ALDOUS HUXLEY - Brave New World

ALDOUS HUXLEY: Brave New World

THE AUTHOR

Aldous Huxley was born in 1894, the third son of Leonard Huxley and the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley (an important disciole of Darwin). His mother, who died when Aldous was fourteen, was the niece of niece of Matthew Arnold (a Victorian poet); the philosopher Sir Julian Huxley was his brother.

In 1916 Aldous Huxley took a first in English at Balliol College, Oxford, despite a condition of near-blindness which had developed while he was at Eton. In 1919 he married Maria Nys, a Belgian and joined 'The Athanaeum'. His first book of verse had been published in 1916 and two more followed. Then, in 1920, 'Limbo', a collec-tion of short stories, was published. A year later, his first novel 'Crome Yellow' appeared and his reputation was firmly established.

In the 1930s he moved from Italy to Sanary (near Toulon) where he wrote 'Brave New World'. Believing that the climate would help his eyesight, he left for California, where he became convinced of the value of mystical experience and described the effects of his experiments in 'The Doors of Perception' and 'Heaven and Hell'.

One year after his wife's death in 1955, he married Laura Archera, a concert violonist who had become a practising psychotherapist. They continued to live in California, where Huxley died on 22 November 1963.

THE MAIN CHARACTERS

(a.) Bernard Marx - a highly intelligent but introverted and ugly Alpha plus scientist. The popular theory is that too much alcohol was accidentally put into his blood-surrogate when he was a fetus.

(b.) Lenina Crowne - a typical alpha girl - very pretty, superficial and promiscous-, who works in the London Hatchery and Conditioning Center.

(c.) Fanny Crowne - Lenina's colleague, friend and confidante, a very sensible girl

(d.) Henry Foster - an enthusiastic scientist who Lenina has an affair with.

(e.) The DHC - the pomopus Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre in London.

(f.)  Mustapha Mond - formerly a physicist, now one of the ten World Controllers

(g.) John - a young 'savage' discovered in an Indian reservation who quotes Shakespeare all the time.

(h.) Linda - John's mother, a sloppy and ugly middle-aged woman,brought to the reservation years ago by the DHC

(i.)  Helmholtz Watson - an alpha writer and Emotional Engineer and friend of Bernard and John

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

In 632 A.F. (after Ford) proudly the Director of the "Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre" shows the plant to a group of young students. As the he explains, there cannot be room for individual differences, if the goals of society - COMMUNITY, IDENTITY AND STABILITY - shall be achieved.

From the fetal phase on, people are pushed into their predestined places in a ridigly hierarchic society that ranges from Alpha Plus, the highly intelligent leaders, to Epsilon Minus, ape-like gnomes who do the dirty work.

In the hatchery, men and women are massproduced by artificial insemination and chemically conditioned, while in the Conditioning Centre, the babies are taught to keep their places in society and to repress their individualistic instincts.

But with Bernard Marx, a brilliant but shy and embittered scientist something is wrong. Instead of being as handsome and extroverted like all the other Alphas, he is small and ugly. Because he is so special, he attracts the attention of Lenina.

Because of his high position, Bernard has access to one of the few reservations left where people still live as savages. Lenina accepts his offer to visit one of them with him.

Having arrived in New Mexico, Lenina is at first horrified because of the absence of all comforts of the hypercivilization in Europe. Worst of all, she has forgotten her supply of SOMA, a tranquillizer that has taken the place of alcohol and drugs.

They meet John and his mother Linda, who was brought here by the DHC. Having grown up in the Brave New World, she could not get along with life in the reservation.

John who has taught himself with the help of old Shakespeare books immediately falls in love with Lenina, but because of his strict morality he fails to do something about it.

Bernard takes John and his mother back to England to conduct an experiment with them and to get even with the DHC, who dislikes him and wants him to exile. Because of the fact that he has a son, he is exiled himself.

John becomes a great social success while his mother must be kept happy with overdoses of soma which she later dies of.

The Savage is terrified with the hedonism of cicvilized society and wants to return to the stricter, more meaningful morality of the primitive live. As Bernard wants to show him the Arch-Community-Songster of Canterbury (a religious leader), he refuses and Bernard is again in disgrace.

