...In Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World, Huxley uses the motif of soma to allude to the seemingly utopian but in reality, dystopian society that has been created. Throughout the novel soma is used by the government to keep control of society, it keeps the people calm, peaceful and most importantly distracts them from the truth. John the savage is the only one to realize the truth, he refers to the people as “less than human monsters”(212) allowing the reader to use John to see the dystopian part of society. Every time someone or something tries to disrupt the world order, the government will use soma to distort the perception. When John realizes the truth and starts to cause a riot, the police showed up “with spraying machines buckled to their shoulders pumped thick clouds of soma vapour into the air.” (214). The effects of that situation immediately turns the riot into a peaceful gathering. No even realizes what had just happened, the citizens no longer care either. The troubles are all gone thanks to their “amazing” government. One of the other ways that the government convinces the...
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...In plain view, Brave New World and our world today are not really alike. Babies are made in bottles, nobody has a family, and there a special drug named “soma.” If you look at it with more depth, though, there are more similarities than differences. Some of these similarities include drug use, conditioning and individualism. One connection you can make between Brave New World and our world is drug use. In BNW, all the citizens take soma. Whether their happy, stressed, or angry, it is the “normal” thing to do. On page 54, Henry Foster says to Bernard Marx, “You do look glum, what you need is a gramme of soma.” He shows just how depended upon it is, and people shouldn’t be glum because there is soma, which cures everything. Although we don’t have this magical drug, we do have many types of drugs and pills people take to rid themselves of discomfort. Whether they have anxiety issues, depression, trouble focusing, or any other problem they may have, the first thing they do is go to the doctor to be prescribed a certain medication to “cure” them. Another strong similarity is conditioning. In the book, after children are born from bottles, they are conditioned to be okay with the life they are “assigned.” They all love their job, and...
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...There are many things in Brave New World, that would be considered a bottled pleasure. Soma, for example is the mainstream pleasure that they have readily available to them. The way they approach and handle relationships is another pleasure, that is handed to everyone. Brave New World’s civilizations are not taught history of everyone before them, saving them from knowing all the things people had done before their times. Soma, a small little tablet, with affects close to modern day drugs like LSD, but without the side effects, "All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects." It gave them an escape you could call it, they took it and could be “gone” for days "As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma, lay down on her bed, and within ten minutes had embarked for lunar eternity. It would be eighteen hours at the least before she was in...
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...In the world of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, everyone is happy, society is stable and peaceful, and the world seems like a utopia. Every person enjoys life and faces no problems or deals with hardships. In reality, the civilization is stable, but only because everyone chooses not to deal with their problems and escapes multiple displeasures through different means. Happiness is prioritized over everything else and everyone chooses to remain happy instead of facing truth or other conflicts. The civilization in Brave New World thus, is more dystopian than utopian. The major detrimental effects of this society are its use of escapism as an everyday application, and how that it deteriorates the psychology of each person. The detrimental effects of this society apply to the real world....
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...A pill that guarantees happiness “If anything should go wrong, there's soma.” Does this sentiment explored in Aldous Huxley’s classic novel Brave New World now reflect current attitudes towards legal drug use? Have we become a society of self-medicating pill poppers desperate to avoid extreme emotions? Ashlie Hodges examines drug use in our society. Huxley’s novel challenges contemporary social values and expectations, while remaining relevant to the 21st century. The classic dystopian novel Brave New World was published in 1932 and is set in the year 2540. The title is a nod to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, as the play directly features the words Brave New World. The message of taking legal drugs to avoid mental illness and emotions...
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...These have proved both advantageous and detrimental to society as a whole. Technology has helped connect the world and help make everybody happier. However, at what cost? When does technology cease to be beneficial and begin its destruction? Technology has led to the illusion of multitasking, the chronic and widespread abuse of prescription drugs, and the downfall of society as a whole through virtual realities. The article “Why the modern world is bad for your brain”, by Daniel J Levitin shines light on many of the societal norms in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. “Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can...
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...The novel A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was a story written about society that was thought to be a utopia, but in actuality this twisted world was anything from perfect. The society Huxley portrayed in his novel was in some ways a Marxists dream and in other ways a Marxists worst nightmare. Aldous Huxley did a brilliant job connecting with the Marxist point of view while also embodying numerous fears of Marxists in his critically acclaimed book A Brave New World. Marxists believed in a totalitarian government somewhat like a dictatorship. The government in Huxley’s novel used tactics such as adolescent brainwashing, drug administration, and the use of technology to keep total control of the public population. Much like Marxist societies the society in Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World chose to alienate their young instead of nurture them like a normal world. Children in this novel were alienated at an early age, they were also trained to hate nature and music or anything that promoted any type of free will. Children were not raised by a mother and father because in the World State there was no such thing as marriage or even love. In Marxist cultures children were separated from their parents and taught to formulate their view of the world based on only Marxist teachings rather than “outdated” views. In a Marxist society the upbringing of children was not handled by parents but rather by the entire community so there were such things as family bonds in Marxism. Marxist...
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...Would people be able to achieve a perfect society or should government be the one who controls everyone’s happiness? In Brave New World, Huxley proposes that a perfect society can be achieved through control, however, readers come to the understanding that the characters in the book have no individuality and cannot obtain a perfect society through the government’s control. The use of soma, a government supplied drug, is a factor that adds to creating virtual peace and happiness for the characters in the book. The government trying to control everyone to think the same through the use of eugenic science and soma, is what creates a utopian society and adds to no one being individual in the book Brave New World. Discrimination on Individuality...
