Transcript Document
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 • “Reading Brave New World elicits the same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has vanquished.” What does this mean? • 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. 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: • • • • • • • • • 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!