Freudian theory illustrates consciousness which consists of id, ego and superego exists in every human being. This theory is enlightened in Aldous Huxley’s from his novel, “Brave New World.” In this novel, the ordinary society’s order is changed due to the aftermath of wars. Though everyone lives in peace, they are no longer living in freedom but instead of being conditioned to the ideal society since they are borne. However, John, an outlier of the society, intensely opposes on how the absurd society works. Unfortunately, he dies in the end because of persisting on his own moral and sensible notions. Hence, the psychoanalytic theory from Freud’s study, which consists of the level of consciousness, depicts the motivations of John in Huxley’s …show more content…
When John is young, he tries to kill Pope when he sees him sleeping with his mother. He is incensed that he keeps on repeating himself, “I'll kill him, I'll kill him, I'll kill him” (Huxley 133). When Pope is drunk asleep, he picks up a meat knife and stabs him. This reveals how verdant little John is that he does not know anything about killing. Meanwhile, he does that to protect his mother from being bullied by other men. This is an act of id because of his demand of self-desirous on killing Pope to save his mother. According to the researchers, “There are no Oedipal complexes, and sexuality is indulged rather than repressed” (Alienation in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World). The society in this novel is completely distorted and absurd even though Linda and John are living outside the World State. Huxley presents that Linda is still having the promiscuity life as usual with the men outside the world state. This depicts that everyone is just seeking pleasure without any sense and ethical issues. The id of John shows that Huxley may be concerning how the world will be after the wars. For instance, the promiscuity rate is increasing as the years pass by and this is exactly what Huxley predicts in his novel. Thus, Huxley clearly uses the psychoanalytical theory to portray John’s action through the process of id behavior. It leads the readers to have distinct approaches towards him even …show more content…
After Linda dies, John realizes that the society should not be in the utopian state. Although everyone is having a perfect lifestyle, they should have their freedom of living. “others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty. And suddenly it was luminously clear to the Savage what he must do” (Huxley 210). John’s ego enlightens him to have a mature plan to change the World State back to the old times. He wants people to live in the way that everyone has the rights to make their own decisions instead of being controlled by the government. Moreover, “According to Mond, the only workable alternative for creating a stable, utopian world is to engineer inferior castes of menial workers and slavish consumers—the eight-ninths of the metaphorical iceberg that happily lives below the water line and keeps the world running efficiently” (Designing a Brave New World: Eugenics, Politics, and Fiction). This quote illustrates that even though John tends to change the society of the World State, he is unable to accomplish it since its system has been there for decades and everyone seems to be satisfied with it. Everyone in the world state also loathes changes as they are conditioned to be and therefore John forgoes his intention in the end and isolates himself in the lighthouse near the countryside. John’s ego illustrates that how Huxley presents someone who is frustrated on
In Brave New World, there are three societies: the civilized society of Bernard and Mustapha Mond, the savage society of John and Linda, and the old society, which is not explicitly in the book but is described by the characters. These societies are vastly different. The old society is 20th century Western society; the civilized society creates people and conditions them for happiness and stability; and the savage society is very far behind the civilized society technologically, and is very religious. John is a very important character in the novel because he represents the link between all three of these societies.
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.
Just as the Author finishes his elaboration of how despicable the World State successfully disclosed lovesickness, and everything that goes along with frustrated desire. John gives the reader the first glimpse into a character’s private thoughts. This character is one who is lovesick, jealous, and suggestively angry towards his sexual rivals. John subtly expresses his anger towards Henry Foster and Benito Hoover, whom are two characters from the novel that are very different from him. He calls them “idiots, swine” (55). On the surface level, a reader would come to believe that John discontent stems from a systematic or philosophical dislike for his society. Although this argument contains elements of truth, John discontent more accurately stems from his frustrated desire to fit into his own society. As a result, he goes on an endeavor to search for his idealized
Aldous Huxley’s, “Brave New World,” explores the roles of people in society, morals concerning sexual activity, and other controversies in our reality. One of the principal characters in the novel is ‘John the Savage.’ John is a unique character in the story because unlike the other characters in the book, his emotions and morals were similar to those of the majority of our society. He felt emotions in a way others did not, and his morals can be regarded as ethically right (for example, he did not consider sex to be meaningless; in fact, he considered it an intimate act. Unfortunately, by the end of the story, John develops into a corrupt and barbaric man- the novel even finishes with the image of John whipping both himself and others, eliminating our prior perception of John’s character. This paper will analyse the themes and importance of the final moments of “Brave New World,” and explore how a person’s sexual experience is heavily experienced by their environment.
