Transcript 5/26 Notes: Brave New World Ch 12 to 18

Brave New World Ch 12 - 18
Brave New World Reading Quiz
• Answer this question in one or two brief
sentences in such a way that it is evident that
you read the assigned chapters:
• What happens to John at the
very end of the novel?
Brave New World: Satire, or
Suggestion?
• Though most critics agree that Huxley was not
championing the World State and its policies, what
exactly about the World State he is critiquing is a
matter of debate.
• At the time that he wrote the novel, Huxley was an
advocate of eugenics (in Huxley’s case, he was mostly
interested in selective breeding for intellectual ability
and encouraging the “best” people to reproduce at
higher rates), and the society of Brave New World, with
its hierarchy of co-existing classes where everyone is
happy with his/her place, and the “best” people are in
charge looks a lot like what Huxley considered to be an
ideal society at the time of the novel’s composition.
Brave New World: Satire, or
Suggestion?
• So… what might Huxley have been critiquing?
– The use of technological advances for the purpose of pure
consumerism. (Remember “ending is better than
mending”?)
– The vapid, empty nature of the “entertainment of the
masses” and the fact that no one, not even the “best”
people (the Alphas) engage in any sort of intellectual
activity.
– The use (or misuse) of science to control the many for the
benefit of the few.
• What do you think the novel is critiquing? In other
words, which part(s) of the World State did you feel the
novel was most critical of?
Some Questions to Wrap Up
• Was John’s fate sealed the moment he came
off the reservation and into “civilization”? Is
there any way he could have been happy in
the “civilized” world? (And what do you think
of The Controller’s solution for people of
intelligence?)
• Though this novel was written in 1932, do you
find it to be relevant now? How?
Some Questions to Wrap Up
• What is it about the World State that so
disillusions John? WHY does he want to leave
and be alone?
• False sense of happiness – p. 178-9
• P. 240 the RIGHT to be unhappy
• P. 221 – “actual happiness always looks pretty
squalid in comparison with the
overcompensation for misery”
John Talks to the Controller
• John and Mustafa Mond are Representatives
of Two Different Societies
– John reads Shakespeare. Falls in love. Represents
all of the “human” qualities that have been
removed from the World State.
– Mond represents the World State – order, stability,
“happiness” that is defined by the absence of
strong feeling
• What parts of their exchange in Ch. 16-17
most intrigued you?
Significant Scenes
• Helmholtz shares his poetry and hears John read
Shakespeare (p. 179-185)
• John and Lenina’s confrontation p. 190-197
• Linda’s death (starts on p. 198)
• The Savage throws out the soma (p. 210)
• Conversation with The Controller (Ch. 16, p. 218
and Ch. 17, p. 230)
• The Savage runs away from Civilization (p. 243
onward.)