A parent conditions a child into the adult they want them to be. This same ideology is present in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The children are trained to respond to certain stimuli in their daily lives. However, the training transforms the children into mindless drones who fall in love with soma and sex. In this novel, Lenina, a nineteen year old, female, Beta caste, struggles with the concept of individuality because she has been trained to be a part of the larger group rather than to focus on herself as an individual. To truly understand Lenina, it is appropriate to compare her to a very similar character such as John’s mother, Linda. Linda is an old woman who was also Beta until she hit her head and her companion, who is …show more content…
When on the Savage Reservation, Lenina learns that she has completely run out of soma. Unfortunately for her, it is too late for her to return back to their hotel room to retrieve some more before they traveled further into the Savage Reservation. She freaks out when she sees a boy getting whipped at one of the rituals performed. Linda, however, managed to adapt to the situation and learned to cope with a combination of alcohol called mescal and a hallucinogenic called peyotl. Linda must take this path towards a replacement because she had been taught to take soma when she isn’t feeling completely content with her emotions. Even when they return back into the World State, they start taking copious amounts of soma because they have become so anxious without it. Linda even maintains her soma holiday up until her death. It can be concluded that because the two women are very alike, Lenina isn’t able to function without the crutch of a drug to aid her from …show more content…
Lenina will constantly say things like “A gramme is better than a damn” or “A gramme in time saves nine.” The constant babbling of these kinds of phrases indicates that she can’t think for herself, therefore, making her another voice droning on the same message over and over again like a broken record. Linda is the same way in the sense that she sings very impersonal songs to her son, John, because it was all she knew. Her last words were fragments of the line “everybody belongs to everybody else” (Huxley 205) Linda’s ability to express love was conditioned right out of her starting from the minute she was born. The same idea goes for Lenina as well. She is too far gone with her conditioning that she can’t tell what love is. She keeps taking soma for John because she loves him, but she can’t distinguish that love is a healthy emotion that is trained out of them. Lenina is hurt and confused about love, but can’t comprehend it because she has never seen, nor heard of it
for this similarity is that war, especially long and expensive war, causes fatigue and disdain within a nation. Without a strong leader, the people grow desperate and crave a strong leader. Lenin and Napoleon were also similar in the way they desired to be depicted in the eyes of their people. Both leaders wanted to be seen as strong and powerful leaders, who commanded authority and would bring their respective nations back.
Both Lenina and Linda use soma to escape from the realities of the world. Soma is a symbol for instant pleasure, and to avoid unpleasant situations. Lenina’s use of soma suggests that she is trying to suppress feelings of embarrassment, depression, and later her infatuation with John. Resembling words that of a drug addict, Lenina says “I wish I had my soma”, so that she could escape from her melancholic problems (Huxley 104). Similarly, after accusing the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, and having him publicly deny her, the emotional toll on Linda was so great, that she felt the need to consume soma to escape. Dr. Shaw “let her have what she wanted”; she “took as much as twe...
Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley, was published during the time, socialism and dictatorship were the key concepts of the day. These governments believed that having total power would engender a perfect society. Karl Marx (Bernard Marx), and Nikolai Lenin (Linina), are two men who decide to pursue this concept. Through examples of these characters, it is demonstrated that a government that completely controls a nation will fail. Many of the ideas that the governments thought would contribute to success were the cause of their failure. Although technological advances, sexual promiscuity, and conformity contribute to the success of a Utopian society, these aspects are also the reason for downfall.
After the helicopter ride, Bernard asks Lenina what life would be like if he was not enslaved by conditioning; she responds with surprise (Huxley 78). Firstly, in Brave New World, every adult lives by themselves but to combat feelings of loneliness they have many sexual partners. Lack of personal connection with others is removed and replaced with false love through recreational sex. When John’s mother dies, the sadness he portrays is strange in the eyes of other citizens because they do not care for one another personally ( ).
Aldous Huxley begins _Brave New World_ by explaining to the reader the process of civi-lization in A.F. 632 of decanting children. First the children are led into the London Hatch-ery and Conditioning Centerthe main entrance of which reads the World State's motto: COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY (Huxley 1). This signifies that the world has become unified into _one_ state with _one_ main government and _one_ set of rules and regula-tions. The world has become "over-organized"; everything has been taken over by what Aldous Huxley describes as the "Power Elite": a group of people who control the world and everyone in it (Huxley [_Brave New World Revisited_] 1423). Hatchery workers wearing white lab coats working in sterilized scientific labs artificially fertilize sperm cells and egg cells in test tubes. Then, depending on the particular caste of the sperm and egg, some embryos are bokanovskified (made to bud/replicate by bombardment of X-rays); finally all embryos are sent to the Social Predestination Room, where during the nine-month process of devel-opment they are conditioned through additions or subtractions to their biological chemistry depending on their caste (Huxley 29). This shows the reader that there is no concern for the traditional family structure or any respect for the mystery of human creation. The society of _Brave New World_ is totally based on scientific facts and possibilities. Ethics and religion have become obsolete. Instead of having God's gift of free will, people are now prisoners of their predetermined conditioning. Ethics and religion are grouped with history and in the words of Mustapha Mond, "History is _bunk_" (Huxley 24).
Although Bernard likes Lenina, he hates the fact that she can’t think for herself. Lenina and Bernard decide to go to the savage reservation in New Mexico. It's here where Bernard meets other people like him: John “The Savage” and Linda. Linda was a former of The World State and also Bernard’s boss’s “Girlfriend,” but got stranded during a trip to the reservation. Although frowned upon at the World State, Linda gave natural birth to John. This is why John is able to think freely. John lacked the uniform development that every other child in the world goes through. Seeing these two, Bernard returns them to the World State.
