Brave New World Aldous Huxley Essay Example For Students

Brave New World Aldous Huxley Essay Brave New WorldAldous HuxleyIntroductionAldous Huxley was born on July 26,1894 in Surrey, England. He majored in literature at Oxford College. After Oxford he did journalism work. Huxley wrote four volumes ofpoems before his first novel Chrome Yellow (1921). Huxley wrote 45novels but it was Brave New World that established his fame. Brave New World is a science fictionbook dealing with the way things might be in the future. Huxley describesthe futures to be so organized that you lose your sense of self. Another book that deals with this aspect of the future is 1985 by GeorgeOrwell. SummaryThe book starts off with the directorof hatcheries describing a hatchery to a bunch of Alpha students. He explains the fertilizing, decanting, and conditioning process of peoplewhich is, when you come down to it, pure brainwashing. The book then introduces a man namedBernard. Bernard is an alpha, but hes queer. Hes shorter and lesshandsome than the other alphas. Bernard likes a girls named Lenina. Lenina, however, is having a guy named Henry, and has been having him forseveral months. Fanny one of Leninas friends tries to encourageLenina to move on and to try other men. Lenina goes out with Bernardand that date ends with soma and sex even though Bernard said that theyshouldnt have sex on the first night. This society is organized for thepleasure of the people. Their God is Ford. They have sex oftenwith different people, and their taught in infancy certain prejudices. For example, the babies are taught to be satisfied with their own casteof which there are five: alphas at the top, then betas, gammas, deltas,and epsilons at the bottom. Theyre taught to hate the country butlike country sports. Every teaching has a specific purpose. Bernard gets together with elevenother people and they worship Ford. They sing hymns (for exampleOrgy Porgy) to Ford and they experience Ford. They howl and shoutto his name. Bernard, however, feels nothing. He shouts becausethe others are shouting and he leaves with an emptiness deeper than theone he came with. Bernard suggests to Lenina thatthey go for a vacation to the savage reservation. Lenina agrees togo. Before they go, Bernard needs to get permission from the Directorof Hatcheries named Thomas. Thomas tells him that he once went tothe savage reservation and lost a girl he liked named Linda. Thenhe tells Bernard that if he continues with his behavior, Thomas will sendhim to Iceland. Bernard and Lenina go to the savagereservation and they witness and human sacrifice where one Indian iswhipped in reminder of Christ. Then they meet a woman that is fatand ugly but used to belong to the civilized world. Bernard figuresout that she was the Linda that Thomas lost long ago. Linda had ason named John on the reservation of whom Thomas was the father. Having a child in this society was about as much a sin as being an adulteressin the Puritan society of The Scarlet Letter. John fell in love withLenina. Bernard had an idea. He decidedthat it would be good to have an experiment to see what would happen ifa savage came to the civilized world. He wanted to bring John andLinda back into civilization. He pulled a few strings and was allowedto go on with his experiment. Linda was immediately rejected by societyand by Thomas for being fat, and for being a mother. Thomas, quithis job as the director of hatcheries because he was humiliated at beinga father. John, on the other hand, was an instant hit. Thepeople loved him and brought Bernard instant fame. Bernard was ableto get any girl he wanted, something he was not able to before. Bernardwould host parties where John would be the guest of honor. One night,though, John didnt want to show up. He rejected society and societyrejected Bernard. Society went back to its old thoughts about Bernard. They thought he was a queer again. Bernard and John had a friendnamed Helmholtz who taught emotional engineering by the use of rhymes. John happened to have a copy of Shakespeare which he found at the reservationwhich he read to Helmholtz. Helmholtz was amazed at how well Shakespearewas at emotional engineering. Making Life Adjustments EssaySociety (in the form of Lenina) embraced him and he ran. Lenina issociety. She represents those people who go with the flow. Bernard Marx: An alpha plus memberof the Central London Hatchery. He is shorter and less handsome thanhis caste and, therefore, rejected by society. John: This is the savage broughtby Bernard into civilization from the reservation. He expects thenew world to be wonderful but detests the world for being too shallow. Lenina Crowne: A typical alpha girlin this utopian society. She falls in love with John but he attacksher calling her whore and strumpet. Thomas (D. H. C.): The director ofhatcheries who is in charge decanting and condition new children. Finds out that John is his son and falls apart. Linda: Left at the savage reservation. She gave birth to John on the reservation. She was once part of thecivilized world. Mustapha Mond: The Resident Controllerfor Western Europe. This is the guy in charge. He knows abouteverything the normal people might have a chance to do and decide if itsbetter for society or not. He exiles Bernard and Helmholtz. Helmholtz Watson: A friend ofBernard and John. He was professor of emotional engineering and admiredShakespeare for his prowess in that field. He had ideas that weresimilar to Johns and was exiled because of them, but to him they wereonly theory and he never acted upon his ideas of solitude, etc. SettingThe setting is fictional since thestory takes place in the future. It is well thought out with prettymuch everything figured out, from the birth to death, to recreation, tosex. The purpose of the setting is to show the difference betweenthe Utopian society and the savage reservation, and the way each controlits residents. Everything makes sense in this setting. StyleThe style was very precise. Each word had a meaning and was not just put there to sound good. There were few difficult words and the reading was easy. Huxley usedsome creative allusions in the book. For example: A.D. whichmeant Anno Domini the year of our Lord is now A.F. the year of ourFord. Ford is their God and they use it the same way he use God. For example: they say Oh Ford for our Oh God. One thingthat I didnt like was what he did to the religion of the Indians on thereservation. He put a bunch of religions and stuck them together,as if he took his little knowledge of various religions and put them togetherto make a complete religion. What he might have done is taking onereligion, for example Christianity, and made the savages Christians. Or he could have read up on the Indian religion and made the Indians believethat, of course it wouldnt make sense since theyre in Europe but it wouldhave been better. That is the only complaint I have. Everythingelse was to my liking. ThemeThe theme was purpose. Whatis the purpose of life. Is it, Lifes short, play hard, as thecivilized people believed, or is it more than that. Do we have adeeper purpose than just living. The civilized people had no valuefor life. The D. H. C. said, what is an individual? We can makea new one with the greatest of ease as many as we like. A nursesaid about the death conditioning, They learn to take death as a matterof course. They dont know what theyre missing without a family. Linda said about John, but he was a comfort to me. Without these,they live for themselves, without purpose, with only the moral that theywere conditioned with such as mother is a bad word. John knew therewas something more. Life is not just for your pleasure and happiness. Its more for joy. Knowing that youve done all that you can do. Its sweat and hard work and discipline. He knew what life was aboutby growing up unprejudiced, without being conditioned. He knew. ConclusionAs a story, this was very simple. This happened and it led to that. What makes this book a classicto me is its message. The purpose of life was not the maintenanceof well being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness,some enlargement of knowledge.