Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, was originally published in 1932. The Industrial Revolution happened not long before the book’s publishing. The Industrial Revolution is marked by big events such as the railroad system, cars, and mass production of many other materials within the confines of a workshop. Knowing this, most of the population would have had a low paying factory job. When Henry Ford initiated the idea of the assembly line, it made many United States citizens crave speed and efficiency. The producers have to meet consumers’ expectations; so many other factories adapted this idea. By doing so, it made it easier to replace workers if one falls ill or is an unreliable worker. America had a very strong focus in technology …show more content…
This utopia, though, would not promote any of America’s capitalistic views and remove so much of nature’s flaws that citizens would become practically inhuman. In “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley shows how society’s current focus on advancing science and technology could create a seemingly perfect world. Although this sounds wonderful in theory, such things can only be possible through the loss of past ideologies and unethical means of creating a safe and happy environment.
Huxley proves in Brave New World that society will become distorted and untrue if it places too much emphasis on science and technology. The powerful World Leaders use science and technology to suppress the castes. The ideal pharmaceutical, soma, pacifies any pain; thus, no one is miserable or uneasy with any unfavorable feelings (McQuail). Soma is vital to every level of the caste system. It makes Epsilons happy with their basic, low level jobs. It keeps them from feeling as though they are just tools being used. Conversely, it keeps the Alphas content the terrible, unethical duties they perform. The saying “a gramme is better than a damn” keeps any real depth of human emotion
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This is because science has removed the opportunity for individuality. The Bokanovsky Process is the mass production of humans in a test tube (Huxley 19-20). There is no way to distinguish one embryo from the other ninety-five. This is an attempt to achieve a successful Marxist society. To get rid of the alienation of certain groups, the World Leaders have removed the idea of private property and class differences. When people in Brave New World say “everyone belongs to everyone else,” it is not just a sexual scheme. It is literal. There is no private property, no physical difference between one Epislon and another, and no sense of individuality. Horowitz says that “alienation is the driveshaft of revolution” (qtd. in McQuail). As mentioned earlier, each class feels as though it is important and there are no political problems at hand. Yet, because there is no difference within the classes and there are no political or social problems, there is no idolization of other humans. The exception to that is Henry Ford. Because there is no social or political inefficaciousness, society does not require any form of heroism or nobility. When John the Savage becomes angry and acts out about the soma the Deltas are unthinkingly ingesting is a strike of heroism. His individuality brings him popularity. The only reason he is popular, though, is because the people turn him into a spectacle for his differences. John, in search of decency, turns
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, while fictitiously showing the future possible advances of science and technology, is actually warning people of what science could become. In the Foreword of Brave New World, Huxley states: “The theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals” (xi). He is not suggesting that this is how science should advance, but that science will advance the way that people allow it to. The novel is not supposed to depict a “utopian” society by any means, but it is supposed to disturb the reader and warn him not to fall into this social decay. Huxley uses satire to exploit both communism and American capitalism created by Ford.
Jett Phillips 07.02.2017 Dearing AP Lit & Comp A.3 Aldous Huxley’s Satirical Ironic World There is no novel more synonymous with irony and satire than Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World. Throughout the novel, Huxley takes advantage of irony and satire to bring about his message, in an attempt to criticize those who would like to see the expansion of the state and proliferation of promiscuity, by showing those how such a world would look like, through his depiction of the “World State.” As presented in the novel, the World State’s citizens are designated by birth into genetically engineered classes, controlled throughout life through drugs and endless promiscuity, and pushing the never-ending production line forward in the satirically stated year of 632 “After Ford.” However, Huxley’s use of irony shines brightest through the names of his characters, such as Lenina Crowne, Bernard Marx, and John the Savage. The former two names are in reference to Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, and the latter being an ironic name based on how, essentially,
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, truth and happiness are falsely engineered to create a perfect society; the belief of the World Controllers that stability is the the key to a utopian society actually led to the creation of an anti-utopian society in which loose morals and artificial happiness exist. Huxley uses symbolism, metaphors, and imagery to satirize the possibiliy of an artificial society in the future as well as the “brave new world” itself.
The caste system of this brave new world is equally ingenious. Free from the burdens and tensions of a capitalistic system, which separates people into social classes by natural selection, this dictatorship government is only required to determine the correct number of Alphas, Betas, all the way down the line. Class warfare does not exist because greed, the basic ingredient of capitalism, has been eliminated. Even Deltas and Epsilons are content to do their manual labor. This contentment arises both from the genetic engineering and the extensive conditioning each individual goes through in childhood. In this society, freedom, such as art and religion, in this society has been sacrificed for what Mustapha Mond calls happiness. Indeed almost all of Huxley's characters, save Bernard and the Savage, are content to take their soma ration, go to the feelies, and live their mindless, grey lives.
Throughout the novel, Huxley uses Bernard Marx, a young man who is “deformed by the government” (Huxley, page #) to underline the idea that a Utopian Society cannot exist. The advancement of technology has enabled this “Utopian Society” to create human life. Although the entire society is based on technology, it remains supervised by humans. No matter how “advanced” this technology may be, if humans are directing it, mistakes will be made “They say somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle... and put alcohol into his blood- surrogate. That’s why he’s so stunted” (Huxley, 46).
