Consumerism In Brave New World

In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the characters gain happiness through mass consumerism enforced by the government to create a stable society. Huxley displays his view of the toxic relationship between consumption and perceiving happiness, by showing the impact that government slogans, and strict government control over information, has on each citizen and society. The use and concentration of government slogans in the novel are a major indicator of the relationship between human consumption and perceived happiness. One of the most notorious quotes from Brave New World is the hypnopaedic phrase “ending is better than mending” which conditions citizens to throw away clothes and buy new ones in place of continuing to wear clothes they already

We see Lennina refuse to go with Henry, when he invites her to a feely movie, but instead focuses on John. Before she sees John she takes soma, and tries to seduce him. He is not interested in having sex, but instead says he loves her and insists on marriage. Lenina being confused and afraid, strips, while John acts horrified. He slaps her and calls her a whore (194-195). Huxley is showing us Lennina as an example of how the World State is not able to create happiness though soma. Although Lennina takes soma before seeing John she is hurt by his refusal to have sex. We later see her pursue John with no avail. Huxley is telling the reader that consuming drugs like soma will never bring real happiness to anyone because they distract you from the truth. Lennina knows that John will most likely not reciprocate her advances because he is a savage, but decides to do it anyway because of her strong emotions. The author is able to use these government slogans to give a warning about the role between consumption and happiness throughout the novel. He is saying that using consumption to feel happy is a never-ending cycle, because you will never be able

The World State encourages mass consumption on everything, clothes, sex, drugs, except for books. They condition people to despise books because as babies the nurse present them with books. As the crawl toward the books alarms go off, electrocuting them. So next time they see books, the babies wail and do not pursue them (20-21). In this case Huxley is commenting on the lack of consumption of books and other information. He presents us with this world where all the things the reader’s society considers dangerous to excessively engage in as something that the citizens in the novel do daily, with little to none second thoughts. By not being able to access books the citizens in the World State having almost an impossible time to think for themselves. The only character who is able to do this is Bernard because he does not engage in consuming soma, but yet he still is not free because of his society. Huxley is telling is that without the consuming knowledge we become the same as animals. Solely focusing on pleasurable activities with no thoughts of our life purpose or meaning, seemingly content engaging in animalistic acts. Huxley tells the reader that to achieve freedom you must first free yourself from the cycle of meaningless and excessive consumption of material items and instead focus more on attaining