literature analysis #3

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

General

1. Brave New World is set several hundred years in the future in London where a “utopian” society exists in which everyone is “happy”.  In order to create this happy stable society, science has had to compensate for the potential sources of instability in a society, by getting rid of parents and families, and by scientifically engineering each person in test tubes from fertilization to decanting, women no longer give birth, and then by behaviorally conditioning the mass produced population during their youth for their specific purpose in society.  Should there ever be a moment when one becomes the least bit dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives, they can simply pop a few pills and be brought instantly back to “enjoying” their inescapable social destiny.  No lasting relationships exist between people as “every one belongs to every one else." The main plot involves a slightly different, alpha male named Bernard Marx, who takes a typical beta girl, Lenina on a trip to the Savage Reservation, where modern science has not interfered and the people behave like savages, still having families, and uncivilized “unhappy” lives.  Bernard asks permission to take the trip from his Director, who tells the story of the time he had visited the Reservation twenty years earlier and had lost the woman he traveled with in a storm. Bernard goes to the Reservation and happens to find the woman, Linda, in the Directors story.  She has a son, John, who is most likely the Director’s son. Bernard knows he is in danger of being sent to Iceland because he has been showing some dissatisfaction with his life, so decides to bring Linda and John, back to the Brave New World of London to shame the Director because he is a “father”.  This works and he stays in London with John, the savage, who gains celebrity status because of his strange reservation life, but John’s mother dies and he is discouraged in his attempts to have a relationship with Lenina.  John starts a riot and is arrested with Bernard and Bernard’s friend, Helmholtz Watson, another dissatisfied alpha male, and they are brought to the office of Mustapha Mond, one of the World Controllers.  Mond explains to John that stability and happiness is more important than humanity and can only be achieved by sacrificing love, family, art, science, and religion. John replies that without these, life is not worth living.  Bernard and Helmholtz are exiled to distant islands and John retreats to an abandoned lighthouse outside the city.  John is caught beating himself and hordes of people come to watch him whip himself including Lenina, which disturbs John and he goes wild and joins in an orgy that ensues.  The next day he is so ashamed he hangs himself.

2.  The theme of the novel in the author’s own words as written in the Foreword to the book “is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals”. The new world state’s motto is “Community, Identity, Stability” which is achieved only through the misuse of the sciences such as biology, physiology, and psychology.  Community is achieved by creating a single identity of “every one belongs to every one else” and genetic engineering and physiological and psychological conditioning allows for the creation of social classes of individual programmed to be completely accepting of their designated class.  If you equate freedom or purpose of life with the ability to choose, you can see that in the utopia of a Brave New World there is no freedom or purpose in life.  The focus of the new utopia is keeping everyone happy, and it achieved this goal or shipped you off to some distant island, but even the World Controller, Mustapha Mond contemplated what it would be like if “the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge?” 

3. The tone of Brave New World is bleak and depressing for those that have knowledge or experience of a different way, but for the properly condition members of the new world society, they see the old ways as uncivilized and savage as this passage implies about the obsolete condition of motherhood:  “Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty–they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?” (Chapter 3)

The story presents a kind of demented happiness which everyone is conditioned into accepting.  When Linda returns to London, she goes on a permanent soma holiday which will drastically shorten her life but it’s presented as if it’s a good thing: “Soma may make you lose a few years in time," the doctor went on. "But think of the enormous, immeasurable durations it can give you out of time. Every soma-holiday is a bit of what our ancestors used to call eternity." (Chapter 11) The story also has a mood of helplessness as nothing can really be done to return society to any sort of natural life as  God and everything unpleasant is cured by soma. “there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears–that's what soma is."  (Chapter 17)

