Profound Happiness In Brave New World

Brave new world is a story that will give you a version of the future of our world beyond the average human imagination. The novel “Brave New World” can be shortly summarized into this, humans are not born anymore, instead the embryos are manufactured by machines and conditioned in ways so certain classes of people are almost exactly the same. Media in Brave New World is a very prominent substance that has a very large amount of influence on the “civilized” people.

“I don’t think that man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it” (Dumas 18).

Community, Identity, Stability. These are the ideas that are thrown at you from the very beginning of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. However, it is quite ironic that this is the motto chosen to represent the world state. Community is understood to be a group of diverse individuals coming together as one, yet in brave new world they predestine their citizens and sort them into different castes. Identity is understood to show individualism, yet the caste system limits anyone’s capability to be an individual. With community and identity, stability is supposed to be achieved, but the novel makes you question if stability is an actual thing that can happen in society. In Brave New World, many things are done to ensure stability, three of them being the tyranny of happiness, drugging the population, and the mass production of children. With these three factors, it is eerie how close Aldous Huxley came to predicting the impact of these in the future of society.

There are many cases of someone’s potential to achieve happiness being affected by factors they can’t control throughout A Thousand Splendid Suns. This notion effects many of the characters in Hosseini’s novel and one could say that it might affect our own lives as well. In our lives our potential to achieve happiness may be impacted by factors we have no control

Truth and happiness are two things people desire, and in the novel, an impressive view of this dystopia’s two issues is described. In this society, people are created through cloning. The “World State” controls every aspect of the citizens lives to eliminate unhappiness. Happiness and truth are contradictory and incompatible, and this is another theme that is discussed in “Brave New World” (Huxley 131). In the world regulated by the government, its citizens have lost their freedom; instead, they are presented with pleasure and happiness in exchange. People can’t know the truth; they are conditioned from birth never to know the truth. The majority of the citizens do not seek to know the truth, as ignorance is bliss. By taking Soma,

The utopian society in the Brave New World can be compared and contrasted between our contemporary society using individualism, community and the human experience. The fictional novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932, is about a utopian society where people focus stability and community over individuality and freedom, but an outsider is introduced to intervene with the operation of the utopian state. In the contemporary world, people need to show individuality in their communities in order to survive, and to be human, one must show emotion, which is the opposite in the Brave New World.

As technology improves, so do human capabilities of altering nature, which in turn creates increased responsibility. This directly relates to genetic engineering, which is beginning to morph into a reality. There are advocates for both sides that convey their personal opinions about the hypothetical results, but neither is clearly superior since both arguments speculate upon an unknown future. Hungarian psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, outlines this topic in his essay “The Future of Happiness,” which focuses on the history of selective breeding and compares the goal of happiness with genetic engineering. Csikszentmihalyi alternates between viewpoints regarding genetic engineering but presents a perspective dominated by warning. Csikszentmihalyi’s presents a chronologically structured explanation of selective breeding with progressive rhetorical questions that balance his support between the validity of the scientific study of happiness and his trepidation regarding potential dangers of the use of genetic engineering for predetermined beneficial traits.

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.

Symbols are an important tool in literature, they develop the plot and make the reader think deeper about the meaning behind some of the key aspects of a novel. There are three main symbols in a Brave New World that not only give the novel a deeper meaning but convey the theme and tone. In a Brave New World the three main symbols are books and flowers, soma, and technology. These symbols are important in the novel’s development and convey the theme and tone.

Throughout the novel, hypnopaedia and the use of soma are shown to be the main components to the society’s lack of individual identity. Soma, a drug sponsored by the government, is used by the citizens of the World State in order to suppress any emotions which make them feel somewhat uncomfortable. The use of soma leads to a society which lacks any understanding of real emotion, an important piece to the formation of an identity. While soma by itself is destructive, the effects of hypnopaedia are comparable to a “...liquid sealing wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is one scarlet blob” (Huxley 28). Hypnopaedia is a process which is used throughout childhood to result in adults that have the exact views the World Controllers want the citizens of particular castes to have. These ideals are ingrained in the children of the World State by drowning their minds with hypnopaedic sayings on a consistent schedule. A majority of the personality of individuals in this society boils down to these hypnopaedic sayings as the citizens unconsciously believe them as truth. The citizens of the World State have little chance to develop any depth of personality due to hypnopaedia, resulting in a society that has

Quote: “Again twelve stanzas. By this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted.”

Today’s society is one of instants: Instant downloads, instant messaging, instant shipping, instant oatmeal, instant movies, instant gratification. For many, the idea of having the world on a whim is a thrilling human achievement. For others, such as Paul Roberts and Aldous Huxley, this instant gratification is their nightmare. In Robert’s case, he theorizes that humans are designed to work hard and to struggle. By taking away any sort of effort and hardship, humans are being numbed, dumbed down and destructive. Huxley, in his novel Brave New World, sets up an entire society that relying on mass production, mass consumption, and instant gratification. This immediacy and efficiencies creates a world of mindless drone humans skating through life

vacation. What do all of these have in common? When recalled, these memories or objects bring a sense of happiness that makes one think fondly of these things. Happiness is an emotion that the human race strives for. As Schoch explains, “Happiness is... well, it’s just feeling good­enjoying life and wanting the feeling to be maintained” (Schoch). It is strived for in relationships, in successful endeavors or actions, or in taking up particular hobbies. Happiness is an amazing thing and makes one feel great, but can too much happiness be a bad thing? Too much happiness is a surprising statement, but is nonetheless true, because too much happiness can have negative impacts on one's life. Negative emotions, despite the fact that they are less coveted than the positive emotions, serve just as vital a role in terms of giving perspective, creating arguments, and preventing unnecessary risk.

Although the people of a Brave New World are all happy, and they are not free. It is an interesting way of viewing happiness. They never feel sorrow because whenever they feel anxious they take a drug called Soma. It 's an actual drug they take but might be symbolic of the comfort of religion or love. It is a kind of substitute. I don 't discern a significant difference in taking a chemical drug and producing it naturally in your body. I can assume soma is some kind of endorphin, which is the substance released when exercising for example. So in a way, it is not

How does someone know if they are truly happy? Much of society have come to associate happiness with the pursuits of personal pleasures or that which makes us “feels good”. When we feel good we display positive expression of emotions such as joy, laughter, kindness and fewer negative emotions such as anger, hate, and sadness. To some people our happiness is already determined through our genes. Some people seek happiness through money and material possessions. However, many would argue that true happiness comes from within and gratifies a state of well-being. In my opinion, the understanding of true happiness is a personal experience and will vary among us. It's what makes us as individuals satisfied and content.