Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has taken its place as #36 on the list of most banned books between 2000 and 2009. The novel has been banned high and low; in Ireland for its distasteful language, anti-domestic and anti-religious values, in Seattle for the racism of Native Americans, removed from classrooms in Miller, Missouri for its promiscuous influence on teens, and in India for being pornographic. Even so, the list of bannings continues on. Reasons for the censoring of Brave New World may have significance, yet are not justifiable when compared with the importance of the novel. Brave New World is a social satire that depicts a “Utopian” society under a totalitarian-based government that functions on sex and drugs. An immoral society that …show more content…
their curiosity is too great and their lives too boring without indecency. If such a book as Brave New World were banned, a novel known widely for its offensiveness, the world would lose a vital source of entertainment. There is an obvious difference between Huxley’s world in which “people are...never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age, they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives or children, or lovers to feel strongly about, they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave” (Huxley 220), and our society which is opposite of Huxley’s and also familiar to us. Would someone choose to read about the world they are accustomed to, or about a foreign and shocking world? Most would argue the latter.Evidence of such preference lies in Brave New World itself, “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 215). It is plain to see that most people would prefer the censored over the uncensored. Therefore, Huxley’s novel proves to be wanted by many. Banning it would only be a
In the novel “Brave New World”, the world state censors: media, literature and music and the things that fall in those categories. They do this to control their citizens’ actions and influence the way they think Just like a dystopian society would, which is brought upon with technology and by higher authorities.
Huxley’s Brave New World is a perfect depiction of twenty first century’s societal conditioning. Although Huxley envisioned his theory coming to fruition more than five decades forward, we can identify many areas in our society that Huxley speaks about. In today’s society media is the most important role in conditioning our society. How can one keep their individuality secure in a world that doesn’t allow for one express their individuality? Huxley’s extreme use of satire helps develop the idea that, Society has some how adopted this false illusion of psychological happiness through media and propaganda.
Looking back on the life of Aldous Huxley, he portrayed many of his problems in Brave New World. Huxley wrote a work that not only made the reader look upon Huxley’s time, but also make them look at their own and make a connection to see if the reader had similar problems still occurring. Literary devices such as characterization and allusions were used by Huxley to give the reader an idea of what was occurring in Huxley’s lifetime. Throughout Brave New World Huxley expressed three main problems: religion, the role of women in society, and the idolization of a “public/business” figure.
Brave New World, a dystopian novel by Huxley depicts a cruel reality if technology one day advances too much. In no way does the book support racism, or religious intolerance. The books main idea, is a character realizing the holes in the “perfect” society. The dystopian community’s motto is “Community, Identity, Stability,” by separate classes from each other, Musafa mon intended a society to be stable; or no competition. Not a “racist” society. The controller simply had to eliminate racial or religious problems through classes and hypnopaedia. If there wasn’t one religion in the civilization, it would cause potential for instability opposite of what he wanted. Brave New World should not be banned from schools due to race and religious intolerance.
advancements and twisted morals to relate back to the political and social environment of 1930s.
One may think that the society in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a gross representation of the future, but perhaps our society isn’t that much different. In his foreword to the novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned this statement when he wrote: "To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda...." Thus, through hypnopaedic teaching (brainwashing), mandatory attendance to community gatherings, and the use of drugs to control emotions, Huxley bitterly satirized the society in which we live.
“If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.” Within Brave New World, a totalitarian government in a utopian world is depicted by a handful of hatchery directors that condition each of their creations and divide them into groups amongst one another based on qualities in order to establish an idealistic stable community depicting the theme of power. Aldous Huxley illustrates social and political worldly conflicts within a newfound society to ridicule the behavior of other upon him and the strictness of his living environment during the 1930’s and surroundings by using figurative language, tone, and detail.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, like most satires, addresses several issues within society. Huxley accomplishes this by using satirical tools such as parody, irony, allusion. He does this in order to address issues such as human impulses, drugs, and religion. These issues contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole by pointing out the disadvantages of having too much control within society.
Imagine a society in which its citizens have forfeited all personal liberties for government protection and stability; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, explores a civilization in which this hypothetical has become reality. The inevitable trade-off of citizens’ freedoms for government protection traditionally follows periods of war and terror. The voluntary degradation of the citizens’ rights begins with small, benign steps to full, totalitarian control. Major methods for government control and censorship are political, religious, economic, and moral avenues. Huxley’s Brave New World provides a prophetic glimpse of government censorship and control through technology; the citizens of the World State mimic those of the real world by trading
Censorship can be defined as an act that limits the freedom and exploration of an individual or society. In the novel ”Brave New World”, the author depicts a society that is completely censored in what the people think and do. This is shown throughout the book as the characters live their everyday lives, completely oblivious to the fact that they are being censored in their thoughts and actions. The censorship in “Brave New World” first starts when a person is an infant. In the nursery, the nurses are told to bring books and rose petals and set them in the middle of the floor.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a book centered around underage sex, substance abuse and lack of morality, a book which is a part of the school's curriculum. Many books with homosexual characters have been banned and challenged around the nation. This is not justified considering some of these books contain no explicit content. Does that mean a book like Brave New World with explicit content is acceptable for high school students to read? Although the dystopian novel shows the dangers of technology becoming highly advanced, nevertheless the uncensored and graphic content in this book is something no student should have to read. The reasons Brave New World should be challenged are banned are immorality, sexually explicit scenes and promotion
Back in the 1930's when "Brave New World" was published, no body dreamt that world of science fiction would ever come into reality. Surely there must have been a time though when a machine that could wash clothes too, seemed like science fiction. That machine has come into reality though. With today's technology and already seeing how far we've advanced scientifically, who's to say we
Drugs, promiscuous sex, birth control, and total happiness are the core values of the World State in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In today’s society things like drug use and reckless sex are often seen as taboo, but in World State, these activities are glorified and even considered normal. Aldous Huxley attempts to address to readers the harsh realities and cruel ways of our society in an exaggerated form. His purpose in doing so is to open the eyes of society to what the world might come to if things like technology and humanity get out of hand. In the World State, the motto that people are conditioned to live by is “Community, Identity, and Stability”, all three of which are ironically twisted to encourage members of the society
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
During the 1930s, the times of World War II and the Great Depression, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. There were several issues going on in Huxley’s time that are still present in today's world . Huxley features some of these problems in his book, Brave New World. These problems include drug or medicine usage, women and gender inequality, and traditional marriage/homosexuality. Since this book was written during the times of the Great Depression and World War II, these factors also contributed to some of these issues. Since World War II and the Great Depression are over, these do not affect the problems today. Although some of these problems are still a problem in today's world and society, they are not as much of a problem as they were during Huxley's time.