Themes Examined in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Themes Examined in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The lifestyle of the people created by Aldous Huxley in his novel, Brave New World, is , in many ways, a twisted reflection of our own society. As i read the novel, i noted the similarities and differences between our society and the Brave New World. Their use of anonimity, drugs, manufacturing and conditioning of men’s minds, manufacturing of human cells, and entertainment that drowns the viewer in sensation can be compared to many of our own practices.
For example, in the Brave New World, the people are all identical except those of the higher class groups. Anonimity is a valued and neccesary part of their society because it helps to keep order and maintain conformity. Although this aspect is not completely the same in our world, we do try to conform to a certain image that is deemed acceptable by our society’s standards. Therefore, we sometimes loose sight of our own individual identities. In Brave New World, the people relied on a drug, Soma, to get them through their daly lives and problems. Unfortunately, in our world, people also rely on the use of drugs to help them deal with their troubles.
Like Brave New World, our world practices manipulating and conditioning men’s minds. In Brave New World, the people are conditioned from the time they are in test tubes to think and act in the desired manner. We teach our children from the time of their births to think and act in the manner that we feel is appropriate. Like their society, we even experiment with the cloning and production of the human cell. Of course, our motives are not the same as those of the Brave New World. We use our test tubes to fertilize women, help cure diseases, and possibly regenerate body parts.
In Brave New World, the people love to indulge their senses as do we. Many of our forms of entertainment are similar to the “Feelies”. For example, we have virtual reality, arcade and video games that make you feel as though you are actually part of the game, amusement rides that are meant to thrill us, and surround sound stereo systems. All of these cater to our senses.
Many of the ideas that Huxley used to create his strange society were modeled after many of the strange practices of our own society. ...