Hierarchy In Brave New World Essay

A hierarchy is defined as “a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.” In every culture, past, present, and future, there is a social ladder on which some groups of people fall below or are put above others based on things such as wealth, family history, and manipulation. Novels such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy reflect this widespread social issue in a variety of cultures through unique and carefully organized class systems. Hierarchies are detrimental to all societies, shown especially through these two novels and all literature, because they exclude a major part of said societies which can cause distrust between classes, potential loss of progression in a multitude of fields, and an unnecessary cause to manipulate others for personal gain. It is evident from multiple studies and pieces of literature that, even though it is hard to create a society in which all are equal, there are still ways to work towards better systems that provide more opportunities and less discrimination across the board, not based on gender, class, race, or caste.

While hierarchies are widely regarded as a manmade construct, there is biological research that connects such group organization in different types of species. In

In this futuristic society there are different castes known as Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Although the aim of their world is to create complete equality through brainwashing and careful organization, the biological manipulation results in a dystopian culture. Henry Foster, a worker at the London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, describes this control over classes lengthily. He says, “The lower the caste, the shorter the oxygen” (Huxley 11). The abilities of all citizens in this dystopia are predetermined, resulting in - once again - a rigid caste