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Brave New World Rhetorical Analysis

Decent Essays

In his novel, “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley portrays a society in which the government has full control. At the time of the books writing America was striving for this status quo of complacent pleasantry, censorship was an issue, and things that were extreme or painful were being removed. As man has progressed through the years, societies have tried to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is nonexistent, and strife, anger, or sadness are unheard of. Only happiness exists. But after reading Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World,” one comes to realize that this is not, in fact, what the human being really longs for. Huxley’s intended audience seems to be people that have the vision of a perfect society. He wrote the book as a dark satire. It's meant to mock (in a serious manner) the concept of a perfect society being possible. Huxley successfully made the point that there is more to life than stability and complacent happiness by utilizing a number of rhetorical strategies.
Huxley’s central rhetorical strategy throughout the piece is symbolism. Soma symbolises control and conformity. It is present to keep people calm and acting in a calm, controlled way. If no one is angry, then there are no problems in society. The idea is that they can drug the people until they do not get angry, and then they can do anything to them. In “Brave New World,” religion is the worship of a living soul instead of a Supreme Being. Henry Ford is their equivalent of a god; they

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