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Brave New World

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Book cover of Brave New World.
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Book cover of Brave New World.

Brave New World, written in 1932, was first intended as a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley. Set in London in the 26th century, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, eugenics and hypnopædia that combine to change society. The world it describes could in fact also be a utopia, albeit an ironic one: Humanity is carefree, healthy, and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated, and everyone is permanently happy. The irony is, however, that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things — family, cultural diversity, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, focused on deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drugs.

Brave New World is Huxley's most famous and enduring novel. The title comes from Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"
Contents

History and context

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932 while he was living in England (a British writer, he moved to California in 1937). By this time Huxley had already established himself as a successful writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines, had published a collection of his poetry entitled The Burning Wheel in 1916, and published four successful satirical novels, Crome Yellow in 1921, Antic Hay in 1923, Those Barren Leaves in 1925, and Point Counter Point in 1928. Brave New World was Huxley's fifth novel and first attempt at a utopian novel.

The novel was inspired by the H.G. Wells utopian novel Men Like Gods. Inspired by Wells's optimist vision of the future, Huxley began writing a parody of the novel which became Brave New World. Contrary to the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time Huxley sought to provide a more frightening vision of the future. Huxley himself referred to Brave New World as a "negative utopia".

Although the novel is set in the future the themes and issues raised were heavily influenced by contemporary issues of the early 20th century. The Industrial Revolution was bringing about massive changes to the world, and to the personal lives of people living in it. Mass production had made cars, telephones, and radios relatively cheap and widely available throughout the developed world. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had brought totalitarian governments to the forefront of the world stage and, although The First World War (1914-1918) was over, its social effects were still resonating throughout the world.

Huxley was able to use the setting and characters from his futurist fantasy to express widely held opinions and concerns, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. The one event that gave Brave New World much of its character was an early trip to America. Not only was Huxley outraged by the culture of youth, commercial-led cheeriness and inward-looking nature of many of the people (source: Vintage Classics edition of Brave New World), he also found a book by Henry Ford on the boat that was taking him to America in the first place. There was a prevalent fear of worldwide Americanisation in Europe, so to see America firsthand, as well as read the ideas and plans of one of its most foremost citizens, spurred Huxley on to write Brave New World with America very much in mind. The "feelies" are his response to the movies, and the sex-hormone chewing gum is a parody of the ubiquitous chewing gum which is something of a symbol of America (especially at that time) as well as the music that they listen to being American jazz and the fact that the people all live in skyscrapers.

Structure

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
At its core, Brave New World is a novel of ideas. The characters are often ill-defined, serving mainly to advance the themes Huxley wishes to explore. The novel is roughly split into three sections.

The first section introduces the reader to the World State and the characters that inhabit it. Bernard Marx begins the novel as the apparent main protagonist, portrayed as one of the few dissatisfied individuals in a world of conformity.

In the second section Huxley defies traditional utopian novel structure as he introduces a separate and contradictory version of the future, the Malpais Savage Reservation. This "uncivilized" nation is a vision of the present. Both of them are presented in an equally convincing fashion, allowing Huxley and the reader to contrast his futuristic utopian vision with contemporary society. This contrast is made even more evident by his introduction of the character John the Savage. Here again, Huxley defies convention by introducing the novel's real main protagonist nearly halfway through the novel. An outcast in both the Savage Reservation and the World State, John replaces Bernard Marx, becoming a heroic (albeit flawed) figure. With John's arrival in the World State, a place already somewhat familiar to the reader, Huxley is able to provide a new perspective for the reader to consider.

The third section deals almost entirely with John's reaction to, and inevitable destruction by, The World State.

Characters

Of The World State

Listed in order of appearance-

Of the Malpais Savage Reservation in New Mexico

Historical characters

These are fictional and factual characters who died before the events in this book, but are of note in the novel.

Synopsis

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Introduction to The World State & Lenina and Bernard (Chapters 1-6)

The novel begins in London, in the "year of Our Ford 632" (AD 2540 in the Gregorian Calendar). The entire planet is united as The World State, under a peaceful world government established in the aftermath of an apocalyptic global war in the 21st century; a government which has eliminated war, poverty, crime, and unhappiness by creating a homogenous high-tech society across Earth, based on the industrial principles of Henry Ford. Fordism forms the bedrock of the new society, gaining a quasi-religious status and forming the backbone of political and economic ideologies. Society is rigidly divided into five classes, and all members of society are trained to be good consumers to keep the economy strong. All citizens are expected to be involved socially; spending time alone is discouraged, and sexual promiscuity is the social norm. Recreational drug use has become a pillar of society, and all citizens regularly swallow tablets of soma, a narcotic-tranquilizer that makes users mindlessly happy. A significant aspect of the society is the mechanisation of reproduction. Citizens of the World State do not reproduce naturally; people are taught to view natural reproduction as a barbarous and primitive act. Instead, all children are created from embryos grown in factories: production of embryos is planned according to the economic capacity of society. For the embryo, the womb is replaced by an artificial life-support mechanism referred to as a bottle. Significantly, each individual's destiny is determined long before he or she is "decanted".

