Transcript Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley (1932)
A satirical piece
of fiction, not
scientific
prophesy
"How beauteous mankind is! O brave new
world that has such people in it.“
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Having been exiled on an island
with her fatherMiranda makes
this remark when she sees other
human beings for the first time.
Ironically these same people had
plotted against her and her
father, and had attempted
murder but a short while before
she sees them for the first time.
But she is so overcome by the
wonderment of what she is
seeing for the first time that she
calls "good" that which is
potentially or actually evil.
Huxley likens those who consider
scientific advancement an
unsullied good to Miranda - both
are mistaken in their
assumptions but blissfully happy
in their ignorance.
-The Tempest
Miranda – The Tempest
By John William Waterhouse
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.
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Huxley’s ancestry “brought down on him
a weight of intellectual authority and a
momentum of moral obligations.”
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Born in Surrey, England
in 1894 to an illustrious
family deeply rooted in
England’s literary and
scientific community
His grandfather was
Henry Thomas Huxley
who helped developed
the Theory of Evolution.
His background conspired to form the
“perfect storm” of science vs. technology
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His mother was
the sister of the novelist
Mrs. Humphrey and
the niece of the poet
Mathew Arnold
the granddaughter of
Thomas Arnold, a famous
educator. He was a
character in the novel Tom
Brown’s Schooldays by
Thomas Hughes
Not Only History, but Experience
Informs the Narrative
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Suffers from an eye illness that
almost blinds him
Attended Oxford University
and graduated with honors
Could not enlist in WWI due to
eye problems
Dreamed of being a doctor but
poor eyesight prevented him
from realizing his dream
Poor eyesight also prevented
him from entering the army
during WWI, so he
became…wait for it, A
TEACHER – ugh.
Eyesight made him extremely
dependent on his first wife
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The family the world in 1925
and 1926.
His experiences in these
places provided material to be
used in Brave New World (ie.
Benito Mussolini led an
authoritarian government that
fought against birth control in
order to produce manpower for
the war)
Mother dies when he is 14;
notes in his autobiography that
her death gave him a sense of
the transience of happiness.
… And It Can Make You a Little
“Touched”
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Experimented with LSD; he
took the drug over a dozen
times in 10 years.
Legendary rock band The
Doors took their name from
Huxley's "The Doors Of
Perception.".
He allegedly declined a British
knighthood in 1959.
He died on November 22,
1963, the same day President
John F. Kennedy was shot to
death in Dallas, Texas.
Appears on the cover of The
Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band.“
Background of the Novel
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Brave New World (1932), brought Huxley
international fame.
Written just before the rise of dictators
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the novel
did not incorporate the kind of dark and
grim vision of totalitarianism later found in
George Orwell's 1984, which was
published in 1948.
Huxley later commented on this omission
and reconsidered the ideas and themes
of Brave New World in a collection of
essays called Brave New World
Revisited. (1958).
He wrote other novels, short stories, and
collections of essays over the years,
which were, for the most part, popular
and critically acclaimed. Despite being
nearly blind all his life, he also wrote
screenplays for Hollywood, most notably
an adaptations of Jane Austen's Pride
and Prejudice and Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre
A World of Transient Happiness
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Huxley’s world is a mix of
his own scientific and
literary background, his
physical challenges, his
heartbreaks, and his
travels, All these views
conspire with his prevailing
political sensibilities and the
history of the time to
produce the strange
landscape that is Brave
New World.
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“Actual happiness always
looks pretty squalid in
comparison with the
overcompensations for
misery. And, of course,
stability isn't nearly so
spectacular as instability.
And being contented has
none of the glamor of a
good fight against
misfortune, none of the
picturesqueness of a
struggle with temptation, or
a fatal overthrow by passion
or doubt. Happiness is
never grand.”
Brave New World is visually pleasing
but is an unsettling, loveless and even
sinister place
The World of Brave New World
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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.
Controlled by the fear that a future world state may
rob us of the right to be unhappy.
Literary Elements
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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:
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Propaganda
Censorship
Conformity
genetic engineering
social conditioning
mindless entertainment.
Major Ideas Within the Novels
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Huxley was influenced by the
previously established caste
system in Hinduism, which
was abolished in 1949.
Caste systems were created
by predestination and their
function in society.
The caste system in Brave
New World includes 5 major
castes named after Greek
letters (ie. Alpha to Epsilon)
There are differences in the
members of castes (ie. outer
appearance, intelligence,
livelihood).
As a result, everyone is happy
and stability is achieved.
Alphas (Α)– highest, grey
Betas (Β)- bottle green/mulberry
Gammas (Γ)- leaf green
Deltas (Δ)- khaki
Epsilons (Ε)– lowest, black
There are also pluses and minuses with a
caste (Alpha plus, Delta minus)
Variations in castes are achieved through
reproductive method (Bokanovsky for
lower castes) and oxygen deprivation.
Function of the Caste System
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The society in Brave New World seeks to
create happiness for everyone. Everyone is
happy to belong to his or her caste. The
caste system is needed to cover every little
part of the processes that form the society
(ie. work, housing, etc.). Everyone works for
everyone.
