A Brave New World Identity Analysis

There are many symbols that occur in Brave New World. The main idea of a symbol is to add additional meanings to the object or person. It represents a more abstract idea. The symbols that played an important role in the book and that helped me better understand the work of Aldous Huxley were Soma, Shakespeare, Henry Ford.

The idea of a Utopian society is one that many are familiar with. A utopian society is defined as a seemingly perfect society actually plagued by mass corruption. While the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley may seem extreme, the ideas of the corrupted society expressed are not incredibly far off from today’s society. Quite frankly, today’s society is more like the New World society than what one may prefer.

Furthermore, Kowalska (1987) states, “Soma allows anyone to get away for a while from reality and return to it without any rebellion. Also it provides the much-needed illusion that there is no greater vexation that everything is as it should be” (p. 71). In the essay of Peter Bowering (2004) he mentions that, “After exogenesis and conditioning, soma was the most powerful instrument of authority in the hands of the Controllers of the World State” (p. 70). The government was taking care of the delivery of soma along with the careful determination of the maximum drugs for all citizens in the world state. Mustapha Mond who is one of the ten controllers in the world state referring to soma by saying that:

Love is one of the most basic human instincts. It begins at birth and sometimes remains after death. Although love is a universal term, there is a great deal of connotation when it comes to its true meaning. For example, the love one has towards his or her mother is drastically different from the love felt towards a significant other. However, all variations of love have one common virtue; everyone is seeking it in some manner or another. Throughout Robert Penn Warren’s, “True Love,” personification and hyperboles are applied to create a reminiscently obsessive tone which demonstrates that although love is a universal emotion, not everyone will experience it in the same nature.

Ignorance is bliss. Often people hide behind what they wish to believe. The truth demands discomfort and people prefer comfort to truth.(Compound) In this world of conditioning, the Controllers keep any kind of truth from the people. Regardless, very few actually attempt to discover the truth. In the novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley provides several examples of the truths individuals refuse in order to live in ignorance and bliss.

In the novel The Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, the residents of the World State no longer live in the human condition. The negative emotions of fear and embarrassment have been suppressed by their lifelong conditioning and the perfect drug, soma. This could at first seem appealing, however in reality, it can have serious drawbacks. All of the residents of the World State believe they are happy, however, they have never experienced anything of a negative nature happen to them so they can compare.The importance of our negative emotions cannot be overlooked; these emotions, especially fear and embarrassment, help us to learn from our or others experiences, provide a counterbalance to the happiness in our lives, and bring us together as people.

In the book Brave New World,by Aldous Huxley, the essence of humanity is questioned. The World State completely destroys the whole concept of being a human by taking away the people's individuality.The analysis will focus on chapter 1 from pages 11-12, which is a perfect example of how collectivism in the book sacrifices the uniqueness of humanity by the application of birth , exclusion and the nature of relationships.

In the past tyranny has failed due to the inability to have complete control over its citizens and the governments overall instability. To obtain complete control there had to be a way keep track on each and every individual and make sure they weren’t straying away from the power’s grasp. In the dystopian novels 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley the two societies use technology and science to control and surveillance their citizens.

The great philosopher John Locke stated the following: “Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.” In our society many people believe that the government has too much say in the overall society, but in the world of dystopian novels, the government's role in society becomes a much bigger problem. From looking into dystopian novels such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Anthem by Ayn Rand we can see that if a government has too much control over a society it can have drastic negative impacts. From reading and looking into these dystopian novels, it is easy to see that governments may have too much control over their societies. This can be seen by looking at what the essential tasks of government

Utopian societies are supposed to fall under the parameters of what is known as perfect, they are expected to work properly, maintain their citizen under control and provide them with a sense of happiness. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the ideal and futuristic society “World State”, has everything predetermined by the main leaders and officials. In the World State, through the use of science and technology embryos are created with characteristics accordingly to the castes they will be placed at, dividing citizens into classes and limiting up each individuals’ freedom and uniqueness.

“Brave New World” acquires its names from William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. Though written in 1931, “Brave New World” was based during AF 632 at the World State city of London. In this world, humans had been engineered through artificial wombs. Children had been given predetermined castes based on this society’s strict system. The castes Alpha and Beta luxuriate in superior tasks. Consequently, the castes Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon carry out degrading roles. In this culture, giving birth, and saying things like “mother, father, aging, and death” were frowned upon. Ten Controllers hold all the authority in this new world and tranquility was maintained by constraining

As the forces of technological advancement and social ambiguity corrupts the minds of an oblivious society, the illusion of perfection serves as the only viable way to view life itself. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, it is evident that a world rooted in conformity and synthetic pleasure has influenced humanity to believe that conformity is the only method to obtain everlasting contentment. This understanding of solitude hinders humanity’s ability to obtain new knowledge and develop a sense of individuality. A society can not thrive on a crafted perception of happiness as it leads to a plethora of unanswered questions that infect with the feeling of uncertainty. It is engraved into the minds of humanity that individualism results in a lack

The idea of achieving the ideal society has been embedded in many minds for centuries, society has tried many tactics that will further the path towards a utopian society. Oftentimes society encounters the conflicting factors between individual autonomy and freedom and the stability and security of civilization, which is essentially a conflict between individualism and collectivism. In the novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, it is suggested that constraining the innocuous views of each individual can allow for the achievement of complete stability within society; nevertheless with complete stability we will experience a totalitarian control over each individual, which is far from the Utopia we desire. Stability brings many positive aspects to our society, including peace, operating as a collective and no poverty; however we will never be able to experience true emotions, there will be a sacrifice of individual identity, and we can all be easily replaced. Without the right to make choices we are essentially slaves to society, every aspect of our individuality will become non-existent, we will have no identity.

It is heavily debated as to whether or not human beings embody an eternal soul. I will define the soul as as intangible extension of your consciousness that achieves value and existence in the world beyond the tangible human body. I'm not going to take a stance for or against this argument. Although, I do think there are key elements in life that convey meaning, and trigger you to believe you have a universality embodiment, in and of yourself.

Aldous Huxley explores in some of his novels the dystopian narrative, and even though Brave New World (1932) is his most acclaimed work, he wrote others like Island (1962), situated in an utopian society , and Ape and Essence (1948), a similar dystopia to the one we find in Brave New World (1932). Although Brave New World (1932) vividly depicts a world in which humans have become less-than humans by means of biotechnological and socioscientific techniques, Island (1962) sketches an idyllic community in which scientific knowledge is carefully employed for the enhancement of the quality of human lives .