Guilt-ridden after his mother's death, John tries to destroy the soma ration doled out to Delta hospital workers and wants them to realize how it destroys them. He is almost killed before a police squad quells the riot with water pistols that shoot tranquillizers. Mustapha Mond exiles Bernard and Helmholtz and has a long philosophical argument with John who remains unconvinced and becomes a hermit in a lighthouse. A sensation-seeking crowd descends on him and wants to make his eccentric behaviour (he ocasionally whips himself when he thinks of Lenina) a spectacle. Enraged, John kills Lenina with the whip and commits suicide.

THE MAIN THEMES

A 'perfect' world

Like in Orwell's 1984, the system is very strict, but the big difference is that people don't

have to be punished and kept under surveillance all the time, they are conditioned to be

happy with what they are so that the danger of a revolution by the lower classes is not given

though there is such a tight system of class society.

*) There is no overpopulation and no unemployment because the quantity of the decanted babies is adapted to the number of free jobs.

*) There are no diseases (everybody is automatically vaccinated against different illnesses so that epidemics have no chance to break out) and no fear of dying: children are conditioned not to fear it (like John sees it after his mother's death).

*) There is no depression and tristesse: if somebody does not feel good, he or she simply takes a small dose of soma. People of the Brave New World are unable to face pain and grief.

*) There are many facilities for leisure such as obstacle golf, Escalator squash and feelies(movies one can feel) to keep people from thinking too much.

Malcontents in the Brave New World

Bernard Marx

Through a little mistake during his pre-natal phase (probably too much alcohol was put in his blood-surrogate), he is an outsider. Being an alpha, he is supposed to be outgoing, tall and handsome, but instead, he looks like a dwarf and is introverted and shy with women. Because of this, he is scorned by women and bullied by the other alphas.

John, the 'Savage'

His thinking about life in the reservation is ambiguous: Born to civilized parents, but grown up between savages, he is part a primitive and part an intelligent (he taught himself with the help of Shakespeare) being. He who believes in God is shocked about the loose morality and about the strange rituals they do instead of praying. Such individual passions as love and belief have given way to promiscuity and communal spirit. He cannot get along with his love for Lenina and punishes himself with living as a hermit and whipping himself each time he has to think of her. As this attracts attention and a sensation-seeking crowd decsends on him, he finds no other way out than suicide.

Both of those outsiders are victims of accidents: neither the alcohol in Bernards blood-surrogate nor John's birth through a real mother was intentional. They do not fit into society anymore and fail: Bernard exiles to the Falkland Islands and John commits suicide.

It is impossible for individuals to find a satifactory life: neither in the sterile and loveless Europe nor the dirty and bestial life of the Indians in New Mexico.

QUOTES FROM THE BOOK

(a)   'And that', put in the director sententiously, 'that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.' (p.31)

(b)  'Till at last the child's mind IS these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions IS the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of those suggestions. But all these suggestions are OUR suggestions! Suggestions from the State.'(p.43)

(c)   "And I was so ashamed. Just think of it: me, a Beta - having a baby: put yourself in my place.' (p.126)

(d)  'Soma may make you lose a few years in time' the doctor went on. 'But think of the enourmous, immeasurable durations it can give you out of time. Every soma holiday is a bit of what our ancestors used to call eternity.' (p.157)

(e)   'Not untilListen, Lenina; in Malpais people get married.' 'Get what?' The irritation had begun to creep back into her voice. What was he talking about now?'For always. They make a promise to live together for always.' 'What a horrible idea!' Lenina was genuinely shocked. (p.191)

(f)   'Oh, look, look!' They spoke in low, scared voices. 'Whatever is the matter with her? Why is she so fat?' They had never seen a face like hers before - had never seen a face that was not youthful and taut-skinned, a body that had ceased to be slim and upright.(p.201)

(g)  'Don't you want to be free and men? Don't you even understand what manhood and freedom are?' () 'I'll make you free whether you want or not.' And pushing a window that looked on to the inner court of the hospital, he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in handfuls out into the area.           (p.212)

(h)  From a safe distance and still rubbing his buttocks, 'Benighted fool!' shouted the man from THE FORDIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, why don't you take soma?' The other retreated a few steps, then turned round again. 'Evil's an unreality if you take a couple of grammes.' 'Get away!' The Savage shook his fist. (p.247)

PERSONAL OPINION

I was very fascinated by Huxley's idea of the future though it is very shocking because it sounds so likely to come true in a much closer future. I think that the feelings of the various characters are shown in a brilliant way.