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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Decent Essays
Brave New World is based around characters who gave up the right of freedom for happiness; characters who ignored the truth so that they could live in a utopian civilization. The deceiving happiness was a constant reminder throughout the book. Almost every character in Brave New World did whatever they could to avoid facing the truth about their own situations. In this society, happiness is not compatible with the truth because the World State believes that happiness was at the expense of the truth. Aldous Huxley was a man ahead of his time in respect to his development and discussion of the incompatibility of happiness and truth in his 1932 novel, Brave New World.
Characters in the Brave New World did everything they could to avoid the truth about their own situations. The general use of soma was probably the most infiltrating example of such headstrong self-delusion. Soma corrupts the realities and substitutes them with happy delusions. According to Mustapha Mond, the World State director, the World State concentrates on happiness at the expense of truth. “People were ready to have even their appetites control then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for” (Aldous Huxley 228). Mond argues that happiness refers to the instant satisfaction of every citizen’s desire for material objects. It is
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