Huxley reveals the world through the eyes of the main protagonists, Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx (their names allude to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and founder of communism Karl Marx). Lenina, a member of the Beta-Plus caste is a laboratory worker in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. She is a personification of the new society, happy and "pneumatic", conformist in her behaviour, fulfilling her function in society, which seems to be to sleep with as many men as possible, but largely incapable of free thought. Government indoctrination is the source of her worldview. Bernard, an Alpha-Plus psychologist serves as an antithesis to her. Despite being a member of the upper caste of Alphas, Bernard is intellectually gifted but physically smaller than is typical for an Alpha. This has caused him to be unhappy with his life and to dislike society. He feels deeply insecure with himself and is something of a joke to members of his own caste and others for his odd physical appearance and rejection of societal norms.

The first half of the novel describes life in the World State, and the personalities of Lenina and Bernard. It also introduces the character of Helmholtz Watson, an Alpha-Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing). While Bernard's physical defects had isolated him from society, Helmholtz is isolated by his mental and physical excess. This isolation brings Bernard and Helmholtz together and they remain friends throughout the story. Bernard's unacceptable behaviour lands him in trouble with his boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning. But nevertheless, Bernard secures his permission to visit the Malpais Savage reservation in New Mexico to where he takes Lenina on a date.

The Reservation and the Savage (Chapters 7-9)

The second half of the novel begins with the visit to the Malpais Savage Reservation in New Mexico, where they see an ancient society that has been fenced off and ignored by The World State. In the reservation, the two encounter Linda, a woman from The World State who, through an accident, came to live as a savage in Malpais, having given birth to a son named John, the novel's main protagonist. While Lenina is disgusted and horrified by the dirty, neglected and viviparous society of Malpais, Bernard is fascinated by it and by John, who grew up with the lifestyle of the Zuni Native American tribe and a religion that is a blend of Zuni and Christian beliefs. However, he is also influenced by his mother's education (she taught him to read) and by his discovery of the works of William Shakespeare, unknown in The World State. Like Bernard, John is an outcast in his own society and is eager to see the world outside of Malpais. Bernard agrees to take Linda and John back to London, where he manipulates society's fascination with them to boost his own social position.

The Savage Visits The World State (Chapters 10-15)

The culture shock which results when the "savage" is brought into the society of the "Brave New World", as he initially calls it, provides a vehicle for Huxley to contrast the values of The World State society with our own and point out the Brave New World society's major flaws. The key moral point of the book revolves around two diametrically opposing problems. The first, and most obvious, is that in order to ensure continuous and universal happiness, society has to be manipulated, freedom of choice and expression curtailed, and intellectual pursuits and emotional expression inhibited. Citizens are happy, but John the Savage considers this happiness to be artificial and "soulless". John, who has fallen in love with Lenina, is appalled by the World State and Lenina's promiscuity and willingness to sleep with him without vows. While in London, John meets and quickly becomes friends with Helmholtz Watson. They meet often to discuss writing, especially that of Shakespeare. When his mother Linda dies, John is unable to understand society's reaction to death and reacts violently by attempting to "free" a group of Delta caste menial staff members at the hospital by throwing their daily soma ration out the window. The result is a near riot, to which Bernard and Helmholtz arrive in an attempt to rescue John. Unfortunately the police arrive at the melee and after subduing the crowd with vaporized soma and hypnotic music, they quickly take all three into State custody.

Resolution (Chapters 16-18)

This leads to a confrontation between the three and Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. The heated argument between Mustapha and John ultimately leads to the decision that John will not be set free because Mustapha considers him an ongoing experiment. Bernard and Helmholtz, in a twist of fate, are sent to live in the Falkland Islands, one of several island colonies reserved for exiled citizens of the World State who can no longer be trusted to live in global society, where Helmholtz can become a serious writer and Bernard can live out his life in peace and solitude. John attempts to isolate himself from society on the outskirts of London; however, he is unable to live without lusting for Lenina and constantly punishes himself physically and mentally. This causes him to be constantly harassed by inquisitive sightseers. At the very end of the novel, John attacks Lenina and succumbs to an orgy of drugs and sex. In the morning John, horrified by what he has done to Lenina and disgusted by himself, commits suicide in grief, mirroring Shakespeare's Othello.

