“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”
~Aldous Huxley
I teetered on a stretch of railing that encompassed the crystal-clear glass hull of the boat that I sailed in. Schools of zebra-striped fish and reefs of brain-shaped coral passed by the window that I continued to goggle at. Minutes passed and the glass had acquired fog around the edges. A hazy film inched its way across the entirety of the frame, which blocked my view of the vast ocean beneath. In time, colorful silhouettes that rapidly left the misty frame came to a stand still, creating an elegant stained-glass scenery. If only I could see the natural beauty of the reef.
On the itinerary for our Key West trip, jet skis outshined
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I was left stranded in the midst of the midnight blue section of the ocean with only a life jacket and no reliable vision. My face burned from sitting under the scorching sun and partly of my embarrassment, so I ducked underneath the brackish waters. I peeked underneath the surface and my stomach clenched. Darkness everywhere. Engulfing coldness. I bathed in the heart of a death trap, with shark season quickly approaching and rare deep-sea beasts just below me. The waves didn’t help. They all lobbed and whooshed me around, forcing salty gulps of water full of unknown organisms into my throat. I choked, so I writhed and kicked until I made it above the glassy surface that separated me with precious air. My heart pounded against my chest, trying to escape the bounds it lives in. Hot tears began rolling down my face, further blurring my vision. I clenched my eyes …show more content…
I peeled myself out of the lifejacket I wore, hurled it towards the rest of its family, and focused on stumbling along to find my glasses. Everything consisted of big blobs of color all blurred together. It reminded me of a beautiful marbled glass sculpture that consisted of monochromatic blues with dashes of golden yellow, piercing orange, and viridian green, all intermingled with each other. Remnants of my recent panic attack still muddled with my mind as I was fumbling with any object that made contact with my hands. I halted in my tracks and slowed myself down in order to follow my memory of the patterns of colors that I had first seen when I took off my glasses. I pulled out my glasses from the storage area and quickly shoved them onto my face. I didn’t realize until the pain slowly ebbed away that I had a headache from having them off for a long period of time. I never felt so relieved to have my vision restored. I relied on my glasses to perceive everything, to make them
I smiled to myself and decided that I would go join in. With that, I took a huge deep breath and jumped into the salty water. The water was cool and refreshing; I felt it slide through my hair making it sway in the water. I swam deeper and deeper into the deep blue water. Sunlight streamed through it, lighting up the water around me turning it to gold. I kicked harder and I felt my muscles surge with strength and I pushed further. My lunges began to burn for the need of oxygen, but I refused to go up. I repeatedly told myself just a little bit longer. Until I was unable to proceed anymore without more air in my lungs, I swam to the top of the water taking a huge breaths, filling my lungs with air. I could then taste the salty water as it ran down my face and dripped over my lips. Just then I thought, I will never forget this moment, this place, or the experiences I felt while visiting
Different societies have risen and fallen in the common search for the “perfect” civilization. In the books 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, both authors portray a dystopian society with some troubling similarities. Orwell and Huxley each stress the use of power to control the masses. This influence is always situated with a small group of individuals that uses it to control every aspect of the people’s lives. Using such a method brings to mind a severe totalitarianism of rigid control that terminates individuality. Each society makes use of a caste system. Each caste has certain tasks and rules it must follow. Any sign of individuality is immediately disciplined and the societies are set up so the people will never question the morals or humaneness of their situation. Such concepts have been stopped from common thought so the people in power remain in power. Religion has been eliminated and logical thought have been destroyed. The days are continuously filled with worthless everyday jobs and a wish to be alone is considered a dangerous. In both books the...
“Twenty-seven years later, in this third quarter of the twentieth century A.D., and long before the end of the first century A.F., I feel a good deal less optimistic than I did when I was writing Brave New World. The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than I thought they would.” Resting anxiously and awaiting the Final Revolution in his psychedelic afterlife, Aldous Huxley still echos an invaluable wisdom to the generations of today and the future. The prophecies he made in Brave New World, written in 1931, are some of the most compelling ever made through the medium of fictional prose narrative. The previous pessimistic postulation though was not made in his opus, but rather it is from Huxley 's non-fiction work Brave New World Revisited, written in 1958, in which he concluded
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley has a similar theme as to Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell. The theme is that the government has control over their society by brainwashing them. The difference is that Nineteen Eighty-four does their brainwashing by torture and fear and Brave New World does it by making happy by letting them have whatever they want. Brainwashing is persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship (Webster). The controller does exactly that in the book. Most people would probably pick Brave New World to live in over the other novel, but digging deep into the novel we realize this world is not a good one. People might act to be happy, but that’s because the government raises them to think this way before they are even born. Our society also has a bunch of brainwashing going on by our government and companies. Even though this book was written way before our time today, the author was a good predictor to what it might become in the future. I do not think it has got to the extreme point as Brave New World though. Three areas that people are being brainwashed is in the military, advertising, and the news. Brainwashing is done throughout the book of Brave New World to control the society to believe everything is for the best.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the author depicts a collective society in which everyone has the same values and beliefs. From a young age, the people in the World State’s civilization are conditioned to believe in their motto of “Community, Identity, Stability.” Through hypnopaedia, the citizens of the World State learn their morals, values, and beliefs, which stay with them as they age. However, like any society, there are outsiders who alienate themselves from the rest of the population because they have different values and beliefs. Unfortunately, being an outsider in the World State is not ideal, and therefore there are consequences as a result. One such outsider is John. Brought from the Savage Reservation, John is lead to conform to the beliefs of the World State, thus losing his individuality, which ultimately leads him to commit suicide. Through John and the World State populace as an example, Huxley uses his novel to emphasize his disapproval of conformity over individuality.
