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Marxism In Brave New World

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“Community. Stability. Identity.” These three words are the foundation of the dystopian world created by author Aldous Huxley in his novel Brave New World. In this novel, Huxley creates a society known as the World State in which individuals are created and designed to play a specific role in society. Much of the way the society is built reflects the philosophy of Karl Marx. Huxley creates this new world to ironically mirror the ideas of Marxism in how it can ensure social stability. Or can it? Brave New World was written in 1932 during a time with no economic stability or security and after the Industrial Revolution where most of the workforce consisted of cheap labor within factories. It was a time where wealth was distributed only to those …show more content…
Despite Marxist beliefs of social castes leading to internal conflict, Huxley ironically revolves his futuristic society around the concept of the caste by claiming it ensures social stability. Within Brave New World, the class system of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons all uniformly serve a purpose in society and are programmed to remain in their own class. In addition, the Marxist idea that society is more important than the individual is foreshadowed through the World State's Motto and the characters Lenina and Mustapha …show more content…
By instilling these thoughts into the individual’s subconscious, it ensures and prevents the individual from seeking or wanting more than their designated class. This integration of conditioning to establish conformity was created ironically in comparison to Marxisms views on social castes to show where this idea could possibly work through such extreme circumstances.
We see the importance of community over oneself through Lenina, as well. After Bernard explains to Lenina about his feelings of indifference within the World State, she states “When the individual feels, the community reels” (Huxley 94). This devotion to community is very prevalent throughout the novel through Lenina, which mirrors the importance of community in Karl Marx.
While we see Lenina play a role in ensuring the priority of community, Mustapha Mond also plays a role in demonstrating communal happiness over individual wants and needs. Towards the end of the novel where Mustapha Mond is explaining to Bernard, Helmholtz, and John why being on the islands is better, he explains why he decided to stay at the World State rather than being exiled over his love of scientific research. He states “That’s how I paid. By choosing to serve happiness. Other people’s- not mine” (Huxley 229). Mustapha Mond contains the mirroring aspect to Marx’s belief as the “World Controller” throughout the novel

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