Fordism and society

The World State is built around the principles of Henry Ford, who has become a Messianic figure worshipped by society. The word lord has been replaced with the similar-sounding ford. The assembly line process is present in many aspects of life, and the symbol "T" has replaced the Christian cross, a reflection of the Model T. Ford's famous phrase "History is bunk" has become The World State's fundamental approach to the past.


From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated, by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called "hypnopædia" in the book), to believe that their own class is the best fit for them. Any residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant and somewhat hallucinogenic drug called soma.


Contrary to what modern readers would expect, the biological techniques used to control the populace in Brave New World do not include genetic engineering. Huxley wrote the book in 1932, twenty years before Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA. As the science writer Matt Ridley put it, Brave New World describes an "environmental, not a genetic, hell." Human embryos and fetuses are conditioned via a carefully designed regimen of chemical (such as exposure to certain hormones, and even certain toxins), thermal (exposure to intense heat or cold, as one's future career would dictate), and other environmental stimuli.



Possible symbolism


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It has been discussed by several literary critics, and backed up by Aldous Huxley, that the book, while satirizing the development of society, also provides a suicidal outlook on the future.  In the novel, the reservation (which is associated with the past, and all the squalor and disease in it) and the futuristic society come together in the protagonist, John.  In a metaphorical sense, this coming together could represent the present, as John is neither fully part of the past or future societies.  At the end of the novel, John commits suicide out of remorse, but it can also be inferred that he commits suicide because there is nowhere left for him to go.  All he has is the disease-ridden past or the conformist future.


In other themes, the book attacks assembly line production as demeaning, the liberalisation of sexual morals as being an affront to love and family, the use of slogans or thought-terminating clichés, the concept of a centralised government, and the use of science to control people's thoughts and actions. Indeed, the use of modern science, technology, and pharmacy to replace violence in keeping people chained in pleasurable (and thus unperceived) servitude was the main point of the book. While Huxley attacks the emergence of socialist and communist attitudes, he also opposes capitalist consumer society. Indeed, the latter motifs are stronger than the former: in the novel, the legendary founder of the society was Henry Ford, whose writings occupy Mustapha Mond's bookshelves. The letter T (a reference to the Ford Model T) has replaced the cross as a quasi-religious symbol.


As a method of underscoring similarities to his fictional dystopia and his own contemporary culture, Huxley incorporates several sly,  satirical references to targets such as the Church of England (which he refers to as a "community sing"), the BBC or British tabloid The Daily Mirror ("The Delta Mirror"), "Christian Science Monitor" ("The Fordian Science Monitor"), Henry Ford, George Bernard Shaw and Sigmund Freud.  Brave New World's London propaganda centre is at Fleet Street, the traditional home of the British press, and the pseudo-religious Arch-Community Songster is based at Canterbury, where the clerical head of the modern day Church of England sits.


Huxley's characters are given names chosen from significant individuals in the World State's past. For example, Bernard Marx refers to Bernard Shaw (one of the few ancient writers left uncensored) and Karl Marx.  Because the World State embodies traits typically attributed to opposite ends of the political spectrum, some of the names Huxley coined refer to diametrically opposed individuals or ideologies.  For instance, we find a young girl named Polly Trotsky and a woman named Morgana Rothschild, echoing both Communist leaders and a dynasty of bankers.  In addition, the name Henry Foster draws a parallel to William Foster, an American communist who ran for President in 1924, 1928, and 1932, all around the time of the book's publishing.  Among these references are the following: 





Two characters are named after a blend of fascists and industrialists: 

Furthermore, there are references to the emerging communist state of the Soviet Union in the 1930s:

Other minor characters who take their names from scientists, political leaders, and industrial leaders:

Additionally, the word "Ford" is used as a replacement for the word Lord or God; the starting date for their calendar is the date on which Henry Ford introduced the Model T (equivalent to 1908), their dates are prefaced by A.F., for After Ford, and in dialogue, the word Ford is used in expressions such as "Oh my Ford!", in a clear substitution for Lord. These details allude to the religious level in which mass industry is treated in Brave New World.