Isaac Murrin Mr. J. Pharion Freshman English 20 February 2013 The Similarities and Differences between Lenin and Stalin Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were similar in what they claimed to be, but in actuality they were very different people. Although Stalin claimed that he followed Leninism, the philosophy that Lenin developed from Marxism, he often distorted it to follow what he wanted to do. While Lenin wanted to make a unified society without classes, with production in the hands of the people, while Stalin wanted to make Russia into a modern industrial powerhouse by using the government to control production. Lenin accomplished his goals through violence, because he thought achieving the Communist revolution was worth using violence, with a ‘The ends justify the means’ mentality. Stalin also used violence to accomplish his goals, however Stalin used much more violence than was often necessary to accomplish his goals.
George Santayana once said, “Ideal society is a drama enacted exclusively in the imagination.” In life, there is no such thing as a “complete utopia”, although that is what many people try to achieve. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is an attempt at a utopian society. In this brave new world, mothers and fathers and family are non-existent. Besides being non-existent, when words of that sort are mentioned, ears are covered and faces of disgust are made. In a report to the Controller, Bernard wrote,”…This is partly due, no doubt to the fact that he heard them talked about by the woman Linda, his m-----“(106). Words of the sort cannot even be written. Art, history, and the ability to have emotions are shunned. This utopia is shown as a perfect world in which everyone is happy. If this was true, the people would not need to take soma, an equivalent along the lines of a cross between one of today’s “designer drugs” and Prozac.
Rule of Lenin vs the Tsar The beginning of the 20th century saw a great change in the political structure of the Russia. A country once led under an autocracy leadership. was suddenly changed into a communist state overnight. Dictatorship and communism are at separate ends of the political spectrum. This study so clearly shows both involve the oppression of society and a strict regime in which people are unable to voice their opinions.
Lenina Crowne is a perfect example of someone who was conditioned, but does not fit into the social norms of Brave New World. Furthermore, religion would only strengthen Lenina’s tendency to have one man for a long period of time. In the book, Lenina is known to have boyfriends, and this shows her self-conscious knowledge of having many sexual partners to be immoral. In Brave New World, Christianity is looked down upon as a defect, but with the reintroduction of religion billions of people would be saved by the saving grace of our God.
The people in a society are often a product of the presiding government’s policy. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, many of the citizens are artificially made and act like robots. However, in a reservation next to the new world, there exists a boy named John who was born and raised like a human. John is excited to go the new world because he believes that life will be better there. When John enters the new world, he sees many abnormalities that go against his beliefs, and the citizens call him a savage because he is not one of them. By juxtaposing John, the so-called savage, against the “refined” society, Huxley demonstrates the extreme extent of humankind 's atypical actions under the subjugation of a totalitarian government.
In the first couple of chapters, Lenina, a young woman, is introduced. When we first meet her, we learn that she has been seeing a guy, Henry, for the past 4 months. The reader can assume that this is normal, since the same happens in our everyday lives, but we soon discover that this is abnormal. In the new world, a regulation is set that men and woman cannot be in committed relationships, but are supposed to have sex with as many men or woman possible. The fact that she is not promiscuous enough can get her into trouble. “And you know how strongly the D. H. C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn… why, he’d be furious if he knew…” (Huxley, 41) As the story progresses, however, she becomes an example of new world regulations, admitting that she had sex with many men. “She was a popular girl and, at one time or another, had spent a night with almost all of them.” (Huxley, 57) Old world r...
In today’s society a person is shaped by family, friends, and past events, but in Aldous Huxley’s classic novel, Brave New World, there is no such thing as family, history and “true” friends. The government controls every aspect of an individual from their creation in the hatcheries to their conditioning for their thoughts and careers. In this brave new world the ideas of stability and community reign supreme, and the concept of individualism is foreign and suppressed, “Everyone belongs to everyone else, after all,” (47). Huxley perverses contemporary morals and concepts in Brave New World, thus distorting the ideas of materialistic pleasures, savagery versus society, and human relationships. These distortions contribute to the effectiveness of Brave New World, consequently creating a novel that leaves the reader questioning how and why.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World illustrates a perfect society: “community, identity, stability” (Huxley 7). This superb environment, however, is only achieved through the dehumanization of each individual. The world is run by world-controllers, a powerful oligarchy, whom have successfully brainwashed, or conditioned, children for the sole purpose of controlling their minds (Biderman 549). In result, individuals have lost their ability to think and act for themselves. Children are stripped of human rights, even before conditioning, by being a product of governmental test tube reproduction. They are artificially produced and only made with the consent of the world-controllers. Not only are they produced by the government, but they are produced in scores of embryos that are all identical for a sole purpose. Their lives are then controlled by the government to ensure happiness and success. Each citizen has their own little job in the social system and during afterhours, is told to be adventurous, dangerous, and promiscuous. It all sounds like a magical fairy-land, until suicide becomes the only option to escape dehumanization.
In his novel, women did not represent any authority in contrast with men. A “Brave New World” depicted women in a typical role in which men have a lot of women around them. In the Utopia that Huxley described, women are victims of discrimination because of their physicals appearance. It follows into the pattern of today’s society, like sexist stereotypes and women 's body image. Sexism in the novel is very visible. Men only valued women for their appearance, rather than for their intelligence. Huxley developed and gave more importance to male characters than to female characters. Female characters were undervalued by the author. Huxley changed many aspects of the female experience. Although Lenina did something as amazing as falling in love, it was not permitted in Utopia. The author should have developed Lenina as a stronger and more courageous