Reflective Essay Brave New World

Brave New World Usually, I’m not a fan of the books I’m assigned to read in class. I read them as any student who’s looking to pass the quiz would, but I don’t invest myself into the books presented to me. When it came time to read “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, I had the same amount of enthusiasm as always; little to none. But, as I began to read, I felt myself drawn to the fact that the book made me feel uncomfortable and challenged my thought process. How could this story just have the characters casually chant, “orgy-porgy”? (Huxley 85). Quite frankly, it blew my mind. I started taking my time to read and fully understand, to the best of my ability, each and every page. When I finished the book, I couldn’t decide if I liked the book for telling a completely new type of story, or resenting it because of how close this book is to our present society. When I read, Peter Edgerly’s Firchow’s, “The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley 's “Brave New World,” I knew exactly how I felt. Firchow starts off his critique by addressing the inconsistency of the characters. He mentions how Bernard Marx goes from a

Using the same character methodology as seen in Lenina and Fanny, Firchow said, “I think, that Huxley was unable to make up his mind until very late in the composition of the novel just what direction he wanted the story and the leading male characters to take.” He then described that after Huxley abandoned the idea of Bernard becoming a hero, he turned to the Savage, or John. Then Huxley abandoned John’s initially heroistic and resistance-causing character, to simply no hero and Helmholtz having a “vague adumbration of a hero” in him. (Firchow). When I was reading the book, I also felt that the beginning of the book and then end were very unalike and Firchow shows proof that I wasn’t losing my mind. Although both the beginning and ending still stuck with the main themes of the book, such as the opposition of knowing real happiness without