Brave New World

What is Brave New World?

‘Brave New World’ is a novel written by Aldous Huxley which belongs to the genre of dystopian novels, which deal with a possible and frightening future community or society.

Themes

In the novel, the author focuses on western civilization, for which he sees a future of self-destruction symbolised by the suicide of the Savage on the end. The main themes are:

• The effects of scientific progress on the individual = the human species is now created in fertilised eggs and conditioned in order to create specific castes from which one cannot change his own position
• Eugenics = genetic manipulation has changed the way people are born and manipulated in their early age (hypnopedia)
• Fear of totalitarianism = massified conformism with the destruction of individualism
• Utilitarianism = worship for technology and refusal of art and the humanities. Peoplecreated for specific roles in order to serve the state.
• Love for authority (theme off responsability) = people’s unconscious desire to have a figure who chooses for them
• Consumerism and materialism = people are conditioned in order to consume and not recycle (one of the mottos is ‘Ending is better than mending’
• Hedonism = people must feel only pleasure, if not they must take ‘soma’, a new drug that has been invented and which allows to avoid thinking.
• Sexual Promiscuity = people were encouraged to engage promiscuous affairs, thus destroying the idea of family and marriage
• Industrialism = religion does not exist, in fact years are counted based on the year in which Ford released the Tesla model T (1908)

Style and Language

The language in the novel is highly ironic and allusive, also with several references and quotations or specific words from various fields of culture. Besides from the language, the structure presents modern elements, too. in facts, the author uses flashbacks as well as occasional alternations of parallel passages (ex. chapter 3) as a sort of interwoven commentary.

This was Brave New World! 😉

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