from the very beginning. "We also predestine and condition. We decant out babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewage workers or future Directors of Hatcheries’’ (Huxley 13). The soma is the type of drug that helps the society to keep everything moving.

In the 1980’s, Nancy Reagan started the “Just Say No” campaign. This was an attempt to help people avoid the pitfalls of drugs and addiction. Now, imagine if the government started a campaign about drugs that was “Just Say Yes”. Opponents of drug addiction claim that drugs alter brain structures, change thought processes, and causes family issues. However, Aldous Huxley’s book, Brave New World, portrays a more irrational perspective of drugs where addiction is necessary for controlling the population.

The main conflict in Brave New World is individuality versus social stability. The notion of Brave New World is that one must give up their individuality and fulfill their role in the society for the greater good which is social stability. The totalitarian government in the novel controls every aspect of the id, superego, and ego. Aldous Huxley distinguishes each of his characters from the other to portray the different levels of individuality they display. Through the psychoanalytical perspective, it is interpreted that the “World State” dominated the characters throughout the novel. However, Bernard and John Savage show the readers the individuality aspect of the society

Aldous Huxley’s utopia in Brave New World foreshadowed and illuminated the complications within modern day society. Upon its release, the narrative became widely banned all over the United States due to the unorthodox thoughts and actions of multiple characters in it. Early readers, as well as modern day audiences, feared and rejected the ideals that Huxley incorporated into his perfect society; however, our society today is heading towards the dark paths the older generations desired to avoid.

In the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Marxism is seen through the whole story. In the story everybody serves the society in the world state. Society makes everybody’s needs and are fulfilled, as well as some of the characters show us Marxism in the way they act or where conditioned. Religion is as well seen in the novel and connected to Marxism.

Brave New World explicitly states that their society rejects people with abnormalities that make them differ from everybody else in the apparent utopian society. This is a society in which prejudice is extremely common and acceptable and at times would be encouraged among the civilians. In Brave New World, people are genetically engineered in a laboratory and categorized into five different castes, The five different castes are rendered into different magnitudes of skills and intellects, based upon how well they will be able to do in the future also how socially acceptable they will stand. In which alpha is the highest, Epsilons the lowest. The Alphas can be viewed as the geeks in school, while the Epsilons basically do the grunt work such as shoveling, and picking up trash. In their society, it is acceptable to criticize based upon looks and actions. If a person looks or acts different, the “perfect” society initiates in awkward stares and glances. Once somebody acts a little different from the norm this society spreads absurd rumors about them. In this “perfect” society civilians can only associate with the people in their same caste.

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley writes about a dystopian society consisting of consumerism and happiness. This society strictly relies on its rules and provides a narrow way of thinking in life. When John is introduced in the book, he possesses knowledge of a Indian civilization unlike Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson. In this strange civilization, John learned old English from Shakespeare and Christianity, which are ousted in the World States. Because of his knowledge of this information, he is shunned from the new society he is not used to. This alienation pushes him out separating his views of life and the government’s views. In Brave New World, Huxley alienates John and his forbidden knowledge, preventing to upset the World

seven. They could have had twice as much blood from me…” (117). That is a line from John that emphasizes the desire that John has to prove his worth to his fellow companions who ostracize him because of his appearance.

Imagine a world where complete control is in the hands of the government. Imagine a world where science, literature, religion, and even family, do not exist. Imagine a world where citizens are conditioned to accept this. This is exactly how the world is portrayed in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The focus of the World State is on society as a whole rather than on individuals. Some characters from the novel have a harder time accepting the conditioning. Through these characters, we learn the true cost of a government-dominated society. In Brave New World, Huxley conveys that a totalitarian government will provide happiness and peace by abolishing individuality and free thinking.

In Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, (titled after Miranda’s line in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest) (Frey 1) everyone works together to keep the Fordian society, as a whole, together, no matter what the cost. Each society member makes many individual sacrifices and this allows them to live a seemingly happy life. The protagonist of the novel, later introduced as John the Savage, played the devil’s advocate to the people of London, trying to help them achieve a truly healthy life. John developed his emotions by reading Shakespeare. Because of this, he could not comprehend the World State and caused much chaos while there.

Living in a perfect world where everyone was happy, resources were plentiful, and the word war was never spoken would be the ideal place to live, however without chaos how would people know peace and without evil in the world how would there be good. Society is all about yin and yang, bad in the good and good in the bad. In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, London is transformed into a society where there are no mothers or father, babies are born in tubes, and there is no talk of marriage or being exclusive to one person. A different civilization than present day. Brave New World was published in 1932, during this time the Great Slump was happening throughout England, which would be understandable because Huxley describes his novel as a negative utopia, or dystopia. The novel is a great read for one who is interested in utopias, dystopias and how society would be different if history had not panned out the way it had. Brave New World is an excellent example of how dystopias are disguised as utopias.