Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a very strange and surreal view on how the future could look like in our world. The people of Earth haven't moved to other planets, discovered other life forms, or made hover crafts, but there is definitely technology improvements. They live in a time called A.F, or After Ford. Ford, for now, I do not know who he is. He is a god, of a sort, but he created the idea of the caste system they use.
Instead of having mother's birth us, we are made in machines. They literally take the egg from the female and sperm of another male and make thousands of children per day. Each egg is successful, but what class they will be in depends on their mother. They have the ability to deprive the embryo of oxygen and other nutrients, making either an Epsilon, Delta, Alpha, or Beta. In the embryo, they are given vaccines as we would be given as children. Some are given alcohol as well to see the effects it causes.
If that wasn't enough, mothers, fathers, and families are unheard of. The children are raised in facilities where they are trained by hypnopaedia, or unconscious learning, and allowed to run naked amongst each other. They are raised with the brains of a ten year old at the age of three, and develop much faster. Take a puppy, for example. It matures physically very rapidly, but not mentally. Humans develop moderately fast mentally, but not physically. Their goal is to be able to mature fast physically and emotionally at the same rate.
The only morale in Brave New World, is that of Ford, and what they are taught young. They have paragraphs of their class pounded into their brain, and do not care for anything else. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, none of these exist. They are, more so, a blight upon our history. The thought of a God horrifies them.
Erotic behavior is also highly encouraged for all ages. It is even the most common thing, and to not have a lover is shameful. They laugh at how we consider it to be immoral and wrong to wait until we are much older. It is an... interesting way of thinking, to say the least.
This book, however, doesn't have a plot so far. It is more so a description with some characters to help explain than it is a story. Though highly interesting, I'm curious to see if it ever will have a plot. It has high potential for one, but it is not necessary. I am eager to finish the next few hundred pages and see how the book unfurls.
Only the foreword is by Christopher Hitchens. The actual novel is by Aldous Huxley. Other than that, nice work!
ReplyDeleteThe novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley portrays a future where humans have used science in order to benefit the global economy. Governments all around the world have adopted the political system of Marxism in the novel, which is basically a form of communism. The basic belief of Marxism is to supply the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. To achieve this goal the government doesn’t try to make everyone equal, in fact, you could say that they do the complete opposite.
ReplyDeletePeople are produced in government buildings by machines, and are raised in state controlled facilities there until they can work. Throughout the course of being raised they are exposed to certain situations and environments in order to mold them to fit into their predetermined social class. Some people are raised to be Alphas, who are the leaders of society. The middle class is composed of Betas and Gammas, and the lower class is mostly Deltas and Epsilons. Based on the needs of society different amount of the classes can be produced.
Along with being able to produce people as they are needed, the government can control the thoughts and opinions of these people. While being raised in state facilities, children don’t have parents to teach them morals and ethics. Instead, the government teaches children everything that they know about the world. To teach the children a recording is played to them every night as they are sleeping. Based on what their predetermined class is, the children learn different things. Classes are taught to look down on all other classes that they aren’t in. The government also teaches these people to consume as much as possible by saying things like, “The more stitches the less riches,” and, “Ending is better than mending.”
So far, this novel portrays a society that is highly controlled by government, however it does not have a plot yet. The first 90 pages really just explain Huxley’ vision of the future, and I hope that a story evolves from this very intriguing setting.
Entry 1
ReplyDelete"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
(Page 72 of 267)
In the foreword, Huxley explains how this novel has a theme of how advancement in science affects humans as individuals. As I begin to read this book, I am beginning to see how the futuristic setting of this novel shapes it in many different ways which I have never seen before. The entire concept of human mass-production greatly intrigues me. Huxley projects this world as one where humans are basically produced in tubes along an assembly line, and are put into categories (Alpha, Beta, Gamma etc.). Each of these categories has a role in society and are taught separate lessons which influence their behavior as members of society. I am interested by this idea of mass-production because the way Huxley explains it makes it seem entirely plausible.
Also, I enjoy the way Huxley has shaped the future society. This future society has so many different morals and opposing values to society today which makes it very compelling to me. For example, this future society views the concept of a family and viviparous reproduction equivalent to a sin. This extreme change in society from present time to the future setting in this novel is believable, but at the same time a little broad and unexplained. However, I do expect the ways of society to clear up throughout the novel.
The beginning of the novel is not based around a central character, but is a third-person omniscient view following many different groups of characters. Usually the novels I read tend to start off strongly with a main character and that character's objective, but the difference in this novel makes me eager to read more.
