The Brave, Condemned, And Wicked

"'God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.'" So says Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In doing so, he highlights a major theme in this story of a Utopian society. Although the people in this modernized world enjoy no disease, effects of old age, war, poverty, social unrest, or any other infirmities or discomforts, Huxley asks 'is the price they pay really worth the benefits?' This novel shows that when you must give up religion, high art, true science, and other foundations of modern life in place of a sort of unending happiness, it is not worth the sacrifice.

During his life, John was conflicted as to desiring solidarity and to be part of a community. He wavered back and forth between his moral beliefs, bodily desires, abusiveness, and compassion just as his corpse continues to swivel right and left. This illustrates the main theme that Huxley tried to portray. As people, we spend our entire lives looking left and right, waffling back and forth on ideas, and changing directions all in the pursuit of some greater happiness, importance, or meaning. We do this when regarding religion, science, or society. We are always changing, twisting in all different directions and then going back again, is something right or wrong? Is it good or bad? Is it true or false? People are caught up in this constant conscious struggle for understanding and perfection that we seek all throughout life and even into the grave. Through his book and the final quote, I feel as though Huxley was trying to communicate that we don’t and never will know the secret to happiness, purpose, or importance of life because there is no answer. But if we spend our entire lives searching and twisting back and forth in search of it, we may not end up living happily or long at

Aldous Huxley’s repeated phrase and title “Brave New World” represents the climax of an unprincipled society in which technological advances changes the lives of many.

This theme pertains to the possibility that the world may fall into the hands of the government in the name of a “utopian” society, resulting in a robot-like world without any feelings or imaginative thought if the world becomes too technologically dependent. Huxley portrays this theme through many occurrences, such as when the main character, John the Savage, is arguing with the head of the society, Mustapha Mond. John, in response to Mustapha saying that society should be based on efficiency and comfort, states “But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Huxley 240). The theme of oppression and restraint of emotion is characterized by Huxley’s decision to give the characters of the novel insight as to what is actually going with this “utopian” society. The absence of diversity among people and the social barriers caused by technology asserts Huxley’s overall theme of the falling of society due to technological advancements. In the society that the characters of the novel are living in, technology has made it so that people are designed to work to create more people, all in a thoughtless, monotonous manner. All in all, Huxley is able to convey a theme of Brave New World which portrays a new world run by technology in which all that

Happiness is a fundamental right that all human beings are allowed to pursue of their own accord by the government. Yet, imagine a society in which all the thinking is done for their citizens, feelings are gotten rid of before they could be felt and it was encouraged to not accept the downsides of life. Throughout the pages of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, he describes the lives of many characters. Specifically their relationship with the emotion of happiness. Bradbury brings to the attention of the reader of whether the characters are happy or distracted. A person cannot be happy if they do are not honest with themselves and if they do not feel or think for themselves. Through the experiences of the characters spoken about, it will be seen how happiness is not felt and lived, because their distractions take place.

The Brave New World that Huxley created in his book is one of dramatically stratified social classes, Alpha through Epsilon, designed and conditioned from even before birth to fit into their predestined role in the society. Especially for the upper classes, everything is engineered towards comfort and consumption, to the point where people can even escape uncomfortable emotions by taking a drug known as

When one reflects on the period during which Huxley’s novel was written and the modern world of his time, the comparison to the socialist world cannot be ignored. The whole idea of a utopia is very similar to socialism. The World State society is under the complete control of the government. Pre-destination department chooses what people will learn, what they will do and how they will look. Each caste wears a different color clothes and does different type of labor. None of these decisions are made by people themselves. In our society, even with the socialism, where government decides what products to produce, in what quantities, and how people will live, people still have a choice and opportunity to be different. Stability and individuality in utopia are reached by taking away the individuality from people. In the World State government controls desires and consumption by creating and destroying the demand for certain objects through the psychological training of infants.

