Transcript Presentation

Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
A satirical
piece of
fiction, not
scientific
prophecy
Satire:
• A piece of literature designed to
ridicule the subject of the work.
• While satire can be funny, its aim
is not to amuse, but to arouse
contempt/anger.
• Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and
several other techniques are
almost always present.
• Brave New World is an unsettling,
loveless and even sinister place
• “Reading Brave New World
elicits the same disturbing
feelings in the reader which the
society it depicts has
vanquished.”
What does this mean?
• Huxley exploits anxieties
about Soviet Communism
and American capitalism.
• The price of universal
happiness will be the
sacrifice of honored
customs/beliefs of our
culture:
“motherhood,” “home,”
“family,” “freedom,” and
“love.”
Huxley’s Life
• Born in Surrey, England
• July 26, 1894
• Family was deeply rooted in
England’s literary and scientific
tradition
– Grandfather was a famous biologist,
Aunt was a novelist, Great-Uncle was
a poet,
Huxley’s Life (ctnd)
• Mom died of cancer when he was
14…which gave him a sense of
“the transience (brief/short-lived
experience) of human happiness.”
• When he was 16, he developed keratitis
and was partially blind for two years!
• He eventually graduated from Oxford
University with Honors but was unable
to fight in WWI.
Huxley Life (still ctnd)
• He visited the US in 1926 and
loved the hustle/bustle of America.
• He wrote Brave New World five
years later.
• Critics were offended by Huxley’s
portrayal of the future.
• In the 1950’s Huxley became
interested in psychedelic drugs.
Huxley’s Death
• He died on November 22, 1963.
• He took two injections of LSD on
his deathbed.
• This is the same day on which JFK
was assassinated.
• CS Lewis (The Chronicles of
Narnia) also died on this day!
• Mustapha Mond, Resident Controller of
Western Europe, governs a society where all
aspects of an individual's life are determined
by the state, beginning with conception, and
followed by assembly-line decanting.
• A government bureau, the Predestinators,
decides all roles in the hierarchy.
• Children are raised and conditioned by the
state bureaucracy, not brought up by natural
families.
•There are only 10,000 surnames.
• Citizens must not fall in love,
marry, or have their own kids.
• Brave New World, then, is centered
around control and manipulation
• Huxley
instills the
fear that a
future worldstate may rob
us of “the
right to be
unhappy.”
• time and
place
written: 1931,
England
• date of first
publication:
1932
• settings
(place):
England,
Savage
Reservation
in New
Mexico
• settings (time): 2540 AD;
referred to in the novel as 632
years AF (“After Ford”), meaning
632 years after production of the
first Model T car
• narrator: Third-person
omniscient
• point of view: Narrated in the
third person from the point of
view of Bernard or John, but also
from the point of view of Lenina,
Helmholtz Watson, and
Mustapha Mond
• This novel is more applicable today than
it was in 1932. OURS is a time of…
*propaganda,
*censorship,
*conformity,
*genetic engineering,
*social conditioning,
and
*mindless
entertainment.
• This was what Huxley
saw in our future. His
novel is a warning.
Do we have a modern soma?
• Consider the number of ads
for prescription drugs,
which are permitted only
in the United States and
New Zealand
• Doctors and consumer
advocates believe these
ads drive up health-care
costs and seduce millions
into asking their MDs for
drugs they don’t need for
diseases they had never
before heard of, like
restless leg syndrome
Whatever is wrong,
there’s a drug for you,
or so TV ads say
“Universal happiness
keeps the wheels steadily turning;
truth and beauty can’t.” Aldous Huxley