In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley illustrates ways in which government and advanced science control society. Through actual visualization of this Utopian society, the reader is able to see how this state affects Huxley’s characters. Throughout the book, the author deals with many different aspects of control. Whether it is of his subjects’ feelings and emotions or of the society’s restraint of population growth, Huxley depicts government’s and science’s role in the brave new world of tomorrow.
They do not try to exceed what is expected from them or to better themselves because they are happy in the position they find themselves in. The people love what they are doing they do not desire any change in their lives what's there more to want when you are doing what you love everyday. Eliminating the class struggle by having the people love their class is the method used for achieving the utopian society found in Huxley’s Brave New World.
John Marwood Cleese, an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer said, “If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth”. The point he brings up is the ideology of satire. Satire, by definition, is a technique utilized by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society. This can be done by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule ("Satire - Definition and Examples", para.1). Often times, the humor used opens the audiences’ minds to the underlying problem that the writer is trying to reveal. By examining the purpose and methods of satire, dissecting literary works, and displaying examples in the media, satire is shown to be a valuable tool.
Satire is the most powerful democratical weapon in the arsenal of modern media. Sophia McClennen, the author of America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy, describes it as the modern form of public pedagogy, as it helps to educate the masses about current issues (73). In fact, ”a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey in 2004 found that 61 percent of people under the age of thirty got some of their political 'news' from late-night comedy shows” (McClennen 73). This statistic shows how influential satirical shows such as The Colbert Report or South Park can be. Satire invites critical self introspection from us in a way that no other media can. It also acts as an unbiased mirror that reflects the mirror image of the flaws of our society. This beautiful process, when unhindered and uncensored, is the epitome of western freedom of speech, which is the single most significant right that deserves to be cherished and defended.
Social stability can be the cause of problems. After reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, we are informed that “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!” Now is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice? Questions like those are addressed throughout the book. Huxley wants to warn us of many things, for example the birth control pill, the way that we can colon ourselves and many other things. He wanted us to know that many of the experiments that they do to the caste in Brave New World, we were later going to do investigate more ourselves or start doing them to others. We have all, at a point; come to a point to the question where we ask ourselves “is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice?”
Mad Magazine, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live. In our society, satire is among the most prevalent of comedic forms. This was not always true, for before the 18th century, satire was not a fully developed form. Satire, however, rose out of necessity; writers and artists needed a way to ambiguously criticize their governments, their churches, and their aristocrats. By the 18th century, satire was hugely popular. Satire as an art form has its roots in the classics, especially in the Roman Horace's Satires. Satire as it was originally proposed was a form of literature using sarcasm, irony, and wit, to bring about a change in society, but in the eighteenth century Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and William Hogarth expanded satire to include politics, as well as art. The political climate of the time was one of tension. Any criticism of government would bring harsh punishments, sometimes exile or death. In order to voice opinions without fear of punishment, malcontented writers turned to Satire. Voltaire's Candide and Swift's Modest Proposal are two examples of this new genre. By creating a fictional world modeled after the world he hated, Voltaire was able to attack scientists, and theologians with impunity. Jonathan Swift created many fictional worlds in his great work, Gulliver's Travels, where he constantly drew parallels to the English government.
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.
Another use of technology in the novel is cloning. The leaders strive to make everyone as similar as possible and cloning is one way of doing this. They achieve this feat by splitting an egg as many times as possible. This group of identical twins is called a Bokanovsky Group. The highest number of people in one of these groups was 96, with 72 being a “good average.” This process is used to mass produce workers; because of this, it is only used on the lower classes. It also takes away a person’s individuality, which is a big goal in the brave new world.
Technology, which has brought mankind from the Stone Age to the 21st century, can also ruin the life of peoples. In the novel Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley shows us what technology can do if we exercise it too much. From the novel we can see that humans can lose humanity if we rely on technology too much. In the novel, the author sets the world in the future where everything is being controlled by technology. This world seems to be a very perfectly working utopian society that does not have any disease, war, problems, crisis but it is also a sad society with no feelings, emotions or human characteristics. This is a very scary society because everything is being controlled even before someone is born, in test tube, where they determine of which class they are going to fall under, how they are going to look like and beyond. Therefore, the society of Brave New World is being controlled by society form the very start by using technology which affects how the people behave in this inhumane, unrealistic, society.
Thomas More’s Utopia and Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World , are novels about societies that differ from our own. Though the two authors have chosen different approaches to create an alternate society, both books have similarities which represent the visions of men who were moved to great indignation by the societies in which they lived. Both novels have transcended contemporary problems in society , they both have a structured, work based civilization and both have separated themselves from the ways of past society. It is important when reading these novels to focus on the differences as well as the similarities. The two novels differ in their views of love, religion, and the way to eliminate social classes. These differences seem to suggest that if we do not come closer to More’s goal in Utopia, we will end up in a society much like that of Huxley’s Brave New World.