Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley is
about a futuristic society where humans are created not born and the concept of
Henry Fords assembly line is the basis of society. People are created in a caste
system and a drug called Soma suppresses emotions and not conforming makes you
an outcast in society and you are sent away. Brave New World is widely considered
a dystopian novel by many. Brave New
World does not fit the characteristics of a dystopian world, but is more
closely aligned with a utopian future.
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing
a desirable perfection. The very
definition of Utopia describes Huxley’s society in Brave New World. The future
in this novel everyone is happy with their work, no one gets old and everyone
looks perfect thanks to genetic engineering. It’s a society where no one is
lonely and the government supplies you with the drug soma to make you feel
better. One of the biggest things people in our society worry about today is
getting old and not fitting the “perfect image” that television or magazines
broadcast to us. If you ask anyone if they would want to live in a society
where you will never get old, and never have to worry about what you eat again,
I guarantee you that 99% of the population would be all for it.
There are a few characters in the novel that
are not completely happy with how society is run. Bernard Max and Helmholtz Watson both reject the perfectness
of society, but instead of killing them to end the problem Mustapha Mond
the Resident World Controller of Western Europe exiles them to islands where
people who also rejected society live and they can live out the rest of their
days as they please and speak against the government and no harm will come to
them. Mustapha Mond even lets them decide which island they want to go too."I should like a thoroughly bad climate"(229) This society wants you to be happy no matter if you completely disagree with
them. If this was a dystopian future they would of killed the non conformers an
been done with it. As seen in The Hunger Games and many other dystopian novels.
There are many people in this world who
are unhappy with their current jobs; the people in Brave New World are created
in a caste system where you are either an Alpha, Beta, Gamma Delta or Epsilon.
Each class is created in a different way and conditioned to love their class
and hate the others. They’re assigned jobs that they were created for and are
conditioned to be happy with it and hate every other job. In doing this, the government
makes sure everyone is happy with his or her place in society.
One of my favorite books when I was a
kid was The Giver by Lois Lowry I immediately became interested in dystopian
type novels and movies. I’ve seen numerous dystopian films and not one shows a
future where everyone is happy like in Brave New World. Most of them involve a
lack in technology, a Wild West type environment and widespread famine. Does
any one these sound like Brave New World? No, in Hunger games you have the Capital,
which I consider the most like the society of Brave New World but that’s just
the one city, all the other districts are forced to watch 12-18 year old kids
kill each other for entertainment. And if you go against the capital you are
disposed of. The film Looper takes place
in a near future. The United States has suffered economic collapse, causing
severe social decay and growth in organized crime. This is what I picture a
dystopian future to look like, not like the one described in Brave New World.
I like how you mention that Mustapha Mond doesn't have them executed, he instead sends them to an island full of like-minded individuals, where they are free to live their lives and pursue their passions. It shows that even those unhappy with society are still given opportunities to pursue happiness. Also, a future in which people aren't killed for holding opposing views seems pretty perfect. I also like that you mention the Giver. In the Giver one man holds all of the worlds memories of pain and suffering, so there's always one man left unhappy, but he also holds the memories of the worlds greatest pleasures, such as art and christmas and literature. As you read Brave New World did you associate John with the Keeper?
ReplyDeleteThis isn't an actual comment but I'd like to suggest the movie, "The Postman." It's a dystopian type movie like the ones you described, and one of my 3 all time favorite movies.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion, just watched it! really good movie! exactly the type of movies i like.
DeleteWhen reading I wondered why Mond would even give them the opportunity to live on an island? It seemed to me that the men were smart enough that they may be able to escape and try to overthrow the controllers. Maybe Mond just didn't feel threatened or there was a detail preventing that that I missed.
ReplyDeletewhat Wesley said below made me really think about it. Mond doesn't feel threatened because no one in BNW can function without help and that is the whole point of society and our ford, The assembly line. If you take a person out of society they can replace them. but what does that person do when he has do everything on his own. We learned from Johns mom that she had a hard time living in the reservation because she didn't know how to do anything but what she was conditioned for.
DeleteI like the point that you bring in about letting people go where ever they want instead of just killing them for not conforming but I think letting them go where ever they want is kind of a form of killing them because they don't really have many real world skills. They've been given everything all the time and don't really know survival skills if they went to an island that didn't have forms of civilization. I think that's why when Bernard gets banished at the end of the novel he starts pleading to stay in the society because he realizes it's pretty much a death sentence and he would rather just live through a bland boring life than having to die prematurely because he doesn't know how to survive.
ReplyDeleteWesley i never thought about that. Now that i think about it, Johns mother had no idea how to survive in the reservation, she was taught to never mend just buy it new. but you cant do that. No one in society knows how to do anything that doesn't involve their career that they are made for. so yes i can see it as a death sentence, they get their freedom but do they know how to use it? can they survive out there on their own? i really don't think they could. your absolutely right about the survival skills they don't have any.
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