Transcript 1932--Brave New World

A satirical
piece of
fiction, not
scientific
prophecy
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.
ELF
40S
Ms.
Van
Den
Buss
 A Utopia is a place or
society that appears
perfect in every way.
 The government is
perfect, working to
improve societies
standards of living rather
then their own, social
aspects of the community
run perfectly.
 There is no war or
disease, only peace and
happiness. Everyone
outside this Utopian
society looks to this place
in wonder and awe,
believing it is completely
perfect in every such way.
Dystopia came from the term
Utopia.
It defines a place or society
which is in complete chaos.
The citizens are all suffering
and are miserable.
Often times in novels what
appears to be a Utopian
society it first by the visiting
protagonist is actually revealed
to be a dystopian society.
The citizens are often revealed
to live in terror, under
complete control by the
government, unaware of
corrupt world in which they
actually live in, or suppressed
by the society as a whole.
“Utopias appear to be much easier to
realize than one formerly believed.
We currently face a question that
would otherwise fill us with
anguish: How to avoid their becoming
definitively real ? The utopias are attainable. Life
marches towards the utopias. And it can be that a
new century begins, a century where the
intellectuals and the educated class will dream
means to avoid the utopias and to return a nonutopian society, less ‘perfect’ and ‘free’.”
Nicolas Berdiaeff
HISTORICAL TIMELINE
Historical Context
o
1879: The first psychological laboratory opens in Germany
o
1886: Freud opens his psychology practice in Austria, experimenting with techniques such as
hypnosis, free association, and dream analysis. From 1900-1905, he publishes his major works on
psychoanalysis, also known as the "talking cure." Freud argued that awareness of the unconscious
mind is essential to understanding conscious thought and behavior. The unconscious mind might be
defined as that part of the mind which gives rise to a collection of mental phenomena that manifest
in a person's mind but which the person is not aware of at the time of their occurrence. These
phenomena include unconscious feelings, unconscious or automatic skills, unnoticed perceptions,
unconscious thoughts, unconscious habits and automatic reactions, complexes, hidden phobias and
concealed desires.
o
1900: Gregor Mendel’s scientific work on genetic inheritance is rediscovered: The biological
techniques used to control the populace in Brave New World do not include genetic engineering;
Huxley wrote the book before the structure of DNA was known. However, Gregor Mendel's work
with inheritance patterns in peas had been re-discovered in 1900 and the eugenics movement, based
on artificial selection, was well established. Huxley's family included a number of prominent
biologists including Thomas Huxley, half-brother and Nobel Laureate Andrew Huxley, and brother
Julian Huxley who was a biologist and involved in the eugenics movement. Nonetheless, Huxley
emphasizes conditioning; as science writer Matt Ridley put it, Brave New World describes an
“environmental not a genetic hell.” Human embryos and fetuses are conditioned via a carefully
designed regimen of chemical (such as exposure to hormones and toxins), thermal (exposure to
intense heat or cold, as one's future career would dictate), and other environmental stimuli…
 1900’s-20's: Introduction of chewing gum, radio, movies, and advertising:
The Industrial Revolution transformed the world. Mass production made cars,
telephones, and radios relatively cheap and widely available throughout the developed
world. The political, cultural, economic and sociological upheavals of the thenrecent Russian Revolution of 1917 and the First World War (1914–1918) resonated
throughout the world as a whole and the individual lives of most people. Accordingly,
many of the novel's characters named after widely-recognized influential people of the
time, for example,
Polly Trotsky, Benito Hoover, Lenina and Fanny Crowne, Mustapha Mond, Helmholtz
Watson, and Bernard Marx.
 1930's-40's: Rise of Fascism and Communism: the dictatorships of Hitler (German
head of state from 1934-1945), Stalin (in power in the Soviet Union from 1924-1953),
and Mussolini (Italian head of state from 1943-45). Stalin launched a command
economy, replacing the New Economic Policy of the 1920s with Five-Year Plans and
launching a period of rapid industrialization and economic collectivization. The
upheaval in the agricultural sector disrupted food production, resulting in widespread
famine, including the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–1933.
