...Zhang 1 ! Brave New World －the Nightmare of Dystopian Society The society in Brave New World is full of peace and harmony seemingly, but the inside of that is a dystopian society which is full of maladies that cannot be controlled. The inundation of human science and technology improves people’s living standard, but essentially, it covers up the weak and empty human’s mental world. The novel Brave New World was written in 1931 by the famous English novelist, Aldous Leonard Huxley. It describes a futuristic society that in 632 A.F in London, people are controlled by the World State, a new world which has a slogan “COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY”. The marriage is forbidden, and babies are produced in an embryo factory. At the same time, the society is formed by five castes. Different levels people have their own different jobs. In the novel Brave New World, the World State reflects a dystopian society because it embraces an exploitative caste system, is morally bankrupt, and the citizens lack freedom and human dignity. The first reason why the World State reflects a dystopian society is because it embraces an exploitative caste system. In the new world, it has an extremely severe class system, which people are divided into five different castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. All of them are responsible to a different part of jobs in the state, like brain workers, labors, creators, and leaders. The Alpha embryos will become the leaders and thinkers, but the Epsilon embryos...
Words: 1919 - Pages: 8
...Sometimes in society it feels as if we are pressured to feel or act a certain way by the government and that we are not in control of ourselves, but they are. The two novels Brave New World and 1984 are both good examples of complete government control but when comparing the two it is evident that the governments have different views on the control of sex and morality. In the novel Brave New World it is obvious that the government is in complete control of its society. Within this government it control the thoughts, actions and fate of all citizens starting from before the human is even born. "We also predestine and condition. We decant our babies and socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilons, as future sewer Workers or future...He was going to say future World Controllers, but correcting himself, said Future Directors of Hatcheries instead" By stating this, the impression is given that the government has ultimate plans for every human, they choose those plans and abide by them for their own benefit. From even before a child is born they are categorized and have a job chosen for them. By choosing these jobs the government in the long run is also controlling the future of their society and their hope was to have many World Controllers also known as Future Directors of Hatcheries, which is a job that will continue the idea of ultimate control. Similarly, in the novel 1984 the government also attempts to have complete control of the minds and bodies of its citizens. One...
Words: 901 - Pages: 4
...Upon entering the “Squat Grey Building” that is the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre; you will see the motto of the World State: Community, Identity, and Stability. These three words reflect the ultimate goal of the Utopia that is the World State. “Community” means that everyone within the Utopia must work together to maximize happiness for the society as a whole. “Identity” refers to the five classes of hereditary social groups that are created through genetic engineering. Finally, “Stability” refers to the ultimate goal of the Utopia. By creating similar people and censoring and controlling actions, the society looks to minimize conflict, risk, and overall change. The three goals of the World State are completely controlled through the use of science and technology in Brave New World, which thereby stripped its residents of all social aspects and personal freedoms. By creating the Brave New World Huxley shows the importance of technology and progress to society, which makes us stop and consider how our current progress and advancements in technology have affected our society as a whole. Before looking into how people in the World State are restricted from having any free will, it is important to define what it means to be human. In my opinion, all humans are born with free will. I would define free will as the equal and inalienable rights to be an individual who can make their own choices. The ability to act at one’s own discretion without constraint...
Words: 1322 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 1804 - Pages: 8
...One of the primary themes in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World is the idea of social stratification and the caste system. Within this universe, people are engineered at birth to fit into a certain caste in order to maintain stability. At first it may seem that the upper castes hold the power over the lower castes. However, because the lower castes enjoy their position in society, this cannot be the case. Instead, Huxley makes the argument that although the lower castes seem happy with their lives, they do not know any better due to the World Controllers’ conditioning, and are not leading full lives at all. None of the conditioned castes are allowed to enjoy the same sort of intellectual and personal freedoms that the upper class World Controllers do. In this way, the World Controllers are the elites who maintain total power over the lower social castes. Taken at face value, it may seem as though the power inequalities occur within the individual castes. The upper-caste Alphas and Betas do not associate with the lower Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, believing themselves to be superior. Furthermore, the lower castes...
Words: 634 - Pages: 3
...“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...