Entry 2
ReplyDelete"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
(Page 125 of 267)
As I read through this section of the novel I immediately noticed another aspect of Huxley's writing I did not notice before. I noticed the many vivid details and extreme explanation of the setting around the characters. Huxley uses imagery in this novel in a way that I have not seen much in other novels. Huxley writes many different explanations for a single item at a time. When I was reading, the extra explanations of even small details helped me to understand what was going on in the story better. Without the extra imagery I think it would be harder for a reader to grasp the story and it would also be harder to believe the story. The setting of Brave New World is in the future, which could be projected differently for every person. Everyone could have an idea of what society might have accomplished hundreds of years to the future, but each person's ideas will be unique.
I also enjoy the irony of soma. The members of “Civilized” society in Brave New World believe themselves to have found the perfect balance of lifestyles. They see themselves as perfect, when there is still flaws. These flaws made by Huxley exemplify some of the flaws of society today. Soma is a drug which people take to influence a heightened mood and self-confidence. Characters use soma as a scapegoat from the world around them, similar to problems with drug scapegoats in society today. Lenina states that she could take soma when she traveled to the savage reservation to protect her from the differences around her. She would use it to ignore the separate culture and separate way of life on the reservation. When she realizes she has forgotten her supply of soma, she see's her visit to the reservation as something she has to bear through. The irony of soma is that in this “perfect world” the characters still have a “crutch” they use to shield themselves from the world. Many people in society today drink alcohol or use drugs for the same reason, as a scapegoat. Huxley emphasizes the problems of scapegoats in society today by clearly presenting soma as the perfect example.
However, the reservation seems somewhat unbelievable to me. The people who avoid viviparous reproduction show themselves as acceptable people who could adapt to other's situations. The fact that there is a reservation of cultures which still practice viviparous reproduction seems to not really fit the society the novel is based off. I would be able to believe that there was still groups of people who still practiced sexual reproduction in this society as just a separate part of the city, not an entire reservation. From the views of the "Civilized", anything that involves sexual reproduction is wrong. So instead of being acceptable that a certain people still practice natural ways of having children, they confine them to a filthy reservation. I enjoyed how Huxley explains the reservation and shows the horrors, but still find it to be somewhat unimportant to the plot of the novel. Who knows? Maybe the reservation will be a massive role in the story, but I will only be able to find that out as I read on.
So far: Page 153 out of (technically) 231
ReplyDeleteI mentioned in my previous blog post that Brave New World seemed to lack any real characters. I have been proven wrong as I read on. We were introduced to the character Lenina, who is a Beta Plus woman. She is commonly referred to as one of the prettiest woman in the Beta's, along with her friend Fanny. Lenina and Fanny mostly go around and socialize with many men, from my perspective. Lenina actually sleeps with many of these men, and it's considered "having them" when in the view point of a male character.
One major aspect of Lenina's character is her strange attraction to the odd Bernard. Bernard is unlike any other character, as he does not indulge soma, which seems to be a drug to increase the happiness of oneself. He actually questions the life around London, and is more so a normal human being to our standards. It is with him that Lenina travels to New Mexico to visit a reservation.
The reservation is not like the Indian reservations that you might find in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, though the people in there are treated similarly to that of Indians. They are "savages" and live life like we do in the modern age. They have mothers and families, unlike the people in London, and think that the outside world is beyond their reach.
While there, Bernard and Lenina meet Linda, who was once a civilized person in London but left in New Mexico on accident. She could have been brought back normally, had it not been for her son. Now that she is a mother (of which they always write as "m-----" in the book), most people consider her a savage as well. She has become "ugly" and "fat", and when they take her and her son, John, back, she indulges herself with soma. Linda sets herself in a soma-coma, and refuses to come out.
John is quite handsome, according to the book, and has an attraction to Lenina, one of which she shares. He doesn't know how to express it, however, and spends most of his time with his mother. People in London wonder why, since she is so repulsive to them, and offer him soma to make him stop. But he refuses soma after seeing the affects it has done to his mother.
I'm quite enjoying this novel so far, and I am curious as to how it will end.
I am actually starting to enjoy this novel. After almost 100 pages of explaining the setting there is finally a story line. The society of the future is basically portrayed as a bunch of promiscuous, mindless, drug taking people. However, Bernard, an alpha, thinks that the ways of his society inhibit people from truly having emotions. Since Bernard feels this way, he takes another alpha, Lenina, with him to an Indian reservation in New Mexico where the ways of the modern world have not been accepted. Bernard is fascinated by everything that he sees on the reservation. People have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and other relatives. The concept of family is completely foreign to Bernard. Lenina, however, finds everything to be absolutely repulsive. While they are there, they see the “savages” perform rituals, and find a former alpha who got lost on the reservation years earlier. Since becoming lost she has had a child, and is therefore considered to be a savage, too.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is a plot emerging in the novel, I feel that it has taken too long to begin the story. I think that Huxley spent a little too much time explaining his fictional future. Almost 1/3 of the book was used just to explain the setting, and maybe I’m just being impatient, but I think that is just excessive explaining.
