BRAVE NEW WORLD

"Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

T.S. Eliot

Has belief in the power of science replaced faith in God?

ALDOUS ALDOUS HUXLEYHUXLEY Like all writers, Huxley did not

write in a vacuum.

At the time he was writing Brave New World, important political, socioeconomic and cultural changes were taking place throughout the world.

Huxley was deeply troubled by threats to individual freedom and independence; in Europe in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, these were threatened by the rise of totalitarian governments.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Historical Context

ALDOUS ALDOUS HUXLEYHUXLEY Huxley abhorred the notion that

the state should be more important than the individual, and that the state could exercise total control over its citizens without significant resistance.

Developments in Russia during the 1920’s – in particular Stalin’s rise to power within the Bolshevik government – also illustrated the dangers of a totalitarian state.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Historical Context

How would you feel if we had a dress code based on IQ, so that we’d be identified by a certain

colored clothing,

and you could only hang out with people who wore the same color?

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

THE WORLD OF HUXLEY…Huxley’s World

The novel was written between 1931-1932 following the American stock market crash of 1929, whose effects were beginning to be felt world wide.

The Novel

The world of economic stability that Huxley created is exactly what people of Britain longed for. In the World State, people are forced to consume, assuring the security of the economic and industrial society.

BNW was written after the Communist Revolution in Russia, when a great deal of society was undergoing massive shifts in culture

Communism

CASTE SYSTEM IN BRAVE NEW WORLD Huxley was influenced by

the caste system in Hinduism, which was abolished in 1949.

Caste systems were created by predestination and their function in society.

The caste system in Brave New World includes 5 major castes named after Greek letters (Alpha to Epsilon)

There are differences in the members of castes (i.e. outer appearance, intelligence, livelihood).

ALL HUXLEY’S CHARACTERS ARE NAMED FOR A REASON…

Benito Hoover

Actually named after two men. First of which is J. Edgar Hoover, founder of the FBI. Reread the line about his good nature: “Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly” (63).

More importantly, Benito is named after Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader of Italy. While the novel was written before Mussolini joined the Axis in WWII, he was elected the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and named himself Dictator and leader of the National Fascist Party in 1925. While Huxley could not have known what Mussolini would do, he included the name as a reminder of world powers.

ALL HUXLEY’S CHARACTERS ARE NAMED FOR A REASON…

Bernard Marx

Named after Karl Marx and Claude Bernard

Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, which calls for revolution against governmental control. The document predicts that the working class, who are ruled and held as a “lower class” by the proletariat, will rise up and take the means of production, finally reaching true equality.

Like Karl Marx, Bernard Marx threatens the tentative balance of the World State.

Claude Bernard was a French physiologist who helped to establish the norms for scientific study.

ALL HUXLEY’S CHARACTERS ARE NAMED FOR A REASON…

Mustapha Mond

Named after Mustapha Kemal Ataturk , Ludwig Mond, and Sir Alfred Mond.

Ataturk was a Turkish military figure and the first President of Turkey – he helped to create a western-style democratic, secular state after WWI.

Ludwig Mond owned a factory that used the mass production techniques of Ford. Huxley worked at this factory for a time and kept journals and notes; these are often thought to the be the source for the beginning of the novel.

Sir Alfred Mond was a German-Jewish industrialist and politician during the early part of the 20th century. He was an advocate for labor reforms such as health care and profit sharing.

ALL HUXLEY’S CHARACTERS ARE NAMED FOR A REASON…

Lenina Crowne

Named after Vladimir Lenin and John Crowne

Lenin was the Russian Marxist who led the Russian Revolution of 1917 and helped pave the way for the Socialist government that followed.

Crowne was a British dramatist from the late 15th century after the Restoration. His plays are known for using Romantic love of the French fashion as the driving motivation for his characters. At the time Crowne is writing, this practice had gone out of fashion and his plays work to renew the focus on the purity of love.

REPRODUCTION AND MORALITY

Thomas Robert Malthus

This is the name of Lenina’s birth control belt.

Malthus was an English scholar and economist from the late 1700’s

His most famous works include studies on human population. He claims that if population rises too rapidly and is left unchecked it will deplete all resources. He suggests that moral recourse is the only way to successfully curb unnecessary reproduction and conserve resources. This is the birth of Victorian “prudishness” in some ways.

How would you feel if the government told you what job you would be allowed to hold,

based on your IQ?

TECHNOLOGIC AND

SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT

TECHNOLOGIC: MASS PRODUCTIONS Henry Ford

Production of Model T began in 1908

Standard interchangeable parts and assembly-line production (1913)

Ford revolutionizes industry and adds safety measures. He is credited with “fordism” the idea of mass production of inexpensive goods combined with higher wages and safer work environments for the workers.

Ford is also credited with welfare capitalism, an idea adopted by the world state and ingrained in the citizens.

Man of the year in 1935

SCIENTIFIC

Ivan Pavlov Developed theory that

individuals could be conditioned to respond to stimulus in a certain way.

Classical conditioning Behavior modification

(reward & punishment )

PAVLOV’S DOG

SCIENTIFIC

John Watson Famous statement that he

could take any twelve healthy babies, regardless of family background, and make them into any type of person – rich, poor, intelligent, etc.

He stressed the belief that nurture can win over nature.

THE TITLE

“O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in't.”

--William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203—6

The title in French is The Best of all Possible Worlds, a connection to an often satirized Philosopher made famous by Voltaire’s Candide

Brave New World's ironic title derives from Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

OPENING PAGENicolas Berdiaeff (who is actually Russian) quote from the opening page:

“Utopias appear much more feasible than previously thought before.  And we are now faced with problems far more distressing: how to avoid their final realization? ... Utopias are achievable. Life marches towards utopias. And perhaps a new century begins there, a century of intellectuals, and the educated class will dream how to avoid utopias and return to a non-utopian, less perfect and more free”

UTOPIAN VERSUS DYSTOPIAN NOVELS

Utopia: a place or society that appears perfect in every way: the government is perfect, working to improve society’s standards of living rather than their own; social aspects of the community run perfectly; there is no war or disease, only peace and happiness. The Truman Show Pleasantville

Dystopia is a place or society which is in complete chaos: the citizens are suffering and miserable – often what appears to be a Utopian society at first is actually revealed to be a dystopian society; citizens often live in terror, under complete control by the government, unaware of the corrupt world in which they actually live in, or suppressed by the society as a whole. Terminator Lord of the Flies

RELEVANCE TO TODAY

Although originally published in 1932, the themes in Brave New World are relevant to the world in which we live today. Consider the following:

advances in technology and the internet

modern tendency to waste time on meaningless diversions such as television and video games

consumerism surpassing religion (take Christmas, for example)

promiscuity surpassing morality

issues of eugenics – cloning, stem-cell research and genetic engineering

most strikingly, the overly-prescribed and overly -used medications such as anti-depressants and sleeping pills, so like the fictional “Soma” of Huxley's novel

How do you feel about a society that encourages its citizens to take

government-supplied, free drugs that prevent citizens from feeling depressed, anxious and/or lonely? Would you take them? If so, how

often?

What do you think you would be giving up to go along with these new “rules” of society?