Words: 729 - Pages: 3
...Brave New World Brave New World is a form of utopian literature. It’s an imaginary society organized to create ideal conditions for human beings, eliminating hatred, pain, neglect, and all of the other evils of the world. The novel takes place in 632 A.F. (After Ford, the god of the New World). It takes place in a time where man is desperate for beliefs (and structures also a relief from pain.). All civilization has been destroyed by a great war. Then there is another war, the Nine Years War, which begins the era of Ford, ensuring stability through dictatorship. The society in Brave new world is based on a strict caste system. The highest of the five castes enjoy easier and better tasks, while the lower ones perform unskilled and all the dirty jobs. Ten Controllers hold all the power in this new world and peace is maintained by training infant minds and by dulling down adults with the tranquilizer, “soma.” The population is further controlled through scientific methods; marriage is forbidden, and children are not born but produced in an embryo factory THEME: Science and its influences on humanity is the major theme of Brave New World. The novel depicts a new society where human beings have been stripped of individual freedom, programmed to certain types of behavior, and conditioned to respond in scientific ways to specific stimulants. All traces of the old order have been eliminated. No longer are human emotions or relationships important. Infants are created in...
Words: 881 - Pages: 4
...have become exceedingly common in many first world countries. Most individuals do not realize the effect conditioning and technology has on them and how it shapes them and their future. The world of technology has drastically grown over the past century, allowing mankind to accomplish feats deemed impossible in decades past. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, conditioning and technology play an enormous role in society. In the World State, the state of affairs is preserved through conditioning and technology, causing a lack of humanity to be evident. Technology controls many aspects of one’s life in Brave New World, resulting in limitations of freedoms. Throughout the novel, Huxley displays many situations where the implementation of technology has been used to create stability. The reader is introduced to “Bokanovsky’s Process” at the start of the novel; the process essentially allows 96 babies to be born from one embryo. This procedure produces “[m]illions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology,” (Huxley 5). Mass production is an invention which allows consumer goods to be created faster and sold cheaper. Therefore, consumer goods are easily replaceable, implying that children and the population as a whole is easily replaceable, thus diminishing the value of life. The significance and uniqueness of any one individual is abolished, causing everyone to be viewed as equal before the Controller. Stability is created due to the fact that the...
Words: 931 - Pages: 4
...describe a Utopian environment: A perfect world. However, disguised as a Utopia, Brave New World is a Dystopian environment which controls how society behaves, believes, and lives. As long as everything goes as planned, then the people can keep stability in society. Therefore, in order to maintain stability, Brave New World makes it so no relationships exist to prevent from having unstable emotions. In Huxley’s book, the citizens are conditioned to think that “…everyone belongs to everyone else” (56). For the citizens, it means that they are allowed to have anyone they want, to not be fixated on only one person. That is because if these couples were to break up, then it would cause instability in their life, which is what Brave New World is trying to prevent. In this society, they are always trying to enforce stability. Just to keep the society stable, the officials in the book make it so that the people are always happy. They make sure that no one is unhappy because when one person in that situation, then it can affect the rest of society. That is why, when the World Controller asked if anyone had, had a time where they could not have anything they wanted. “Horrible; precisely” (58). When the boy explained how he felt, the World Controller agrees saying that this feeling was not allowed, for it would not let society stable. When Lenina and Bernard visit the reservation, they meet Linda and John. Linda was a citizen of Brave New World also, and when Bernard found out that she...
Words: 682 - Pages: 3
...Dystopia: The World Today Introduction Written in 1931 and published a year after, The Brave New World (1932) contradicts the idea of Utopia (perfect world); a type of novel that queries the values of 1931 London using satire to dramatically represent a futuristic world in which occurring fads in British and America have been taken to extremity. People from The World State are living peacefully, free from any kind of war, abhorrence, impecuniousness, illness and physical sufferings. The novel depicts a potentially perfect world, not to mention people can enjoy wealth in terms of material possessions and all form of pleasures. Using high technology, human beings no longer have to conceive. They are created in factories wherein they are being prepared for future lives. The children are raised altogether and minds are controlled through sleep-teaching to further enhance their condition. As they turn to be adults, people are already destined to certain classes. And if one was unfortunately destined to be of the lower class, he would be raised to generally like the kind of life designated to him and be trained not to like nor appreciate - basically to the extent of being manipulated - other roles but theirs. They are subjected to engage or yield themselves in totally harmless entertainment and physical activities as form of leisure. There are several anticipations which were depicted by Huxley in The Brave New World. Although some of them may not be totally proven by this time,...
