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Literary analysis of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Literary analysis of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Literary analysis of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
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Introduction
As the theme of my essay I have chosen to find out what our contemporary society must not forget in order to be able to make organizational theory evolve well into the 21st century. For this task I have decided to take a look back to Aldous Huxley’s modern dystopia “Brave new world”, that warned against totalitarian regimes that intended to suppress individuality in order to advance the interest of the state in its time. Even as those regimes might not be a direct threat nowadays we can eerily conclude that some aspects of it are quite accurate for the times we live in. According to Phillip Yancey who suggested that “there is a much more subtle enemy inchoate within each of us - a natural tendency for people to trade autonomy for comfort, safety and amusement.” This for the most people does not set off alarms but I will argue that it is the most basic requirement that has to be met in our day and age in order to tackle the wide range of issues that we face at the crossroads leading to the future, whether we talk about humanity or organizational theory itself. I think the novel gives us the perfect opportunity to draw parallels with our contemporary society, and see what must be corrected within post modernity based on how things evolved over the course of history and from prophetical books like Huxley’s even as at his time it was only intended to be satire. In the World State people are controlled by technologies like genetic engineering, sleep-learning and drugs like soma to satisfy needs and gently induce masses to enjoy their servitude. If one were to describe postmodernism in just a word or two, "skepticism" and "relativism" would probably best capture the overall ethos of its adherents. Deep skepticism about...
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... fall within certain parameters, as do all Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. Some members of the lower castes are actually groups of identical clones, thanks to "Bokanovsky's Process". Such physical and cognitive standardization of the human race is the true source of the Controllers' power. Postmodernists would, naturally, be appalled at the World State's abuses of power and rigid systems of social stratification. Such abuses are, however, made possible by the postmodernists' own ideas of the subjective nature of reality and the malleability of truth and the "texts" of history. Ironically, despite breathtaking technological advances, life has not become more meaningful, it has become less so. This reflects postmodern disillusionment with the progress of science and reason ("Postmodernism"), as well as the concern with language as a weapon of the ruling class. .
To conclude, Postman's analysis that Huxley's vision of the future has become more of a reality than that of Orwell's. Although the present day is not exactly how Huxley had envisioned it, our society will soon reflect the one created in Brave New World if it continues to progress as it had in the past few decades. Orwell's prediction does not hold much relevance in today's society. Our government is not constantly watching over us, they have more important difficulties to overcome. Government is not concerned with the actions of individuals; they base their decisions on the opinions of the masses. Huxley's travesty holds far more relevance than the prestigious social theory of Orwell.
A “utopia is that which is in contradiction with reality,” said the famous French novelist Albert Camus in his collection of essays, Between Hell and Reason. History shows us that seemingly exemplary ideals in practice have led to the collapse of societies. Just examine the two most prominent attempts at a utopia: Hitler’s attempt to socialize all of Europe and create the “perfect” Aryan race coupled with Karl Marx’s beliefs to instate communism into society. The final result was the destruction of their perspective visionary worlds. There was one major facet that prevented these two from creating their paradigms: utopias take away individual freedom and identity and therefore society cannot exist. Aldous Huxley’s science fiction novel Brave New World examines the large disconnect between the future and present day societies, showing how several aspects of this dystopian world lead to the downfall of the individual identity, most prominently exemplified by the death of John Savage.
Huxley observes in his work, Brave New World that the modern world revolves around technological development. The aspirations and morals of modern society do not entirely rely on social issues such as love, family, and success but rather on industrial progress and social development. According to Huxley, technological improvement and growth are critical factors that shape the operation and activities in modern society. So far, community members need to observe the world as technologically oriented and collective social setting. Instead of being interested in individual social development, modern society is focusing its attention on merging technological transformation and their impact in modern success. In his observation, Huxley states that modern society is quickly surrendering its culture to emerging technological development. Contemporary culture is mainly being characterised by socio-technological status (Huxley 7). Therefore, based on the novels content, it is clear that Huxley’s writing is a dangerous prophesy of technology’s ability to control modern social operations.
Paragraph 1: History: Explain Revisionism Its Process How it affects the present. Paragraph 2: Psychology: Artificial Scarcity: Affects Human Behavior Maslow Theory of Human Behavior. Paragraph 3: God: Big Brother has taken the place of God: Omnipotent and Omniscient, and is under the control of the party. Among the many themes expressed in the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the most interesting and frightening is the concept of creating an alternative reality to control a mass population. The Inner Party stays in power by shaping the thoughts and opinions of the masses and it does this by creating a reality where everything suits whatever it is the party needs to be believed.