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...Scientism and Technocracy in Brave New World Introduction Brave New World is well recognized as a dystopian novel, in which Aldous Huxley satirically criticized scientism and technocracy. In this new world, science and technology was paramount. It dominated all aspects of human life. Humans were mass produced in laboratory and factories; human moral value were moulded by sleeping teaching; human emotions were controlled by soma. The overuse of science and technology reduced humans to one-dimensional man without individuality and the ability of critical thinking. Human beings were used as tools for political and economic purposes. The thesis is to study scientism and technocracy, the "improper application of science to human life", from two aspects: the interference with human physical life and the elimination of human spiritual life. Scientism and Technocracy Scientism, according to Zhu Wang, is "an excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and technology to solve all human problems including spiritual crisis" (194). It is "the authority of natural sciences, dominating all aspects of human life and rejecting religion, philosophy, art, and literature" (194). In Brave New World, Huxley depicted a dystopian society to condemn the excessive use of science and technology which eliminated human individuality and civilization. He pointed out in his Complete Essays Vol.6 that science was "the reduction of multiplicity to unity….the theoretical reduction...
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...In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley provides us with a strange yet appealing futuristic world. Huxley throughout the book argues the points that author George Orwell makes in his book “1984”. Neil Postman made six assertions that varied when comparing them to today’s contemporary society. Some of these assertions are either highly valuable or fail to meet the standards of today’s advanced society. In one of Postman’s quotes, he states that “As he (Huxley) saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” Postman describes the lost of thinking for ourselves and how society has lost all ability to use imagination. What we seem to imagine is all given to us through social media and television. Everything around us is intensified, to create a series of propaganda and influences. Both Orwell and Huxley believed that our thoughts and imaginations are a complication of our own...
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...increase fast production for a lower cost and also decrease the chance of human error in the process being able to store and share information with ease. In the novel Brave New World the author Aldous Huxley tries to demonstrate the dangers of when humans and the society they live in make technology a god. Right from the beginning, the Bokanovsky and the Podsnap technique are introduced to explain the production of the humans. These humans are then placed in a group called castes and participate in a method called sleep teaching. Of course, these humans still go...
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...desire.. The monk also suggests suffering is crucial to perceive true happiness. Brave New World embodies the same concept, does true happiness exist without suffering? Aldous Huxley purposed soma to be the object that eliminates suffering and, consequently, the characters think they are happy due to soma and conditioning. In the consumer utopia of Brave New World, citizens are conditioned to be happy, but do not experience true happiness because they are not willing defy the utopia, are not suffering, and are not liberated from soma. Defying the utopia is not in the best interest of the citizen considering genetically breeding requires little to replace them, but they are conditioned to believe they are in the best situation. “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them” (Huxley 234). In chapter two, the Director used a mild-electric shock to condition the children to not like books. If the children would have not been shocked, they would...
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...Soma in Brave New World The drug soma in Brave New World is a symbol of the use of instant gratification to control the World State's society. "Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant" is how Mustapha Mond describes soma. It's possibly the best tool the government has for controlling its population. It sedates, calms, and mainly distracts the citizen from the horrific state of enslavement that they live in. There's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you with one another, or to make you patient and forgiving. Everyone is trapped by happiness, which is a tough entrapment to break away from. Through the government's use of soma to control the population, Linda's excessive abuse of the drug, and John's attempt at stopping the drug, Huxley attempts to reveal how we allow the individual within us to be overcome by anything that will guarantee us pleasant feelings. Therefore, we sense a superficial happiness. The novel also compares religion with soma. It argues that Christianity functions the same way as soma, allowing the citizens to be controlled. Mustapha claims that soma is "Christianity without the tears." It offers its followers comfort, but at the expense of individuality. Soma clouds reality, replacing it with happy hallucinations. Soma is what the society uses to keep themselves balanced. Religion functions similarly because people use it as a source to give their life meaning. They refer to it to maintain order and function through life's obstacles. It acts...
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...Brave New World Response Essay In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley takes us on a journey through a utopian society, known as the world state. This society allows its citizens to experience no pain, no suffering, and no unhappiness. They achieve these utopian qualities by distributing soma, a drug that is given out on a regular basis to all of World State’s citizens. Soma is used as a cure for everything, keeps the citizens “sane”, and enslaves everyone in the world state. I disagree with the use of soma in this utopian society. I felt very distressed that soma was used to cure everything and anything that could possibly happen to the citizens of world state. Lenina says to Bernard, “I don’t understand anything, why you don’t take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly. So jolly” (Huxley 92). The fact that soma was taken to get rid of even the slightest feeling of unhappiness was alarming to me because it is very normal to feel unhappy during some times of your life. Unhappiness is just one of the hundreds of emotions that humans are supposed to feel, these emotions are what make us who we are and without them, what do we become? We would become machines. As great as it may sound to be happy all the time, I think that experiencing other emotions is a part of life that the citizens of world state would never get to fully experience. Moreover, I felt saddened by how the citizens of the world...
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...In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, the use of soma is encouraged in order for civilians to be preoccupied from discovering the government’s secrets & preventing them from ruining their perfect utopian society. They are conditioned to take soma whenever they are feeling sad, angry, or stressed because it makes them apathetic about their issues. Without any motivation, they will carry on with their lives without questioning the government's motives, living happily. Intimate relationships are banned in order for the society’s individuals to advert from developing vulnerable emotions because it could lead to unhappiness. For example, when Bernard tells Lenina that he wishes for a deeper connection with her, instead of only having sexual relations, Lenina expresses, “‘why you don't take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You'd forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you'd be jolly. So jolly”(92). By making intimate relationships a taboo subject, such as having parents and being with an...
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