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William Shakespeare 's Brave New World

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Throughout the novel, Brave New World, the author, Aldous Huxley strategically incorporates various Shakespearean allusions into his story. The most distinguished allusion throughout the entirety of the novel is to a quote from The Tempest, a play about a sorcerer and his daughter that live together on a remote island. The quote from The Tempest, in which Brave New World derives its name, “O, wonder!/How many goodly creatures are there here!/How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,/That has such people in 't!” (The Tempest, William Shakespeare, V, i), is spoken by Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, the sorcerer. Miranda says this because, after the tempest Prospero orchestrated using his magic, men from the outside world shipwreck on their island. Miranda then, after being exposed to these men, remarks that they are beautiful, though, Miranda is very impressionable, considering she has never encountered any other man other than her father nor has she experienced a life off the island. On the other hand, Brave New World is a novel that takes places in a seemingly utopian setting. The passage shows John the Savage, a man which was raised on the Savage Reservation but is later brought to the World State, the society in Brave New World in which people are “created,” literally, equal and are brainwashed into assuming that pleasure is the sole purpose of life, alluding to the Shakespearean quote. Not only does this reciting of the line suggest a parallel to Miranda, but John’s

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