Brave New World

Many of you are familiar with this book from high school reading lists. Despite any ill will because of this, Brave New World is one of the most fascinating books written close to the brilliant of 1984. A dystopian novel based in a society that is genetically forced into superficial happiness, unable to form meaningful relationships through conditioning, Aldous Huxley paints a bleak picture of what is entirely possible.

The narrative follows Lenina Crowne, a picturesque but thoughtless girl, and Bernard Marx, an insecure man who feels isolated from his peers. After giving a lengthy, but highly interesting, description of what the world has become to escape pain, Bernard and Lenina travel to the Savage Reservation, where the last real humans live. These savages are organically grown without conditioning, and have created an odd community based on half remembered Christian and Native American religions. There is, however, one Savage who is not a Native, but the love child from two civilized visitors, one of whom became lost and found herself stuck in the uncivilized village. The Savage, John, returns to England with his mother, and from then on, philosophy is thickly discussed.

The themes of this story are pain, civilization, Shakespeare, religion, sex, and genetics. The entire new society has built itself in such a way to eliminate all pain and suffering, anything that might even be a little unpleasant. Instead, the people busy themselves with frivolous activities, such as golf and multiple sex partners. If something unpleasant should accidentally happen, there is always soma, an opiate that has no side effects from the desired oblivion. The Savage is the only one who appreciates the necessity of pain. He realizes that it is only through pain that you have experience true joy or become a deeper, more thoughtful individual.

Civilization is fact is comprised of all sorts of immoral laws that are completely counter to what American indoctrination has taught us. Instead of freedom, liberty, truth, or justice, civilization is all about what can keep the population busy and moderately satisfied but unable to rebel. The idea of a society that wants complete control of everything is reminiscent of O’Brian in 1984, who states the purpose of power is more power. This government has no goals other than containment.

The title of this book comes from the Tempest, my favorite Shakespeare play. Throughout the book, the Savage repeatedly quotes Miranda and other famous lines from Shakespeare to express himself eloquently. The brave new world of which Miranda speaks, however, is significantly different from the horror show Huxley presents as a possible future.

Religion is supposedly juvenile, or so the government claims. Only the savages practice any sort of real religion, through in actuality it is a combination of many religions. In civilized society, there is an odd perversion of religious sacraments, but it holds no emotional meaning, and so is dead. It’s only in the uncontrolled world of the savages where passion can be expressed through either old culture such as Shakespeare, or punitively outdated culture, such as religion. Even through Bernard has never experienced a real religious transformation; he still yearns for something deeper and more spiritual, in direct assault to his conditioning.

According to His Fordship(the leader of England), all civilized people are required to have many sexual partners, so as to avoid any deep, meaningful relationships or attachments. The Savage, the uncivilized one, instead advocates monogamy in accordance to his religious beliefs. Huxley is clearly condemning the trends in society to sleep with many partners, associating it with a loss of feeling or conscience.

The last theme is genetics. From the start of the novel, the audience is shown how personalities and physical traits can be controlled and manipulated from conception onward, blaming genetics for all of a person’s characteristics. None of the members of this new society are ever able to completely separate themselves from their training and development, and so are irresponsible for their own actions, or the consequences therein.

Overall, if you are a fan of classic literature, dystopia, or societal criticism, this is an amazing book. For the rest of you, I’m going to assume you have no taste and will keep this beautiful book on the shelf.