Individuality In Brave New World

Aldous Huxley’s classic novel, Brave New World, is a highly acclaimed work of dystopian fiction that continues to be a significant warning to our modern society. Within the context of the World State, Huxley warns of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies and emphasizes the necessity of the individual over society. Regarding such topics in today’s setting, Huxley would show disappointment in the former topic while applauding the latter.

In Brave New World Aldous Huxley, creates a dystopian society which is scientifically advance in order to make life orderly, easy, and free of trouble. This society is controlled by a World State who is not question. In this world life is manufactured and everyone is created with a purpose, never having the choice of free will. Huxley use of irony and tone bewilders readers by creating a world with puritanical social norms, which lacks love, privacy and were a false sense of happiness is instituted, making life meaningless and controlled.

Reading Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley, readers are led to a dystopia in which the World State takes control over everything including reproduction, consumption and the most important of all‐conditioning. Although Lenina and Linda are not the main characters that bring the story to its climax, they play significant roles in the story as they represent the people being affected by the World State conditioning.

People are often told to be themselves as a way of embracing their uniqueness. This seems to not be true since conformity and lack of individualism is a big issue with society. The issue of what led Christopher McCandless, main character from Into the Wild by John Krakauer, to go on a search to find himself. In the author’s note of the novel, Krakauer introduces the term ‘schools of thought’. In the case of this book, there are two; one being that some people said it was a suicide mission and the other being that others disagreed saying he was ambitious. The story demonstrates one man’s attempt to define a lifestyle and find meaning in his life that came from something outside materialistic and civilized contemporary

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s most famous novel, and other similar pieces of literature, focus on a dystopian society where “progress” no longer benefits the the people. Instead, it oppresses them, they are subjugated to the will of the society for the benefit of those at the top of that social system. Those whose only goal is to perpetuate themselves. Individuals within that system whose actions and beliefs match the will of the society are know as being orthodox, while those who don’t fit into the rigid hierarchy established by the society are considered outsiders, who must be forced back into line. Huxley saw this occurring in his society and it has grown even more dramatic today. In order to illustrate his pessimistic thoughts on the trends of society, Huxley created a series of outsiders, primarily Bernard Marx, Mustafa Mond, Helmholtz Watson, John the Savage, and Linda, and uses them to demonstrate how the system uses various methods, chiefly, conditioning and the power of institutions to force the outsiders back into Orthodoxy even to the expense of their lives.

Bernard struggles to fit in with his class, Lenina battles love, John fights guilt and lust. All the characters are a little human still, but resist and fall back in line with societal standards and expectations. “As a happy, hard-working, good-consuming citizen he’s perfect. Of course, if you choose some other standard than ours, then perhaps you might say he was degraded’”(236). The abiding and willing acceptance in the fate of themselves by the government’s design and total trust in it, results in happiness.

By masking these events, once can see how individuality is also masked by the avoidance of individual problems. If Lenina faced her problems and learned from them, she would be able to grow from past mistakes and make smarter choices later in life, but because she never faces her problems she is caught in a circle that she can never escape from and become her own

Unlimited meaningless sex sounds great right? Life in the Brave New World is entirely different than it is now. We have lost our compassion and our freedom, and now we have been turned into mindless beings. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley teaches us the importance of being human through the portrayal of the necessity of individuality, history and relationships. The lack of individuality is a common theme presented throughout the book.

Adolf Hitler once said, “The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.” The World State is the concrete setting in the dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, where the focal point of the environment is solely based on community, identity, and stability. The government is rigidly enforced with how the society is structured and ordered, solidly attempting to have an ultimate dominance over everything. Individuals who differ from the status quo are immorally isolated from society because of their individuality. Alienation in Brave New World is essentially evoked in the characters physically, intellectually, and morally.

90). To which Bernard replies, “‘But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way for example; not in everybody else’s way’” (Huxley, p. 90). Most citizens of the World State, such as Lenina, feel distressed when hearing Bernard’s ideas because conditioning forces them to uphold the collective identity that keeps the society working harmoniously.

In the past weeks or so I have noticed a spike of people losing hope for the world, this mentality (and its influence) is not new but recent events in my life have amplified my attention to this problem and made me want to annihilate it.The first time I analyzed this problem and all its contributing factors I thought of how stupid can people be to think that the world is not capable of developing peace through change with so much potential in hands, hypocritical and lazy can a person get, and is this mentality actually affecting people and society.As time passed I encountered experiences which answered these questions and made me regret my accusations,I realized that people feel like this wretched mentality is the only way to live and that we have to stop

“If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.” This is a line stated by John the Savage in the novel: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This quote arguably summarizes one of the core themes of the book. On the second reading of the first line, the thought arises if this is very far from the truth of our present-day society here in the real world? Hipster culture in contemporary society was an attempt to strive to be “special” or “different than the masses”. But is this not the very thing that makes us similar at the end of the day, or is the whole individualism issue just an illusion that is also evidently present in the novel? In this essay, these topics will be explored with evidence from the book and from my own experience in the world.

The society within Brave New World that Huxley has presented to us is one that gains stability by sacrificing everything else. Religion, emotion, and thought are removed entirely from the minds of those who live within their “utopian” city. A heavy cost for the safety and stability of civilization. Some people might say that recent events in our world may also give the idea that we may be heading in a similar direction. Sacrificing the certain freedoms and liberties, for a stable and “happy” society.

When confronted by the idea of suffering, Lenina is only able to produce the single response of resorting to soma for happiness, while John who was raised outside of the World State embraces suffering as a part of being human, demonstrating how the World State has annihilated the people of the state’s ability to see things from other perspectives apart from the World State’s, resulting in a lack of individuality.

Throughout Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, Brave New World, the reader is thrust to the forefront of a society merely based on consumerism, class loyalty, and conventional principles. The motif of brainwashing is used in an effort to abolish individualism throughout Huxley’s novel. He does so by eloquently mirroring the beliefs of the totalitarian governments of the past by establishing a government that brainwashes its own citizens to conform to their beliefs. The “World State” uses hypnopedia as a tool to accomplish this goal of conformity. They teach young children, their principles to reduce the probability of an uprising against the tyrannical power.