Brave New World: Helplessness
How can one distinguish happiness from unhappiness if unhappiness is never experienced? It's the bad that makes the good look good, but if you don't know the good from the bad, you'll settle for what you're given. Can people judge their feelings without a basis or underlying "rubric" to follow? Such rudimentary guidelines are established through the maturation process and continue to fluctuate as one grows wiser with a vaster array of experiences. Aldous Huxley creates a utopia filled with happiness, but this is merely a facade to a world which is incomplete and quite empty since the essential "experiences" are replaced with "conditioning." Perhaps this fantasy world was
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Through his independent thinking he becomes frustrated and feels alone. Such feelings Marx shares with his close friend Helmholtz Watson, who was advantageously decanted in his "test tubular stages" and therefore has an excess of physical and mental abilities. These two often meet to ponder and question such unorthodox feelings. Watson is an accomplished writer of "feelies," accomplished to the remainder of society, but as he knows he is only turning the mundane life of all into words to attempt to excite the "modernized …show more content…
He immediately puts the individual in his meager place which is inferred from the image of "A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories." The individual is minute compared to the overwhelming World State building which is symbolic of the scientific and technological domination of the World State over the individual.
The images of the "harsh light" penetrating and "hungrily" seeking to be consoled by human touch only to unveil the "pale corpse-coloured rubber" hands of workers touching cold test tubes convey the cold impassionate feeling involved in the "Fertilizing Room." This inconceivable concept is appalling and mystifying, and through the tour the reader is introduced to the enthralling theme of Huxley's work -- the notion that science and technology could replace the
The presence of death in the novel looms over the characters, making each of them reflect on the
...was sick and dying, but because she needed to know and understand for herself why Sula betrayed her in such a manner. Armed with the information that Sula was sick and may be in need of assistance since no one else in the neighborhood was willing to help her, she visited Sula for the last time. Nevertheless, Sula had not changed, she still considered herself to be above reproach for whatever deeds she committed. Nel finally understood her friend for who she really was and realized that even though she did not like some of her way, she liked the good parts of her enough to forgive the bad. She is finally able to not only cross the chasm that was created in their friendship by Sula’s betrayal but she realized how much she really loved her as a friend, albeit a little too late since Sula was already dead. All in all Sula was a mean self-centered person whose only emotional outlet was in the person of her best friend Nel. They compliment each other in many ways and paint a myriad picture of what true friendship is all about. In friendship, one has to take the good with the bad, and the thick with the thin, and Sula and Nel were the best of friends in that respect.
There are many short stories in literature that share a common theme presented in different ways. A theme that always keeps readers’ attention is that of death because it is something that no one wants to face in real life, but something that can be easily faced when reading. “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson both exemplify how two authors use a common theme of death to stand as a metaphor for dystopian societies.
In their life, at one point or another, people deny to themselves and others what they really feel and what really happened. Some people go on living their entire lives denying their true emotions. In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, characters constantly denied their feelings and their actions. Sula Peace, her best friend Nel Wright, and Nel’s mother do not listen to their feelings and hide from their true emotions.
Everything in this world has a balance. Without negative, there is no positive and without Sula, there is not Nel. Their friendship is strong and they are one when together, and become nothing when broken apart. Nel turns into a dull housewife, living the life of her mother, and Sula dies alone without anyone who truly loves her by her side.
Sula and Nel’s friendship in their childhood was beneficial for both of them. Sula’s meeting of Nel was fortunate, because they find a soul mate within each other. They are both the daughters of “distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers” (Morrison, 50). Both girls lack affection in their relationships with their mothers. They can’t find this affection in their relationships with their fathers either, because Sula’s father is dead while Nel’s father is away at sea. They find the affection they need with each other. Their friendship was a way to mother each other. Since they can’ find the support they need from their families with their families they began to support each other and figure out what each other need in their life. The significance
The relationship between the young women throughout a certain portion of their lives was put on hold due to the distance between them. Sula chose to move away from Ohio when she was young and therefore somewhat abandoned the life that the two girls had in previous years. When reunited with Sula, Nel expresses her thoughts on the abandonment of herself by her friend:
...ght, girl,’ he said to her, trembling with rage, ‘tell us who it was’” (53). García Márquez never lets the reader know for certain that it was indeed Santiago Nasar who took Angela Vicario's virginity, but it never really matters because when Angela “looked for it, [a name], in the shadows” (53), and said, “Santiago Nasar” (53), he was already dead.
Although Santiago Nasar is murdered at the hands of the Vicario brothers, the entire town shares a role in his death. On the morning that Santiago Nasar is to be killed, Pablo and Pedro Vicario tell everyone they see that they are going to "cut his
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.
The relationship between Nel and Sula begins during their adolescent years. Though they are complete opposites, they seem to work well with each other, depending on one another for comfort and support. The two spend almost all of their time together, learning from one another and growing as a result. They take solace in the presence of one another, finding comfort in what the other finds bothersome and using the lifestyle of the one another to compensate for their shortcomings. When Sula first visits Nel's home, "Nel, who regarded the oppressive neatness of her home with dread, felt comf...
Gass, William H. "More Deaths Than One: 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold,'." in New York 16.15 (1983): 83-84. Rpt. in Works for Students. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc and Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.
...all want to believe that the crime was truly “foretold”, and that nothing could have been done to change that, each one of the characters share in a part of Santiago Nasar’s death. Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the true selfishness and ignorance that people have today. Everyone waits for someone else to step in and take the lead so something dreadful can be prevented or stopped. What people still do not notice is that if everyone was to stand back and wait for others, who is going to be the one who decides to do something? People don’t care who gets hurt, as long as it’s not themselves, like Angela Vicario, while other try to reassure themselves by thinking that they did all that they could, like Colonel Lazaro Aponte and Clotilde Armenta. And finally, some people try to fight for something necessary, but lose track of what they set out for in the first place.
Santiago is, undoubtedly, crafted as a Christ figure, from his innocence to his crucifixion. His innocence is derived from the narrator’s doubt and the doubt invoked in the reader, that Santiago deflowered Angela prior to her marriage; he is murdered for this reason. In the novella, Santiago attempts to flee from Pedro and Pablo Vicario once he realizes that they are out to kill him; unfortunately, he does not make it into the safety of his home. As the stabbing progresses, Santiago stops defending himself and lets the brothers continue “knifing him against the door with alternate and easy stabs” (Márquez 118). With the surrender of Santiago, the entire town became horrified “by its own crime” (Márquez 118).
Death is depicted as an individual’s affair, in which, neither one’s closest friends or closest blood relatives can give a hand in. Upon receiving the tragic news Everyman first approaches his friend Fellowship. At first he is hesitant to reveal his sorrow to Fellowship for he considers it too tragic a plight. After cajoling and assurances by Fellowship to stand by him in whatever situation, Everyman finally pours out his sorrow to Fellowship. Upon realizing that Everyman has been summoned by death, fellowship turns his back on Everyman ...