 1931--Brave New World written: Huxley is inspired by travels to America and a
visit to the newly opened and technologically advanced Brunner and Mond plant, part
of Imperial Chemical Industries, or ICI, Billingham, and gives a fine and detailed
account of the processes he saw. 1932--Brave New World published: Brave New
World was inspired by the H. G. Wells's utopian novel Men Like Gods. Wells' optimistic
vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novel, which
became Brave New World. Contrary to the most popular optimist utopian novels of the
time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred
to Brave New World as a “negative utopia.”
Henry Ford &
THE FORD
MOTOR
COMPANY
Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) was from Detroit, Michigan, USA
and made his first car in his back yard in 1896.
After several false starts, the Ford Motor Company was
formed in 1903. The first product was the Model A,
introduced in the same year. Their most successful product
ever, the Model T, came out in September 1908.
The Model T was the world's most successful car of the preWWII era. Between 1908 and 1927, sales outstripped any
other with over 15 million cars and commercial vehicles
produced world-wide... approximately 100,000 Model-Ts
survive... they were available in a variety of body styles,
however the basic mechanical specification was the same in
each.
THE MODEL-T
AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE
THE MODEL-T
AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE
“Reading Brave New World
elicits the same disturbing
feelings in the reader which the
society it depicts has
vanquished.”
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 is centered around
both control and manipulation
• He instills
the fear that a
future world
state may rob
us of the right
to be
unhappy.
Setting: 2540 AD; referred to in
the novel as 632 years AF (“After
Ford”), meaning 632 years after
production of the first Model T
car
Narration: 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
Critical Reception: At the time of
Publication
“After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the
American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or
Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and
made capitalism the common good...Brave New World is
more of a revolt against Utopia than against [traditional
values].” -British Press, 1935
"It is not easy to become interested in the scientifically
imagined details of life in this mechanical Utopia. Nor is
there compensation in the amount of attention that he gives
to the abundant sex life of these denatured human beings." Times Literary Supplement, 1932
"Brave New World is inert as a work of art: nothing can
bring it alive." - New Statesman and Nation, 1932
"[He] has money, social position, talent, friends, prestige and
he is effectively insulated from the misery of the masses. Of
course he wants something to worry about--even if he has to
go to a long, long way to find it...Mr. Huxley must have his
chance to suffer and be brave." -The New Republic, 1932
Contemporary Critical Reception
"Mr. Huxley is eloquent in his declaration of an artist's faith in man,
and it is his eloquence, bitter in attack, noble in defense, that, when
one has closed the book, one remembers." -Saturday Review of
Literature
"A fantastic racy narrative, full of much excellent satire and literary
horseplay." -Forum
"It is as sparkling, as provocative, as brilliant, in the appropriate
sense, as impressive as the day it was published. This is in part
because its prophetic voice has remained surprisingly contemporary,
both in its particular forecasts and in its general tone of semiserious
alarm. But it is much more because the book succeeds as a work of
art...This is surely Huxley's best book." -Martin Green
"This is rather alarming that you're being persuaded below the level of choice and
reason... Advertisement plays a necessary role but the danger of it to a democracy is this:
a democracy depends on the individual voter making a rational choice for enlightened
self-interest. What these people are doing [advertisers] when their purpose is selling
goods, what the dictatorial propagandists are doing, is to try to bypass the rational side of
humanity and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surface--so that you
are in a way making nonsense of the democratic procedure which is based on conscious
choice on rational grounds... Today's children walk around singing beer commercials and
toothpaste commercials."
Huxley on advertising, the media, and propaganda
BRAND ALPHABET
 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.
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
 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
“Manmade utopia is an oxymoron.”
- Mike Duran