The End of the Individual

In today’s world, millions of young people worldwide are constantly bombarded by advertisements on billboards, in magazines and on television. These influences shape how we live our lives and affect our habits both as consumers and as individuals. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, Huxley examines the idea of mental control from a governmental standpoint rather than commercial. His utopian society, in which babies are chemically created and every social class is predetermined, seems to be perfect. However, only perfect for the majority who simply live in the false world which has been so forcefully created. For those like Bernard Marx, individualism is an isolating thing – something that sparks a rebellious impulse. With his eerie portrayal of societal indoctrination, Huxley explores the repercussions of a civilization devoid of individualism.

Huxley starts the novel by giving the reader a feeling of the supposed perfection within the World State. He begins with an in-depth analysis of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, the place where everybody in the World State is created and predestined. By starting with birth, Huxley shows the reader the most important aspect of World State society: lifelong control. Rather than a natural cycle, birth is a mechanized and automated system. The Director explains Bokanovsky’s Process as “making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress” (6). Immediately, the reader has been immersed in a world of repetition. This so-called “Process” creates similarity rather than individuality, its goal is to make “standard men and women; in uniform batches,” (7) explains the Director. From this basis of creation, the Process moves into the Social Predestination...

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...nd stability that he has carefully constructed, no matter the cost to him. In the end, no matter how hard Bernard, Helmholtz and John fight, they are immediately crushed by the overpowering social system. While achieving a newfound understanding of their own individualities, they failed to enlighten a conditioned population.

Once society is so brainwashed that only stray remnants of individuality are left, there is no hope to enlighten the majority. Brave New World tells the story of the cliché “too little, too late” for the World State. The citizens, fully indoctrinated, have neither the desire nor the intelligence to act as individuals. Even when given the opportunity they let it slip away with no realization of what just passed. Huxley uses his novel to warn future generations not to be brainwashed, to stand for individualism and uniqueness before it’s too late.