Pages: 231 out of (technically) 231
ReplyDeleteI have finished the first part of the book, and I now am beginning to see why people consider this novel to be such a phenomena. It ends with a cliffhanger; a strange way to end a book without a sequel. However, Huxley did end up writing a sequel, and my copy includes this, which I plan to read for my fourth post.
The first part ends with the Savage, whom was brought back to London for examination, exiling himself from the world. He had been tempted by Lenina, who almost forced herself upon him, but his morality wouldn't let her. He wanted to show her that he deserved her affection because he had done something amazing for her, hard labor, but she didn't understand. That's not how civilization works in the novel, so she thinks that he is just being silly. Angry at her protests, he forces her into the bathroom where she hides for hours. It is only until the Savage, or John, learns that his mother is in the hospital over an overdose of soma that she leaves.
In the hospital, where children go to learn to accept death as a great thing, Linda, John's mother, dies with her son by her side. He prays to God, something very uncommon, about how miserable he is, and cries. Many of the attendants supervising the children tell him to leave, for he is ruining their training (meanwhile, the children are insulting his mother about her appearance). Outraged at their ignorance to death, he lashes out at the children and flees. Now John is on a rampage around the town; how can they live in a world with no mothers? he wonders. In the process of his rage, he attacks a soma booth, throwing a good amount of soma into the lake, which ends up with him being arrested.
They now spoke to the head of the city, who is punishing not only John, but Bernard and another man for their actions. He plans on sending the man and Bernard away to an uncivilized island for their actions (basically what we live in now). With John, he has a long chat trying to explain why they live the way they do. There is a marvelous monologue by the man about religion, and why it is useless, but also by John about how wonderful it is. I would quote it, but there is too much needed to explain. Finally, at the end, the man explains that they are keeping John at London for research on his reactions to their world.
Now, you can imagine that this doesn't work so well in John's mind. So, he takes his money given to him, buys flour, blankets, mustard, water, and other supplies necessary for life, but no prosthetic food. He then goes to a Lighthouse to purify himself in the eyes of god, drinking mustard and warm water and actually doing labor to gather meat for food. Many people start to come by and watch him like an animal in the zoo after a pair of twins saw him whipping himself like the Son of Christ was for thinking of Lenina. The book then ends with him running into his Lighthouse, and the reporters walking in to find nothing...
This book has been thrilling so far, and I can't wait to read Brave New World: Revisited for my fourth blog.
The last couple chapters of this book I had to read twice, just to even begin to understand all the ties Huxley presents to the reader all at one time. Any person could gain a lot from reading through even only the last part of the novel because of all the philosophy and stimuli it contains. Myself, I really like to read through passages so philosophical that I cannot understand them. At this point, I read over at least a couple more times, slower, as that seems the only way for the words to sink in.
ReplyDeleteHuxley explores religion, happiness, stability vs. instability, misery, misfortune, and temptation in the “verbal battle” between John and Mustapha Mond. However, it is not so much a verbal battle as it is just one of John's inquiries followed by an answer from Mustapha. This conversation is greatly beneficial to the reader because for one, it gets one thinking and two, helps shed light on the whole “Civilized” futuristic way of life. John's curiosity and his persistent “Why”s are what allow the conversation to go into such depth.
As well as John's insight and trading of thoughts with Mustapha, his entire situation of being exiled to the lighthouse is another one of Huxley's awesome creations of art. Even though the outcome of John's publicity and paparazzi-like attention was depressing, it was not expected at all as I was reading. Until the civilians started to approach the quiet lighthouse and open the door to find the dangling feet, I would have never guessed John to decide and commit to this release from his human existence.
Brave New World
ReplyDeleteNovel Review
1.09.11
Brave New World is one of Huxley's best novels, filled with stimulating phenomena and an incredibly distinct setting for future society. Brave New World is a novel which the society is complete and in perfect stability. People are made in tubes and conditioned over and over with hypnopaedic technologies. Every person in “civilized” society looks youthful, is genetically made in a tube, and has a specific organ of society in which they fit into; Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each status has separate jobs from the other and are conditioned to be a valuable member to society while also being happy. John, a young man from an Indian reservation, gets to meet this “Brave New World”. When he finds that their lives see his as savage and improper, he sets out to prove that his way of life is filled with liberty without slavery.