Bokanovsky Process
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Fertilization process
used to create Deltas
and Epsilons
Divide fertilized eggs to
produce identical twins
Produces up to 96
embryos, but 72 is the
average
Primary instrument of
social stability
Hypnopaedia
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“The greatest moralizing
and socializing force of all
time”
• Sleep teaching
• Moral education
• Class conditioning
• “The child’s mind is these
suggestions,and the sum of
the suggestions is the
child’s mind”
Soma
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An anti- depressant
and somewhat
hallucinogenic drug
used by World State
citizens to escape their
troubles
Soma really exists and
originated in India
Soma Holidays: “Half a
gramme for a halfholiday”
Orgy Porgy
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A sexual experience used to
unify all people.
NOTE: Sex is not the focus,
unity is.
SOLIDARITY SERVICE
Group of 12 men and women
Drink strawberry flavored Soma
Chant to music
Spiritual experience
Everyone belongs to everyone
Historical Allusions in the Novel
Henry Ford
who has become a
messianic figure to The
World State. "Our Ford"
is used in place of "Our
Lord", as a credit to
popularizing the use of
the assembly line.
Historical Allusions in the Novel
Sigmund Freud
 "Our Freud" is sometimes
said in place of "Our Ford"
due to the link between
Freud's psychoanalysis and
the conditioning of humans,
and Freud's popularization
of the idea that sexual
activity is essential to
human happiness and need
not be open to procreation.
It is also strongly implied
that citizens of the World
State believe Freud and
Ford to be the same person
Historical Allusions in the Novel
H. G. Wells
"Dr. Wells", British writer and
Utopian socialist, whose
book Men Like Gods was
an incentive for Brave New
World. "All's well that ends
Wells" wrote Huxley in his
letters, criticizing Wells for
anthropological
assumptions Huxley found
unrealistic.
Historical Allusion in the Novel
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
whose conditioning techniques
are used to train infants.
Thomas Malthus,
whose name is used to
describe the contraceptive
techniques (Malthusian belt)
practiced by women of the
World State.
Historical Allusions in the Novel
William Shakespeare
whose banned works are
quoted throughout the novel
by John, "the Savage". The
plays quoted include
Macbeth, The Tempest,
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet,
King Lear, Troilus and
Cressida, Measure for
Measure and Othello.
Mustapha Mond also knows
them because he, as a
World Controller, has
access to a selection of
books from throughout
history, such as a Bible.
Sources for Character Names and
References
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Bernard Marx, from George Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx.
Lenina Crowne, from Vladimir Lenin, the leader during the Russian Revolution.
Fanny Crowne, from Fanny Kaplan, famous for an unsuccessful attempt to
assassinate Lenin. Ironically, in the novel, Lenina and Fanny are friends.
Polly Trotsky, from Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary leader.
Benito Hoover, from Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy; and Herbert Hoover,
then President of the United States.
Helmholtz Watson, from the German physician and physicist Hermann von
Helmholtz and the American behaviorist John B. Watson.
Darwin Bonaparte, from Napoleon Bonaparte, the leader of the First French
Empire, and Charles Darwin, author of The Origin of Species.
Herbert Bakunin, from Herbert Spencer, the English philosopher and Social
Darwinist, and Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian philosopher and anarchist.
Mustapha Mond, from Mustapha Kemal Atatürk, founder of Turkey after World
War I, who pulled his country into modernisation and official secularism; and Sir
Alfred Mond, an industrialist and founder of the Imperial Chemical Industries
conglomerate.
Sources for Character Names and
References
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Primo Mellon, from Miguel Primo de Rivera, prime minister and dictator of Spain (1923–
1930), and Andrew Mellon, an American banker.
Sarojini Engels, from Friedrich Engels, co-author of The Communist Manifesto along with
Karl Marx: and Sarojini Naidu, an Indian politician.
Morgana Rothschild, from J P Morgan, US banking tycoon, and the Rothschild family,
famous for its European banking operations.
Fifi Bradlaugh, from the British political activist and atheist Charles Bradlaugh.
Joanna Diesel, from Rudolf Diesel, the German engineer who invented the diesel engine.
Clara Deterding, from Henri Deterding, one of the founders of the Royal Dutch Petroleum
Company.
Tom Kawaguchi, from the Japanese Buddhist monk Ekai Kawaguchi, the first recorded
Japanese traveler to Tibet and Nepal.
Jean-Jacques Habibullah, from the French political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
and Habibullah Khan, who served as Emir of Afghanistan in the early 20th century.
Miss Keate, the Eton headmistress, from nineteenth-century headmaster John Keate.
Arch-Community Songster of Canterbury, a parody of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
the Anglican Church's decision in August 1930 to approve limited use of contraception.
Popé, from Popé, the Native American rebel who was blamed for the conflict now known
as the Pueblo Revolt.
John the Savage, after the term "noble savage" originally used in the verse drama The
Conquest of Granada by John Dryden, and later erroneously associated with Rousseau.
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?
Do You Agree?
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History is worthless.
Everyone belongs to everyone else.
Throwing something away is better than fixing it.
Everyone needs a mother.
The elderly are valuable members of society.
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have
today.
You have to experience misery to be able to
experience joy.