“There is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon, returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction, scampering from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf course to …"
The characters in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World represent certain political and social ideas. Huxley used what he saw in the world in which he lived to form his book. From what he saw, he imagined that life was heading in a direction of a utopian government control. Huxley did not imagine this as a good thing. He uses the characters of Brave New World to express his view of utopia being impossible and detrimental. One such character he uses to represent the idealogy behind this is Bernard Marx.
A Utopian society is a society in which everything is perfect, everyone is happy with who they are and their lifestyles. The society in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is set up by the world controllers to be a utopian society. However, the society itself is the opposite of a utopian society: dystopian society. Even though everything seems to be perfect for everyone, the hidden truth reveals a different reality, lifestyle. The society of Brave new world is a dystopian society as exhibited by the shortage of freedom, reality and identity.
What is a utopia? Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary defines _utopia_ as "an imaginary and indefinitely remote place; a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, gov-ernment, and social conditions; *an impractical scheme for social improvement."* In _Brave New World_ Aldous Huxley creates a _dystopia_ (which Webster defines as "an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives") by predicting a pos-sible _utopia_ after many generations. Aldous Huxley analyzes how the utopia degenerated from its original intent into a terrible dystopia. In this essay I will discuss some aspects of this dystopia and relate to Aldous Huxley's dystopian vision.
The world changes so rapidly, so how could anyone predict the future? People have different beliefs of how the world will be in the next few generations, but a main concern is whether the society will improve or downgrade. Huxley is a renowned author, but after Brave New World, he can be perceived as a theorist. Aldous Huxley suggests that happiness is slowly becoming an emotion that relies on superficial experiences as it is in Brave New World.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World portrays a society in which science has clearly taken over. This was an idea of what the future could hold for humankind. Is it true that Huxley’s prediction may be correct? Although there are many examples of Huxley’s theories in our society, there is reason to believe that his predictions will not hold true for the future of society.
I stood in front of the television screen in horror and disbelief at 10 o'clock on September 11, 2001. Watching as the second plane struck the World Trade Center in a fiery ball of destruction, I thought for sure that this world as we know it was coming to an abrupt end. Seeing the first tower fall and then the second, with over 100 stories each now a pile of twisted steel and death made me want to vomit. In two short hours, the stability of America’s foundation became questionable. I wondered how such a terrorist attack could happen in this society. Then I began looking for warning signs. Ironically, all the warning America needed lies underneath the cover of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World published in 1932. Huxley warned America prior to World War II and almost 70 years prior to the “Attack on America” that materialism, ethnocentrism, complacency, and racism could all lead to ultimate destruction. America chose to ignore him.
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley deftly creates a society that is indeed quite stable. Although they are being mentally manipulated, the members of this world are content with their lives, and the presence of serious conflict is minimal, if not nonexistent. For the most part, the members of this society have complete respect and trust in their superiors, and those who don’t are dealt with in a peaceful manner as to keep both society and the heretic happy. Maintained by cultural values, mental conditioning, and segregation, the idea of social stability as demonstrated in Brave New World is, in my opinion, both insightful and intriguing.
There were quite a few changes made from Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World to turn it into a “made for TV” movie. The first major change most people noticed was Bernard Marx’s attitude. In the book he was very shy and timid toward the opposite sex, he was also very cynical about their utopian lifestyle. In the movie Bernard was a regular Casanova. He had no shyness towards anyone. A second major deviation the movie made form the book was when Bernard exposed the existing director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Bernard himself was moved up to this position. In the book the author doesn’t even mention who takes over the position. The biggest change between the two was Lenina, Bernard’s girlfriend becomes pregnant and has the baby. The screenwriters must have made this up because the author doesn’t even mention it. The differences between the book and the movie both helped it and hurt it.
Thus, in our search to understand that which is intangible, we come to realize that the definitions that we seek are further than meets the eye. For although many may say they understand what is and is not real, they often rely on a surface level of understanding. Yet when the curious seek out a deeper grasp of the words real, surreal, and reality, many would discover that they are, in fact, unsolvable. Thus we will never know the ultimate truth, we only can get closer and closer to