Issues In Brave New World

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, published in 1932, is a masterpiece of science fiction. His imagined, dystopian state creatively employs facts and theories of science, as well as his very own thinly-veiled commentary on the future of society. His family background and social status, in addition to molding Huxley himself and his perspective, no doubt made impact on his writing and contributed to the scientific accuracy of his presentation. However, Huxley certainly qualifies as a social commenter and his extensive works, while sometimes biased, were always perceptive comments on the future of mankind, predictions made based on current event in his world. In other words, current affairs had undeniable impact on Huxley’s novel, and his

In the novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huxley includes allusion, ethos, and pathos to mock the wrongdoings of the people which causes physical and mental destruction in the society as a whole. The things that happened in the 1930’s plays a big contribution to the things that go on in the novel. The real world can never be looked at as a perfect place because that isn't possible. In this novel, Huxley informs us on how real life situations look in his eyes in a nonfictional world filled with immoral humans with infantile minds and a sexual based religion.

Throughout the entire world there are issues with our societies brought upon by the lack of clear thinking and/or compassion. Many of these issues may not be problems necessarily but just topics discussed when the word “issue” is brought up. One can clearly compare our society to the society described in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. In this novel the society Huxley has created is meant to be a utopia, made up of a hierarchy known as the caste system. Social classes in both societies create issues due to the fact that everyone has always had different standings in society.

In Aldous Huxley’s novel a Brave New World, published in 1931, there are several attacks on society. Throughout this essay it will be seen what these problems were and if they were fixed. If the problems were fixed, it must be determined when they were. The primary focus is to answer whether we have changed for the better, women’s role in society and the social classes. In the end it will be obvious that a perfect society is impossible but we have made improvement.

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.

How can someone claim something is right if they’ve been conditioned everything they do must be for the good of society? In the novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley uses literary devices such as diction and negative connotation to explore the issues of brainwashing, relationships, and drug dependency and how these issues affect society. He relates these issues back to real life problems in the 1930s like racism, sexism and the great depression. When Huxley wrote his novel in 1931 it was near the beginning of a worldwide depression. However many economic issues were on his mind because of what was happening when he wrote this novel, Huxley was also very much aware of the social and scientific changes that were also happening in the world. He uses these thoughts to create a society focused on these issues.

Soma is “the drug sponsored by the state to reduce or eliminate feelings of unhappiness” (Huxley 23). If a drug like Soma were to be created in today’s world it replace all the drugs in the world because there is no side effects. The number of Americans abusing prescription drugs has almost doubled from 7.8 million in 1992 to 15.1 million in 2003 (The Washington Times, 2005), where soma is used worldwide in Brave new world. The drug Soma in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, could easily be described as a modernized prescription drug.

Huxley’s Brave New World could be considered almost prophetic by many people today. It is alarmingly obvious how modern society is eerily similar to Huxley’s novel with the constant demand for instant gratification encouraging unnatural changes. Neil Postman, a contemporary social critic, seems to have noticed this similarity as he has made very bold, very valid statements regarding the text and its relevance to our world today. This statement is strongly in support of those statements and will provide both support and counterargument in an effort to thoroughly explain why.

In Brave New World, the soma that people take can quickly become addicting. When Lenina and Bernard see Linda and John at the Savage Reservation, Linda tells Lenina, “What I had to suffer - and not a gramme of soma to be had” (Huxley 120). The people in Brave New World are happy when they have soma. Soma does not have the awful side effects that alcohol has. When John, the Savage, starts to throw people’s soma distribution’s out the window “…the khaki mob was silent, petrified, at the spectacle of this wanton sacrilege, with amazement and horror” (Huxley 213).

Soma is the best weapon the government in "Brave New World" can use to control their citizens and maintain their ideal society. Soma creates a clam feeling while also distracting citizens. The distraction the drug provides is it's most powerful side effect, because while taking soma the citizens do not realize that that there is actually something very wrong in their world. Using soma to keep it's citizens content is the only way the citizens of the World State, in Brave New World continue to be enslaved.

The year 1932, nearly a hundred years prior to now, Aldous Huxley published his insurgent science fiction novel Brave New World. In the novel he foretells of the impending baby boom that comes nearly a half century later, he tells of a government that drugs its citizens in order to keep them in line, and of advancements in technology, that at the time were unheard of. They divided everyone up among social class (alpha, beta, etc.… just like they do in today’s world. Middle class, poor class, etc.). Aldous Huxley changed the science fiction genre by accurately predicting the future nearly as far as half a century due to his intellect.

Instead, the widely-used drug “soma” is used by almost everyone and provides short bursts of synthetic happiness. Over time, the population has grown heavily addicted to the drug, as characters are often portrayed in a humorous, sarcastic manner when seeking large doses of soma. Over time, the population became heavily dependent on the high that is stimulated from the substance. Similarly, in Huxley’s nonfictional society, the Prohibition Act was recently employed, thus banning the sale and ingestion of alcohol. However, this only sparked the beginning of organized crime, in which thousands of illegal bars continued to manufacture and sell alcohol.

“The people who govern the Brave New World may not be sane; but they are not

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, is a novel set in London, England of AD 2540 or 632 A.F., “After Ford” as Huxley refers to it (Baldassarro). The novel predicts developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation as well as classical conditioning that, through joint effort, impact a society as a whole. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World as fifth place on its list of 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century (Modern Library Board Members). Then in 2003 a writer for The Observer, Robert McCrum, said that Brave New World was at number fifty-three in the “top 100 greatest novels of all time” (McCrum). It was then later listed as eighty-seven in BBC’s survey “The Big Read” (BBC).

Our world today is much like the “Brave New World”, by Aldous Huxley. In many ways, for example, the way technology is evolving. It also relates to money, and the way people are “controlling” the world by being rich or famous. Aldous Huxley is a very interesting author in the way he was thinking when this book was written. When he wrote this book, it was as if he knew what the world was going to be like in the future. Everything that happens in “Brave New World” relates to a lot of things today.