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.
With these components at the forefront, productivity presents itself in a crucial way. This dystopian world is built around constantly being productive, often leaving its citizens how they would personally benefit from helping their peers and associates; more specifically, how helping their peers and associates would benefit the World State. Mustapha Mond mentions this with his hypnopædic phrase, “But everyone belongs to everyone else” (Huxley 40). When Bernard brings John to London, John’s initial purpose is one hidden from him. Bernard searches to embarrass the Director for his hypocrisy by outing him as John’s father. When this mission is completed and the Director resigns, John’s significance severely decreases. He misses all chances at making connections and being productive and his lashing out on other citizens threatens his ability to continue to exist stably in society. With no true purpose of existing in the machine that is the World State, John does what he believes will be the most productive thing he can do for society and takes his own life. Doing so exemplifies how John resembles a Christ-like figure, as his death for the improvement of the world reiterates that he would rather die in isolation than live life only as a small part of a much bigger
John the Savage obsession on protecting Linda could easily be a symptom of this Freudian psychological study. With John not wanting anyone else to have her,he portrays himself to come to readers very anger and backlash to her sexual partners. “ He experiences some classically Freudian Oedipus jealousy of the native man who sleeps with his mother, spurring his anger with ADT quotations from Hamlet”(Buchanan 3). He hated Pope more and more. John has an unconscious wish to replace Popé, which drives his unsuccessful attempt at
In Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, many crucial and controversial subjects that can relate to the current time era are displayed and mocked. Huxley does this as a way of pointing out the countless flaws and imperfections of the United States. Of the many problems he indirectly mentions, one that most definitely can relate to the current state of the country. is none other than the constant struggle of equal rights among people of different ethnicity and background. This, for as long as the nation has been founded, has always been at the heart of the land’s problems, being worked with time and time again, yet to no avail. In Brave New World, classes are formed not by poverty or backgrounds, but rather are predetermined for people
In Aldous Huxley’s novel, “Brave New World,” published in 1932, two idiosyncratic, female characters, Lenina and Linda, are revealed. Both personalities, presented in a Freudian relationship (Linda being John’s mother and Lenina being his soon to be lover), depict one another in different stages of life and divulge ‘a character foil’. Lenina and Linda are both ‘Betas,’ who hold a strong relationship with the men in their lives, especially John. It can be stated that John may partially feel attracted towards Lenina, because she is a miniature version of Linda, in her youth. They both support the term of ‘conditioning,’ yet also question it in their own circumstances. Nonetheless, they both are still sexually overactive and criticized for such immoral decisions. Linda espouses it from her heart, while Lenina supports the process partially due to peer pressure and society’s expectations. Both female characters visit the Reservation with Alpha – Plus males, and both find a common feeling of revulsion towards it. Linda and Lenina are similar in many ways, yet they hold their diverse views on the different aspects of life.
One major issue that helps maintain social stability in Brave New World is sex. It is thought of as normal for people to be completely open with their sexual nature. It is typical for children to run around naked during recess playing games that are sexual and sometimes homosexual in nature. Every adult is encouraged to sleep with as many different partners as possible. This outlook on sexual nature is quite different from actual accepted views. Today, sex is most widely accepted as a private, romantic event that should take place between monogamous couples. Because sex is a natural need of the human body, people of Huxley’s society feel pleased by being open with their sexuality. Indulging in their sexual pleasures eases their minds and keeps them from questioning the level of freedom they have.
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.
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.
In the brave new world, the society is based off of the motto, “Community, identity, [and] stability” (Huxley 3). In this supposed Utopian society, people being content with their jobs and being a contributor to the process of consumption drive their happiness. People are satisfied with dying because they know their bodies will be cremated and used for fertilizer. Citizens are happy because they believe it is “fine to think we can go on being socially useful even after we’re dead. Making plants grow” (Huxley 73). All of the people are under a false impression of happiness because they do not realize how much the Director and higher authorities manipulate them. They do not realize how much they really cannot do. They do not realize how much they do not about their lives and life around them. All the people think about is consumption and how it serves as happiness. The citizens are too ignorant and blind to the fact that they are only living to be a part of the assembly line, and that is their only purpose. John is the only character that is sickened by the assembly line and sees how disturbing life in the new world is. He is the only one who realizes how much control the Director has over the society and how people do not even have the ability think for themselves. He sees this fabricated happiness in play, and it makes him start to violently retch in disgust at this so-called
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.