Controversy



Comparison with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four


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Brave New World and George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four are often used in political discussions of government actions perceived to be authoritarian.  However, a key difference between Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World is that while in Nineteen Eighty-Four people are kept from knowledge perceived to be "dangerous" by means of continual mass surveillance, propaganda and other forms of coercion, in Brave New World the characters are socially engineered not to desire dangerous knowledge in the first place. One could say that while in Nineteen Eighty-Four people are dehumanised by the state controlling their natural instincts such as sex or free thought, the World State of Brave New World infantilises the masses by giving free rein to basic human instincts and ceding responsibility to herd mentality. Huxley himself described the difference in means of punishment and reward. Nineteen Eighty-Four's world is ruled with hate and fear, while the One State uses constant rewards for model behavior to control the masses.


Both novels incorporate a class of people (in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the "proles" and in Brave New World, the "savages" of the "Savage Reservations") who exist on the periphery of the dystopian society in a state of relative physical squalor with little interference outside of an enforced state of non-education who serve as an important device for contrast between the dystopian society in question and what the author arguably perceives as being a more ideal society.


Superficially, the societies depicted in the two books take diametrically opposite attitudes to sex. In Nineteen Eighty-Four sex is acceptable solely for the purpose of procreation and women are encouraged to join the "Anti-Sex League"; in "Brave New World" children are encouraged from a young age to play sexual games, in preparation for a life of promiscuity, women take pride in being "pneumatic" and procreation is taken over by machines. However, a deeper look would show that by opposite routes both regimes aim at the same final goal: to eliminate romantic love and the creation of permanent, exclusive emotional bondings between two individuals, which both regimes evidently consider highly undesirable. The fierce love between Winston and Julia which is such a central theme in Orwell's book would be just as much out of place in the society depicted by Huxley - but rather than rooting such a love out by force, this society resorts to thorough conditioning which would prevent it from starting in the first place, as evident for example in the character of Lenina.


Further to the above, both regimes evidently view the family with disfavor. The Orwellian regime weakens the family and constantly interefes with it - selection of marriage partners is largely done by the Party rather than by themselves; with the tlelscreens they never have any privacy at home; and most devastating to family life, children are actively encouraged to spy and inform on their parents. The society described by Huxley has a far more through solution: the family is abolished altoghether, with children born and bred in the "bottles", and the terms "father" and "mother" surviving only as obscenities.   


The two novels also contrast in many ways. The nightmare world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is dominated by suffering. Slavery, torture, and war are the societal norms of the world, and the overriding theme is one of intense hatred. That of Brave New World, in contrast, is one of euphoric love. War, crime, and even pain have been eliminated, allowing all citizens of the World State to live long, permanently happy lives in peace and plenty. The ghoulish fascination London's citizens have in John's self-abuse highlights the extent to which society has been conditioned to abhor negative feelings.


In addition, the society presented in Brave New World is, to some extent, tolerant of outsiders, in so much as it respects the idea of there being an "outside". While the dystopian world of 1984 is all-encompassing, the world Brave New World includes "savage reservations" and "the islands". The latter are effectively places of exile for freethinkers, but they are also to some extent a "safe haven". No such places exist in 1984.


Social Critic Neil Postman contrasts the worlds of 1984 and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1986 book Amusing Ourselves to Death thusly: 



What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.




Quotes from Shakespeare in Brave New World




Brave New World Revisited


Brave New World Revisited


Brave New World Revisited (Harper & Row, 1958, 1965), written by Huxley almost thirty years after Brave New World, was a non-fiction work in which Huxley considered whether the world had moved towards or away from his vision of the future from the 1930s.  He believed when he wrote the original novel that it was a reasonable guess as to where the world might go in the future, but in Brave New World Revisited he concluded that the world was becoming much more like Brave New World much faster than he had ever thought possible.


Huxley analysed the causes of this, such as overpopulation, as well as all the means by which populations can be controlled.  He was particularly interested in the effects of drugs and subliminal suggestion.  Brave New World Revisited is different in tone and impact to the original novel, due to Huxley's evolving thought and his conversion to Vedanta between the two books.



Related media works


Literature





Brave New World in popular culture



The cultural influence of Brave New World  has been extensive, and most modern dystopic fiction owes at least some measure of credit to the influence of the novel. The heavy metal group Iron Maiden's song and album "Brave New World" were inspired by this novel, the rock group The Strokes' song "Soma" may have been inspired by the drug in this novel by the same name, and Jason Mordaunt's 2003 novel Welcome To Coolsville[link] features a character who is the first human gestated in an artificial womb (the standard method of gestation in Brave New World).


In the popular simulation computer game "The Sims", the largest television set that the Sims can purchase is called the "Soma" model. It's the perfect way for Sims to forget their troubles, and lull themselves into a tranquil state of passiveness.



Publications

[Brave New World] publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database


See also





External links









References







































 





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