“Community. Identity. Stability.” These three words constitute the planetary motto of the characters of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian fiction Brave New World. (7) Theirs is a carefully structured post-modern society which managed to overcome political and social unrest through genetic engineering, strict social conventions, exhaustive conditioning, hypnosis and dependency on a drug called soma. In order for the stability of this world to be achieved, inhabitants are stripped of independent thoughts and emotions. This work is an exploration of the disturbing effects of homogeneity, control of technology and loss of personal autonomy on the members of the Brave New World.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is far more relevant today and has a higher possibility of actually transpiring in the near future compared to George Orwell’s 1984. Even though both of the two, which are totalitarian societies, are based on plausible premises, the utopia illustrated in Brave New World still has a opportunity to appear today, while the “Big Brother” controlled society presented in George Orwell’s 1984, being based off of totalitarian societies to some extent that existed at the time the book was written, is simply obsolete.
Imagine living in a society where there is no sense of independence, individual thought or freedom. A society where the government uses disturbing methods that dehumanize people in order to force conformity upon them. Taking away any sense of emotion, It would be very undesirable to live in a society with such oppression. Such society is portrayed in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. The World State uses social restrictions to create permanent artificial personalities for people within the society. The World State also uses controlled groupings of people to brainwash them further to be thoughtless people with no sense of individualism. Lastly, the World State uses drugs to create artificial happiness for people, leaving no room for intense emotion which causes people to revolt against the World State. Within the novel Brave New World, it is seen that the World State eliminates individuality through social restrictions, government controlled groupings and the abuse of drugs to maintain control of the population.
The concepts of the Utopian society placed in Aldous Huxley’s novel, A Brave New World, reflect the fearful thoughts of the future of our society and mirror certain components of the present. Certain concepts of the great society in the novel are severe and do not apply to our society, but components of these ideas are increasingly being dispersively observed throughout our present society. The warnings developed by Huxley are reflected in the present through the intellectual castes of the workforce, the concept of sex being less based on marriage, and the mind being enslaved by conditioning.
Postmodernism movement started in the 1960’s, carrying on until present. James Morley defined the postmodernism movement as “a rejection of the sovereign autonomous individual with an emphasis upon anarchic collective anonymous experience.” In other words, postmodernism rejects what has been established and makes emphasis on combined revolutionary experiences. Postmodernism can be said it is the "derivate" of modernism; it follows most of the same ideas than modernism but resist the very idea of boundaries. According to our lecture notes “Dominant culture uses perception against others to maintain authority.”
For years, authors and philosophers have satirized the “perfect” society to incite change. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley describes a so-called utopian society in which everyone is happy. This society is a “controlled environment where technology has essentially [expunged] suffering” (“Brave New World”). A member of this society never needs to be inconvenienced by emotion, “And if anything should go wrong, there's soma” (Huxley 220). Citizens spend their lives sleeping with as many people as they please, taking soma to dull any unpleasant thoughts that arise, and happily working in the jobs they were conditioned to want. They are genetically altered and conditioned to be averse to socially destructive things, like nature and families. They are trained to enjoy things that are socially beneficial: “'That is the secret of happiness and virtue – liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny'” (Huxley 16). Citizens operate more like machinery, and less like humans. Humanity is defined as “the quality of being human” (“Humanity”). To some, humanity refers to the aspects that define a human: love, compassion and emotions. Huxley satirizes humanity by dehumanizing the citizens in the Brave New World society.
Dusterhoff, A., Guynn, R., Patterson, J., Shaw, L., Wroten, D. and Yuhasz, G. "Huxley's Brave New World: A Study Of Dehumanization." Web 11 Apr. 2015.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, portrays a future society where people are no longer individuals but are controlled by the World State. The World State dominates the people by creating citizens that are content with who they are. Brave New World describes how the science of biology and psychology are manipulated so that the government can develop technologies to change the way humans think and act. The World State designs humans from conception for this society. Once the humans are within the society the state ensures all people remain happy. They program these humans to have needs and desires that will sustain a lucrative economy while not thinking of themselves as an individual. Huxley describes the Worlds State’s intent to control their society through medical intervention, happiness, and consumerism which has similarities to modern society.
This note describes four images or metaphors on organizations that furnish distinctive lens or paradigms for thinking about behavior in organizations, understandings its causes, and developing programs for change. Note that each image or metaphor draws attention to a limited set of organizational properties and characteristics as critical for understanding, but pays scant attention to a host of other aspects that fall outside its purview. Thus, they concentrate attention and interest, but in a highly simplistic ways that obscures the richness of organizational phenomena. Presumably, managers equipped with the ability to view organizations through diverse lens will achieve greater understanding.
together individuals that perform the same task or who hold similar positions such as finance, human
Organizations are instruments created to achieve other ends. The word organization which is derived from the Greek word ‘organon’ means a tool or instrument. Therefore, ideas such as tasks, goals, aims and objectives have become such fundamental organizational concepts. Organizations are a complex and paradoxical phenomena and there may be challenges in understanding them. Metaphor is a primal force through which humans create meaning by using one element of experience to understand another. The use of different metaphors lead to different explanations and theories of organizations helps us to think and see organizations from different perspectives. Each provides a certain view of the organization and can be convincing but it does not provide a clear picture of an organization. Therefore, by exploring the implications of different metaphors it is possible to understand the nature of an organization.