Transcript Brave New World Intro_ 2013

Brave New
World
An Introduction
What is utopia? What is
dystopia?
• Write your own definitions now.
Utopian and Dystopian Literature
• Utopia (definition): refers to fictional writings that
present an ideal but nonexistent political and
social way of life
• First Utopian work:
Plato’s Republic, in
which Plato (c. 427-347
B.C.E), through the
persona of Socrates,
describes the ideal
state
The Utopian Assumption
The world as it is, is not what it ought to be,
but at the same time, it’s not what it has to be,
and it can and should be changed.
Origin of term
From Renaissance humanist Sir
Thomas More, whose book Utopia
describes a perfect commonwealth.
More formed his title by conflating
the Greek words “eutopia” (good
place) and “outopia” (no place).
Dystopian Literature
• Dystopia (definition): literally, “bad place.”
Dystopian literature may best be defined as antiutopian; the imaginary societies it portrays are the
very opposite of ideal.
• Much newer genre than utopian literature, referring
to works of fiction that represent a very unpleasant
imaginary world in which ominous tendencies of
our present social, political, and technological
order are projected into a disastrous future
culmination.
• Brave New World is an
example of a dystopia –
a possible horrible world
of the future.
• Often compared to 1984
(written 1948), another
famous dystopian work.
• 1984’s author George
Orwell (real name Eric
Blair) was a student of
Huxley’s at Eton.
Life of Huxley (1894-1963)
• Came from a background of privilege and intellectual
opportunity.
• On his father’s side - grandson of
Thomas Henry Huxley, the famous
biologist who helped develop the
Theory of Evolution.
• On his mother’s side – great nephew of
famous poet and critic Matthew Arnold
According to Gerald Heard (a friend), Huxley’s
ancestry “brought down on him a weight of
intellectual authority and a momentum of moral
obligations.”
Brave New
World
evidences
Huxley’s
ambivalence
toward the
authority of a
ruling class.
Travels, 1925-1926
• Huxley first visits the United States.
• He liked the confidence, vitality, and “generous
extravagance” of American life, but not this vitality was
channeled into amusement and distraction.
• Huxley: “It was all movement and noise, like the water
gurgling out of a bath – down the waste. Yes, down the
waste.”
• This impression would contribute to the vision of a
society dedicated to perpetual happiness contained in
Brave New World.
Brave New
World
Written in 4 months in
1931 – BEFORE Adolph
Hitler came to power in
Germany
. . . and BEFORE Joseph
Stalin started the
aggression that started the
killing of millions of people
in the Soviet Union.
Influences on
Huxley and Brave
New World
1930 - Anglican Church
becomes first Christian
denomination to
“legalize” contraception.
Huxley, an agnostic,
thought this decision
would prove tragic for
the world.
Darwin and
Eugenics
• In the 19th century, Darwin’s
theory of natural selection
(survival of the fittest)
produced the idea that
some humans were less fit,
less worthy to procreate.
• In 1908, The Eugenics
Society began studying
ways to breed a “better
human animal.”
• Margaret Sanger and her
followers pushed contraception as
a way to limit the breeding of the
“human weeds,” as she called
them.
• In fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini
led an authoritarian govt. that
fought birth control in order to
produce enough manpower for
the next war.
Impact of these events
• Huxley felt that heredity made each
individual unique, and the uniqueness of
the individual was essential to freedom.
• Huxley thus saw such efforts to control
human reproduction—by people like
Sanger and Mussolini—as a potential
threat to freedom.
• He was also influenced by reading of
books critical of the Soviet Union.
Later Years
• In the 1950’s participated in an
experiment in which he took
mescaline, a derivative of
peyote
• Wrote about his experience in
The Doors of Perception.
• Explores the value of such
drugs for expanding
consciousness
• This is ironic given the strong
feelings he expresses in Brave
New World against taking such
drugs.
• The title taken from 18th century
poet William Blake: “If the doors of
perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to man as
it is, infinite” (The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell).
• The ’60s band The
Doors took their name
from the title of Huxley’s
book.
“I wanted to
change the world.
But I have found
that the only thing
one can be sure of
changing is
oneself.” – Aldous
Huxley
Satirical Commentary
• Although the novel is set in the future it deals with contemporary
issues of the early 20th century.
• The Industrial Revolution had transformed the world. Mass
production had made cars, telephones, and radios relatively cheap
and widely available throughout the developed world.
• The political, cultural, economic and sociological upheavals of the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and the First World War (1914–1918)
were resonating throughout the world as a whole and the individual
lives of most people.
Characters
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Polly Trotsky (Leon Trotsky)
Benito Hoover (Benito Mussolini; Herbert Hoover)
Lenina Crowne (Vladimir Lenin; John Crowne)
Fanny Crowne (Fanny Brawne; John Crowne)
Mustapha Mond (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; Alfred Mond and Ludwig Mond, at whose
factory Huxley worked for a time, which helped to inspire the novel)
Helmholtz Watson (Hermann von Helmholtz; John B. Watson)
Henry Foster (Henry Ford)
Bernard Marx (George Bernard Shaw; Karl Marx)
Morgana Rothschild (The Rothschild banking family)
Joanna Diesel (Rudolf Diesel)
Fifi Bradlaugh (Charles Bradlaugh)
Sarojini Engels (Sarojini Naidu; Friedrich Engels)
Clara Deterding (Henri Deterding)
Tom Kawaguchi (Ekai Kawaguchi)
Herbert Bakunin (Herbert George Wells; Mikhail Bakunin).
Major Themes in BNW
• The Use of Technology to Control Society
• Consumerism
• The Incompatibility of Happiness and
Truth
• The Dangers of an All-Powerful State
• The Pursuit of Pleasure (Hedonism)
• The Individual vs. Society