Huxley explores deep philosophical insights and conversations between characters that will leave the reader awed. His unique perspective of the future sheds light onto present-day issues and complications with society. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this novel a 9.6.
Well, my comrades have pretty much summarized everything, but I feel a little bit different about the ending than they do.
ReplyDeleteIn the last chapter, a crowd is gathered outside of John the Savage's house. Once, John comes out of his house, he begins attacking Lenina with a whip. This causes the crowd to break out into a riot, when all of a sudden, someone starts chanting, "Orgy-porgy", which is exactly what happens. When John wakes up the next morning and realizes what happened the night before, he hangs himself.
I think the reason that John killed himself was because he realized that he had just gone against everything he believes in. He always wanted to "have" Lenina, but he didn't want her just physically, the way the New World said he should. John wanted to feel an emotional connection to Lenina, like the loves portrayed in Shakespeare.
Once John gives into the pressures of society, he feels overwhelming guilt and shame, so he decides the only way out is to end his life.
Brave New World Review: 8.5 out of 10
ReplyDeleteBrave New World by Christopher Huxley is an entirely new perspective towards the idea of the future, but how you take in the information really determines your overall view of the novel. It’s strange writing style can be taken many different ways; it could be similar to an essay with the format and style, but it can also be a story that doesn’t end. For me, it was a mixture of both.
In the beginning of the book, it started with a group walking around one of the many factories that produced children. It took quite a long time to explain how the system works, along with adding in a few questions here and there from the group to explain the way that they were living. It was in this portion of the book that felt the most like an essay written in the form of a story due to dialog. The information given was presented in a way that could be extremely boring if you’re not reading it carefully; hence the reason why it took me a couple of tries to get into the book. Take A Tale of Two Cities, for example. The first chapter is filled with information on the time period and the surroundings of the setting, giving the reader a good perspective on the events to come. For me, I couldn’t read past it for a long time because it was such an overload of information. In this book, it’s not as bad, but it has the same feel. However, later on in the book, it proves to be useful.
When they start to introduce the characters of the book that will play the most important roles, you can really start to pair the info with examples. Look at Bernard; he is a perfect example of comparing the information of how smoothly and gleefully the world is in comparison to his “odd” behavior. Bernard behaves like any normal person would in this day and age, so for us; it would seem rude to treat him like he was different from the rest. However, next to what the world has become, he is an aberration. The world does not have any bad emotions, preserving the peace between countries. When anyone feels normal emotions besides happiness and bliss, they take what’s called a soma pill to bring back the air of glee.
This becomes even more apparent when he and Lenina bring back the Savage to London, which starts the main part of the story. John, the Savage’s normal name, goes against everything that “normal people” have been raised to believe, but they want him to stay for research purposes alone. As John starts to understand why they live the way they do, though, he starts to develop hatred towards the new era of man. So, wrapping up the book as well, he exiles himself near a lighthouse to “crucify” himself under the eye of God without any of the processed food and/or items the new world has created. With this, the book ends with him torturing himself and the rest of the world starting in amazement.
Ending with this cliffhanger was dangerous, but I feel that it gets the feel of the novel across more after the reader finishes, though. Again, it feels more like an essay instead of a story because of this. There really wasn’t a certain plot to have the characters revolve around, and the characters were really more subjects to help explain the new world. However, the book is executed in a lovely fashion, really letting you get into the setting.
However, I do not think that it deserves anything above an 8.5. Though it was fascinating to read and overall wonderful to think about, it was not a story that I would have picked up on my own was it not for school. For a free-reading book, it’s not one that you would likely pick up for the sole reason of thinking. This book is meant for intriguing the brain with questions and really making you think over your whole perspective on life. So while it’s a nice book, I give it the 8.5 as I state earlier.
The novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley portrays a future in which babies are born from tubes, and taught absolutely everything they know from recordings that play while they sleep. Throughout the novel, Huxley depicts his ideas of the problems and solutions that the "New World" has created.
ReplyDeleteAfter explaining his vision of the New World for almost a third of the book, a plot emerges. John, a savage from the outside world is brought into the New World, and is used for people of the New World to research. John revolts from all the ways of the New World, and tries to find a way to escape.
Although Huxley does a magnificent job of illustrating his vision of a futuristic society, he makes it almost impossible to feel any sort of connection to any of the characters. The novel is thought provoking, but does not draw any emotional response. For this reason I can only give Brave New World a 6 out of 10.