4. Personification is used as a literary element to enhance the tone: “The air was drowsy with the murmur of bees and helicopters.” (Chapter3) Dramatic visualization is used to describe the conditioning techniques used on infants:  “The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.” (Chapter 2) Flashback is used in chapter 6 when the Director recall his visit to the Reservation 25 years ago and this story is also an example of foreshadowing as Bernard finds the missing girl when he goes to the Reservation. Imagery is used often to describe in detail the setting: “Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well-being.” (Chapter 3) Irony is used in the story when John is considered the “Savage” even though he is better educated and has real life experiences outside the very controlled world of the “civilized” people. Onomatopoeia is used in the Orgy porgy chant that the citizens recite before they engage in an orgy.  Huxley uses paradox in the story when he describes the electric fence that surrounds the Savage Reservation as it is unclear as to keep the savages in or the “civilized” out.  There are also dead animals near the fence because animal “never learn” and conditioning is one of the main dehumanizing processes used by the World State.  But even animals cannot be conditioned, what does that say about the “humans” of a Brave New World? The major plot twist in the story occurs in chapter 8 when Bernarnd find John on the Reservation and discovers he is the Directors son. (Chapter 8) The novel is a satire of the society that the author saw with respect to consumerism and technology advancements occurring at the time, for example individual happiness being equivalent to having your fundamental needs met and being able to withdraw from your problems with designer drugs. An example of symbolism in the novel is the use of Ford to replace “Lord” or God.  As science and materialism has replaced the need to believe in a higher authority. Huxley uses allegory when even in this world where every detail is painstakingly controlled, Lenina in Chapter 13 accidentally misses giving an immunization to one embryo because she has actually flustered by her desire for John.  This is perhaps the only moment of hope for the utopian society that some event could occur to dehumanize them.

 

Characterization

1. Huxley uses mostly direct characterization in this novel mostly due to the fact that in this society people have been conditioned to behave and think exactly alike for their particular class and function in life; however, both the main characters, Bernard, Marx and John, the Savage, have private thought and feelings and are revealed in the story through direct and indirect characterization.  When Bernard Marx is introduced in the story, he is portrayed by Lenina’s friend Fanny as being different so it’s not surprising to find that he has emotions of anger and jealousy that should have no place in this Brave New World.  In chapter 3 Fanny calls Bernard small and ugly.  He did not look his alpha plus class. Bernard appears early in the book to be the hero, because he is dissatisfied with the World State, but later he joins in and we can conclude his dissatisfaction has more to do with his small appearance.  Bernard’s thoughts in chapter six about the costs of leaving the tap of cologne running gives us the first indirect insight into the potential shallowness of his character.  His motives for taking John and Linda back from the Reservation are also selfish.  Helmholtz Watson on the other hand, is a flawless alpha plus male.  He is also dissatisfied with the world State.  Helmholtz character is developed directly in the descriptions of him being “super attractive” and “super intelligent”.  He is also indirectly developed as he feels embarrassed for Bernard when Bernard begins to feel sorry for himself.  In the end it is actually John, who is the main protagonist.  He is developed by direct characterization as we find out that he is very attractive and by indirect characterizations as we follow his actions and find out that he is indeed principled, courageous and sympathetic.  John, the Savage, becomes the symbol for real civilized behavior.

2. The author's syntax and diction changes when he focuses on the main characters as compared to the lost characters of the World state.  Huxley uses tremendous scientific detail when describing how the individuals are engineered and conditioned and the characters that reveal these details have totally bought or been conditioned into the ides that this is the way to have a stable happy society.  Huxley allows John to be more real and less detailed.  The conditioned and brainwashed characters mostly just repeat their sleep-taught sayings, like “was and will make me ill, I take a gram and only am” and “ending is better than mending”. 

3. Bernard Marx is actually a dynamic character as he is able to overcome his loneliness and insecurities after his association with John, the Savage increases his popularity.  Bernard resists the ideas of the World State in the beginning because he is small for an alpha and is insecure, but later he joins in with the elements of society he criticized. John on the other hand remains stable in his convictions despite his popularity in the World State. Helmholtz Watson and John, remain truer to their characters throughout the story.  They are dissatisfied with the World State because it is truly dehumanizing and not just because they feel insecure in it.  Bernard’s character is therefore fairly flat, but John and Helmholtz are well rounded characters.  Most of the World State population would be very shallow flat characters. 

4. After reading the book, I definitely felt like I had read characters and not met them, mostly because I agree with the author that the people of this Brave New World defy any reason to exist in the first place.  I agree with John in chapter 17 when he says “I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."  Wanting these things is what gives live meaning otherwise you just have an existence, but no meaning.