Transcript Brave New World

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.
• Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and
several other techniques are
almost always present.
• Brave New World is an unsettling,
loveless and even sinister place
• Huxley exploits anxieties
about Soviet Communism
and American capitalism.
• The price of universal
happiness will be the
sacrifice of honored
shibboleths of our culture:
“motherhood,” “home,”
“family,” “freedom,” even
“love.”
• 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
conveyor-belt reproduction.
• 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
• He instills
the fear that a
future world
state 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. This is a time of:
propaganda,
censorship,
conformity, genetic
engineering, social
conditioning, and
mindless
entertainment.
• This was what Huxley
saw in our future. His
book is a warning.
Utopian Society
• Definition: An imaginary society
organized to create ideal
conditions for human beings,
eliminating neglect, hatred, and all
other evils of the world.
• Does not really exist
Dystopian Society
• Definition: A society which has a
lack of personal freedoms, as well
as political oppression, and
systematic discrimination based on
sex, age, or IQ.
• Examples: Hunger Games,
Divergent, Minority Report, Matrix,
Terminator
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
Catching patients’ eyes
• Lipitor: Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor
of the artificial heart, rowing on a
beautiful lake
• Lamisil: ugly yellow creatures
tucking themselves under your
toenails
• Lunesta: a luna moth
• In 2005, drug companies spent more
than $4 billion on what is termed
direct-to-consumer advertising,
according to the Government
Accountability Office.
• That is about 1/7 of the amount the
companies spent on research and
development
•Nearly 1/3 of that TV ad
money was for what type of
medication?
Sleeping aids
Gauging ads’ impact
• 78 percent of MDs said patients
asked them to prescribe drugs
they had seen on TV
• Patients most often asked for
advertised drugs for acid reflux,
impotence, allergies and insomnia,
the mainstay of TV ad lineups
•
Source: Consumer Reports survey of doctors on direct-to-consumer advertising
Essential Questions to connect
the literature to today’s culture:
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Is it better to be free than to be happy?
Is freedom compatible with happiness?
Is the collective more important than the individual?
Can children be taught effectively to think in only one
certain way?
Can young people be taught so well that they never
question their teachings later?
Is stability more important than freedom?
Can alterations made by advanced science to
mankind be made permanent at the DNA-level?
Can mankind be conditioned by science?
Should the individual be limited/controlled for the
greater good? If so, how much?
“Universal happiness
keeps the wheels steadily turning;
truth and beauty can’t.” Aldous Huxley
Now let’s get
into the text!