Transcript File
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) Biographical Details • His family were members of the English ruling class and intellectual elite. • An eye injury made him unfit for active service in W.W.I. or engage in scientific work. • Brave New World was written over a four month period in 1931. This was after WWI. and at the onslaught of the Great Depression. This was also before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and Joseph Stalin became responsible for the deaths of millions of people in Germany. • It took him four months to write. A satirical piece of • He died on November 22, 1963 (the same fiction, not day that President John F. Kennedy was scientific assassinated). prophecy Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/creating/Future/pages/braveworld.htm Social structure 10 World Controllers Caste System • Alphas (ruling elite) • Alphas (elite) - grey • Betas-bottle green/mulberry • Gammas-leaf green • Deltas-khaki • Epsilons-lowest, black Science fiction is set in the future, but it is frequently a vehicle for satirizing conditions in the present. “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” Jonathan Swift Satire (n.) – A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. Huxley’s Dystopic View Propaganda—mass media news and advertising Psychology—conditioning, hypnopaedia Biology—genetic engineering (“build-a-baby”) Sociology—crowd psychology; caste system Entertainment—distraction, sensation Drugs—escape Physical environment—comfort, monotony, stability, classbased Consumption—artificial substances over natural, organic substances (food is genetically engineered or synthetic; shelter is cookie-cutter; clothing is produced by cheap 3rd world labour; services are outsourced overseas; pets are cloned) Unchecked Science and Technology Science has become the means of control and enslavement. Humanity as we know has been made obsolete, conception, birth, growth are conducted in test tubes, bottles, and conditioning rooms Individuality is submerged in the larger “state identity” where “everyone belongs to everyone else” religion, spirituality is replaced by endlessly repeated, clichéd “catechisms” and hypnopaedic soundbites nature, anything organic, has been supplanted by artificiality rationality, reasoning are replaced by mindless conditioning Satiric Techniques • Irony, especially verbal irony which is a contrast between what is said and what is really meant • Sarcasm • Understatement • Overstatement or hyperbole • Analogy • Parody Irony Community: No privacy, no solitude, no independent thought or action. Identity: No individuality, no uniqueness, no personal expression; no choices; identity is synonymous with class and nothing else. Stability: No progression; stasis; stagnation. In the hands of the totalitarian-minded controllers, science and “progress” provide the means for completely obliterating the individual!