Satire in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

Aldous Huxley. The very name summons psychedelic visions and utopian nightmares to the western psyche. He was born on the 26th of July in 1894, and died on the 22nd of November 1963. He saw the turn of the century, two world wars, the decline of the British lion, the ascendance of the American eagle and the Cuban missile crisis. In short, he lived through some of the most unstable times man has seen as a species. His work was varied. He began his career as a satirist of the class system he endured in England. He continued his work, writing one of the world’s most famous pieces of satire Brave New World in 1932. Taking as his target the totalitarian ideologies which had been the product of the industrialization of some of the most autocratic parts of the world, he enhanced the most extreme portions of these systems and diminished any moderating factors in those systems. The critical response to the novel was mixed. It remains a controversial book because of its discussion of sexuality, hallucinogenic drug use and industrial-totalitarianism. English teachers have been fired for assigning it and countries have banned it. Yet its message has only been advanced by its controversy. Later works of Huxley can be glimpsed in its treatment of hallucinogenic drugs and its discussion of God. After Brave New World, Huxley’s focus turned towards the mystical, with The Perennial Philosophy being published in 1945. He also indulged his lifetime interest in the Psychedelic. He first tried Mescaline in 1953, and LSD-25 in 1955. He wrote two major books on the subject Door of Perception and Heaven and Hell. He was also fascinated by the subject of death and dying in the last decade of his life. He led his first wife through a hypnosis session taking...

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...eems to read as a manifesto for a better alternative to Democracy than Fascism or Communism. The government of the 'world state' in the work is reminiscent of Italy or the USSR at the time. The gender roles seem an exaggeration of events which were transforming the role of women at the time. The drugs and lack of religion reflect the government's all-powerful role being maintained through sensation. For these reasons, Brave New World is primarily a work of satire, which bridges Huxley's earlier and latter works. An understanding of this text is key to understanding totalitarianism, women's liberation and substance use in the 20th century. Huxley glimpsed the forties and the sixties in this work, in other words, Huxley predicted an unpredictable century.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.