Perceiving Modern Illusion Throughout this semester our literary material dealt with themes of technology, modernization, the imponderable bloom, human nature, and truth to name a few of the most overarching. Each text has woven an impression of the possible near future for humanity if the patterns we are creating continue at an exponential rate. Patterns like consumerism, neglecting unpleasurable emotions, using drugs, and controlling the environment for our short term benefits will write an unsavory inevitable future. Science Fiction often reflects on society and culture by exaggerating their characteristics and advancements to seem far-out, but often it is ironic how close many aspects of the fiction are a direct reflection of the …show more content…
He brings us up to speed of the last hundreds of years of modernization in the first few chapters illustrating in detail the advancements people have made. The first picture of the “Brave New World” is the “Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre”, where we later find from all life is derived and grown. Already we can observe that one of the most sacred things about being a human, the way in which we enter the world has been reduced to an assembly line of bottles with embryos and test tubes. He describes the workers who grow these humans to look as dead corpses from their dress to further drive home the idea that the culture has lost its sense of life. Describing a place of life alside the imagery of death raises some red flags of a disordered society. He describes the light inside with animalistic qualities that will continue to pepper the entire text hinting at the natural reflections we make with nature and the necessity of that interaction. “...a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory.” “The light was frozen, dead, a ghost.” (Huxley,15) Even the light that interacted with the world around it was dead. The first few pages use a wintery theme that we associate with the death of …show more content…
In the same way if someone began giving out a bunch of prescription drugs without testing the side effects fully and hoping for the best just numbing the symptoms of a civilized lifestyle while turning a great profit. Huxley uses specific language to describe what seemed like a normal moment for Lenina working in the hatchery, but causes a calculated fatal ripple into the future for an Alpha-Minus. …”Then “My Ford,” she wondered, “have I given this one its sleeping sickness injection, or haven’t I?”(Huxley,171) She moves right along to the next bottle without any remorse. I interpreted this moment as how this calculated society elevates itself on scientific preciseness and human ingenuity, but forgets that it is built with human hands. Human error enters at some point inevitably, we are not perfect machines. “Twenty-two years, eight months, and four days from that moment, a promising young Alpha Minus administrator at Mwanza-Mwanza was to die of trypanosomiasis-the first case for over half a century.” (Huxley,171) The exactness of this statement shows how advanced their science is and that even then it is a fragile system because humanity is involved. It would seem that Huxley is offering some thoughts on perfection here to say that the less perfect we are the more free we
He states that the possibility of a utopia is enough by itself in order to strive for a perfect society and a perfect world. Huxley shows that with the right amount of control and power in the government’s hands, a society that has reached complete perfection is possible and could actually occur. Aldous Huxley analyzes the amount of freedom a society should have in relation to the power given to its government and the limitations that arise due to this ratio by creating and then elaborating on a fictional society controlled by ten
He immediately puts the individual in his meager place which is inferred from the image of "A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. " The individual is minute compared to the overwhelming World State building which is symbolic of the scientific and technological domination of the World State over the individual. The images of the "harsh light" penetrating and "hungrily" seeking to be consoled by human touch only to unveil the "pale corpse-coloured rubber" hands of workers touching cold test tubes convey the cold impassionate feeling involved in the "Fertilizing Room. " This inconceivable concept is appalling and mystifying, and through the tour the reader is introduced to the enthralling theme of Huxley's work -- the notion that science and technology could replace the
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.
One aspect of control that is touched upon from the beginning of the novel until the end is the control of the population birth and growth. As a way to maintain the society’s motto of “Community, Identity and Stability,” the number of inhabitants is managed through the artificiality of the brave new world’s use of technology. In the first chapter of the novel, the reader is introduced to the process of creating humans in this Utopia. The advancement of science made it possible for the building of an artificial arrangement with the reproductive glands and equipment needed for fertilizing and hatching the resulting eggs. The fact that machines do what is done by human reproductive systems shows how science has dominated over man in this world.
According to the author of “The End of Science Fiction”, Lisel Mueller, our creative innovations have come to a halt. This is a four stanza, free verse poem describing how the human race has advanced some much, so fast, that we have become dull and interesting. Mueller uses parallelism, metaphors,allusions, and imagery to help emphasize her point on how it is important for the human race to become more creative to make the world even better.
Throughout these initial chapters in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, Brave New World, The World State is shown using science to manipulate society. This serves the World State’s best interests under a guise that it is being used to create a society without the humanity that could make their lives savage. This is unknowingly expertly summed up by Bernard in a repetition of a common phrase “Civilization is sterilization” ( Huxley 64). Sterilization is a reference to a controlled area that is devoid of any unwanted life. This is very similar to the lack of human emotion experienced by the subjects of Brave New World. This is through the creation of subjects as a machine process, the lack of love as a sought after emotion, and the use of scientific
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.
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.
To conclude, I believe that this novel gives a warning to the reader. I believe that it is telling us not to push the boundaries of reality and not to tamper with things that would perhaps be better left alone, because the consequences are unknown, unpredictable and unnatural. It tells us that death and birth are things that in the modern world we just have to accept, and that we should not even attempt to exceed mortal limitations: Playing God should be left to God.
During the past few weeks my class and I have been reading your book, “ Brave New World”. While reading your book I have discovered a few captivating issues. These issues include the destruction of the family, the use of drugs, and polygamy (obligatory sex). These issues are interesting because of their implications in life today, and the frequent times they are shown in the book. The ways they are used to control people and make their life easier, and the fact that our world seems to be falling into the same state.
The 19th century was a time of massive change socially, politically and scientifically. This time saw the rise of Imperialism and of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, seeing massive changes in the way industry was run. Also during this time the literary movements of Romanticism and Victorianism emerged. Romanticism dealt with the issues of reality versus illusion, childhood and man versus nature. The first book I will examine in this essay, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, comes from this literary period and focuses on the man versus nature theme, namely the theme of scientific development and it’s contrast to nature. The second book I will look at in this essay comes from the Victorian period of the 19th century. This period saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution and of huge social and political change. Hard Times by Charles Dickens deals with these issues very closely, focussing mainly on the rise of industry in Britain and its effects on the people of Britain. Both of these novels challenge the social, political and scientific developments of the 19th century, namely the advent of science and technology.
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.
Literature is both shaped by our culture and shapes it. Because of this it is an effective representation of the culture of a time. One can tell how people were affected by the events of the times by how it comes through in their writing. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a prime example of this. The work was targeted at people in a post WWI world. This is a time between WWI and WWII where the world is still shocked by how rapidly the science of war had advanced. People also continue to be appalled with the mass death of a World War caused by such technology and therefore yearn for a more stable world. Because of this yearning, they attempt to create a more stable environment for themselves. Most people had lost faith in the institutions they came to know because those institutions caused the War. Therefore the League of Nations was founded in 1919 only 13 years before “Brave New World” was published in 1932.
One of the most pressing issues in Brave New World is the use of science and technology and how it affects people’s lives. In the novel, technology is far more advanced than it was in Huxley’s time. One of the main uses of technology in the book is for making human beings. Humans are no longer born, but rather “decanted (Huxley 18).” Technology and science are used to make an embryo into whatever kind of human that is desired.
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.