Words: 1694 - Pages: 7
...Brave New World and The Color purple are two very distinct novels that convey two very different messages. However, it can be argued that they do have very similar ways of conveying it, most of the characters except lead insular lives, unaware of what is occurring outside their own small neighborhood. They are particularly unaware of the larger social and political currents sweeping the world. Despite their isolation, however, they work through problems of racism, sexism, violence, and oppression to achieve a wholeness, both personal and communal. It is evidently clear that Walker and Huxley construct a male dominant patriarchal society in these novels where women are oppressed and essentially stripped of their freedom, individuality and contentment....
Words: 394 - Pages: 2
...principles are brought to mankind in Aldous Huxley’s groundbreaking novel, Brave New World. This novel raises the questions; how can people achieve these secret goals of society? And how will we ever get to the point of a worldwide community? A sense of identity? And a stable society? The answer is swirling around the world, every second of every day. Time. In order to achieve these ideals, people must learn from the past and prepare for the future, only when the two elements are combined will “Community, Identity, [and] Stability”(1) be prominent in today’s world. One major lesson adults try to implement into children from birth is that one must learn from prior mistakes. In the novel, the people of the World State prosper because they have learned from their past mistakes. War, famine, morals, and other concepts of the past are eliminated from society to insure stability. When the leaders had to make the choice between “World Control and destruction. Between stability and”(48) chaos. In the past chaos has been proven to live up to its definition. Due to their choice against disorder, the World State proves that people need the past to learn from their mistakes. One such example is John’s attempt to free the people from soma. The Savage attempts to cause a revolt amongst the Delta workers. He throws the “poison” out of the window, handful after handful (213). The members of the World State had learned from the past and were able to quickly squash the revolt...
Words: 747 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 1290 - Pages: 6
...dominant theme.” To what extent do ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ depict a dehumanised society? Both Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ certainly deny humanness to the characters in their novels. Kelman defines humanness as having two key attributes, identity and community. Dehumanisation occurs when these are removed from society. It is true that individuality is denied to citizens and although the community remains, it is subverted in order to fit the government ideal. It can therefore be said that dehumanisation occurs as people are denied and identity and the true meaning of community which is the perception that a person is part of an interconnected community of individuals. Dystopian literature serves to critique the current social and political conditions by looking at potential conditions. Both novels were written when the fear of growing totalitarian governments was present. The novels are a prediction of what may happen to society if this power grows worldwide. In 1946, Orwell wrote "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." Around the time Huxley wrote ‘Brave New World’ there had been huge discoveries made in science and technology, Huxley took these and created a dystopia that uses technology to trick citizens into loving their slavery. The governments in both ‘1984’ and ‘Brave New World’ dehumanise people in order to maintain their...
Words: 2202 - Pages: 9
...Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is about an advanced society that relies on conditioning its citizens in order to achieve stability and constant universal happiness. When an outsider visits the “World State”, he reveals that true happiness is impossible without passion and individualism. The residents are conditioned from conception through manipulation of the eggs, hypnopaedic suggestion, and laboratory experiences which prepare them to grow up to be constantly happy and eager to fuel the economy. Conditioning plays a large role in depriving people of their free will. Individualism is removed entirely because the World Controllers have eliminated access to new scientific studies, art, and religious practices. Ultimately, conditioning along with the removal of these things lead to a sense of false happiness for citizens. Before people are released to be a part of society, they are conditioned in their sleep through hypnopaedia. This sleep teaching technique takes away people’s free will because the repetitions force the listener to adhere to the World State’s morals and values without their consent. For example when Bernard mentioned “arresting [his] impulses” (Huxley 81), Lenina instinctively spits out a hypnopaedic...
Words: 1462 - Pages: 6