Having been a somewhat of an outsider in his life, physically and mentally, Aldous Huxley used what others thought as his oddities to create complex works. His large stature and creative individuality is expressed in the characters of his novel, Brave New World. In crafting such characters as Lenina, John, Linda, Bernard, and Helmholtz, not to mention the entire world he created in the text itself, Huxley incorporated some of his humanities into those of his characters. Contrastly, he removed the same humanities from the society as a whole to seem perfect. This, the essence and value of being human, is the great meaning of Brave New World. The presence and lack of human nature in the novel exemplifies the words of literary theorist Edward Said: “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Huxley’s characters reflect the “rift” in their jarred reaction to new environments and lifestyles, as well as the remnant of individuality various characters maintain in a brave new world.

As man has progressed through the ages, there has been, essentially, one purpose. That purpose is to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is nonexistent, and strife, anger, or sadness is unheard of. Only happiness exists. But when confronted with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we come to realize that this is not, in fact, what the human soul really craves. In fact, Utopian societies are much worse than those of today. In a utopian society, the individual, who among others composes the society, is lost in the melting pot of semblance and world of uninterest. The theme of Huxley's Brave New World is community, identity, and stability. Each of these three themes represents what a Brave New World society needs

You just abolish slings and arrows. It’s too easy. ”(Huxley 224). The quote is symbolic of a very important dissertation; true happiness can only be achieved through true struggle, the elimination of struggle from society has consequentially cascaded happiness as well. Happiness, similar to the terms hot or cold is not a state; rather a reference.

In conclusion, it is safe to say that Huxley 's utopia went about achieving its status in the wrong way. Mankind has lost its free will to the controlling powers of a system. This system cannot be called government, as it is more akin in characteristics to slavery. Man no longer has freewill and order is kept not through respect and intellect, but via degeneration and conduct. The former sections of this essay present strategies and techniques used to maintain order in a society of individuals. Finally, it may be argued that the Brave New World protects society by locking them in a cage of ignorance; however, this is at the cost of freedom, and this is unacceptable. Mankind needs be free in order to progress as has been explained. Protection is all well and good but not at the cost of

Envision a world without despair, and everything is designed a specific way. Total freedom and perfection. Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. Values are the determining factor to what inhabits a perfect society. Does this pertain to individual freedom, or is freedom living by societal norms? Aldous Huxley exposes these factors through his futuristic literary masterpiece Brave New World. Society is controlled by caste systems, open relationships, and the use of drugs to stay there absolute selves. It is questioned if the citizens of a Brave New World are truly themselves. “COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY,” (Page 1) is the moto of the World’s state. Five manufactured social castes infuse the communities, conformity is prevented for one’s identity, and a life on drugs and open sexual relationships create stability. John, reportedly nicknamed “John the Savage” for being an outsider of societal norms, attempts to revolutionize himself and the “perfect world” he lives in because the world he perceives is causing destruction.

It is a great cautionary tale for any religion-depraved, heavily medicated, and mechanized society. Many of the World State members are happy, although several characters including John “the Savage,” Bernard, and Helmholtz are not as satisfied with their lives; truth and happiness brought on by using the drug Soma are not all it is cracked up to be. With the utilization of the drug Soma and coveting happiness over truth, Huxley’s novel is a warning of what our society might become with technological advancements in the future if they are exploited.

Dystopian novels have become more common over the last century; each ranging from one extreme society to the next. A dystopia, “A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control,”[1] through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, criticizes about current trends, societal norms, or political systems. The society in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is divided in a caste system, in which humans are not individuals, do not have the opportunity to be individuals, and never experience true happiness. These characteristics of the reading point towards a well-structured

Happiness is the fundamental objective of life. This bold statement is unanimously agreed upon among generations of people on every corner of our planet. However, the real question that has been contested for centuries is the true meaning of happiness? The true meaning of happiness is one of the most highly debated philosophy topics in history. Most famous are the writings of Aristotle and John Stuart Mill who both paint very opposing pictures of happiness. Mill believes happiness is obtained through pleasure and the absence of pain. On the other hand, Aristotle insist happiness is obtained through living a fulfilling, virtuous life. This passage will examine Aristotle 's and Mill 's views on happiness as well as give an opinion one which philosophical theory is most convincing.