How Does Huxley Create Happiness In Brave New World

Manufactured Happiness in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

1379 Words

Happiness is something humans are naturally inclined to chase and constantly attempt to achieve. True happiness involves feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment and improving as a human being. There is no true definition of happiness as it changes from person to person and culture to culture. English novelist Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World suggests there are many different forms of happiness without one true definition as it is a manufactured state-of-mind.

Citizens in the World State society are harshly conditioned from birth to be completely satisfied with their conditions in order to keep them obedient. The people of the different social castes are

Huxley uses Lenina to represent society and the “sheeple” that live in the World State. She does not have complex thoughts and is the perfect conditioning poster-child. Lenina is perfectly satisfied in her life as she explains to Bernard, “I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happy nowadays” (Huxley 96). While she obviously is not free as her entire life is dictated by Mustapha Mond and other higher-authorities, she perceives herself to be free. That feeling of freedom and happiness is innocent and real and there is no denying her happiness. However, Lenina’s idea of happiness is not satisfactory to everybody such as her short-lived romantic “partner” John. John was raised in a Savage Reservation and grew up reading from his “ancient” copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. John learned everything he knows about human nature from this book and that created his own definition of happiness. John is characterized as unique and someone suffering from naive idealism which he developed from his isolation. As John grew up isolated with Linda, she spoke of all the amazing things back in London such as “the lovely music that came out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to eat and drink” (Huxley 138). All of these fantastic sounding things combined with John’s intense study of Shakespeare gave him a warped world-view. He expected the world to be full of these amazing conveniences Linda explained, but also with love, beauty, and family. This differs immensely from what society is conditioned to feel, but it is still a valid source of happiness and satisfaction. When John joins the World State society, he rejects the nature of society's happiness and struggles to assimilate. While John did not experience harsh scientific conditioning, he was still “conditioned” by the factors around