The dystopian book Brave New World interprets the idea of freedom and social control in a society where the government shows freedom to people but when in reality controls their rights without their acknowledgment. Bernard Marx, who is an Alpha male, fails to fit in with his society because of his test-tube mistake which causes him to be short in height and different from the other alpha males. Due to this reason, because Bernard Marx is an outcast, he can see the flaws of society and question them.
Brave New World presents a stunning view of the future which on the surface appears almost amusing. However, humor was not the aim of Aldous Huxley when he established the book in the mid-1930s. In reality, Huxley's genuine message is surprisingly dark. His thought that in hundreds of years to come, a one-world government will ascend to control, stripping individuals of freedom, isn't new. There are hosts of books devoted to this subject. What makes Huxley's explanation distinctive is the way that his informal society lives in this dictatorial government, as well as grasps it like careless robots.
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Huxley reveals a lot about the society of the World State through Bernard Marx. He (Bernard Marx) feels very isolated from the rest of society. Many people diligently joke and say that as a fetus Bernard must have been poisoned with alcohol to make him so dazed. The fetuses of the lowest-ranking Epsilons and Deltas are poisoned with alcohol, so this is leveled as an insult to Bernard for not only being short but not belonging as an Alpha. Even in a society obsessed with providing happiness, society can still cause pain. Ladies laugh at him when he makes propels towards them, and to finish everything off, he's been having some genuine erosion at work with this supervisor. Since he doesn't fit in, he's always searching for something to make him unique or special. Then, it is those remarkable viewpoints about him that keep on separating him from society. He wonders “What would it be like if I could, if I were free - not enslaved by my conditioning” (6.1.27-32). This manifests that Bernard Marx is not happy with how the system of the society works, due to this reason Bernard decides to leave the World State and tries to go to a far isolated island that has a different society.
Freedom is a major theme examined in this book, Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller of Western Europe, one of just ten World Controllers, trains his people to take no notice of the difficult exercises of history and to overlook the past to concentrate on future advancement. He says that society ignores history supposing that individuals understand what preceded it, they probably won't trust science and it's encouraging. History is 'bunk,' as Mond says it turns around human feelings and weakness, for example, anger, love, enticement, and retaliation. These things are never again part of the human life experience and, as indicated by Mond, have no place in the general public society created around expanding happiness. As mentioned in the book Brave New World “You all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk'(pg. 34).
To expand on this idea, Mustapha Mond also talks about this in reply to what John (the savage) asks him. To let people know about the past (history) and not hide the truth, he says that he should play Shakespearean plays to people instead of other boring and meaningless plays so people could enjoy them. Mustapha Mond then explains how the reason this type of literacy is forbidden is because great literature tends to last, and people continue to like it even after a long time has gone by. The World State is not for the old past but rather it needs people that want new things. Mustapha also claims that Shakespearean plays would not be good for this society due to their lack of understanding of the play because the stories and plays written by Shakespeare are based on passions and experiences which does not exist in the World State. Lots of sacrifices including struggles and overpowering emotions have been made in favor of social stability. They have been replaced by what Mond calls “happiness,” by which he means the infantile fulfillment of appetites.
The main issue with what Mustapha Mond says is that he is not giving people their decision, their right to know the past and how different their lives could be, instead, he is making the decision for them behind their backs. In this book it talks about how people are brainwashed when they are born, meaning they take certain emotions out of them and separate people into different castes. Depending on their castes they have a different intelligence level and other characteristics, going from Alphas (most intelligent) to Epsilons (least intelligent). What this shows is that there is no equalism in society, some people are given better lifestyles than others. Even though it may seem normal for the people in society. This dictatorship government is just required to decide the right number of Alphas, Betas, and so forth, right down the command hierarchy. There is no class fighting since greed, the fundamental element of capitalism, has been wiped out. Indeed, even Deltas and Epsilons are substances to do their physical work. This happiness emerges both from the hereditary designing and the broad work every individual experiences in adolescence. This is unfair and wrong because people don’t get a choice of who they want to be and are forced to be happy with how they are created.
The practice of self-medication is a relevant topic and prevailing theme in Brave New World. In Brave New World people/citizens are encouraged to take drug pills called “Soma” which causes them to get hallucinations which helps them stay happy relaxed and away from depression and sadness. Soma is a big part of the culture of the citizens of the World State and is used so often that it is considered unnatural if not consumed to get throughout the day. Soma is considered important and even mandatory on many occasions. However, the issue with soma is that even though it makes you feel relaxed and free from tension, it can have negative impacts on you as it is a drug and is consumed very often in the World State, it can make you sick or even destroy your body. Huxley strongly believed that the breed of ignorance and social control would be set up by those in power by a broad machinery of manufactured needs, identifications, and desires. For him, persecution took the form of open slavery produced by an extent of technologies, pure forms of propaganda, and vast forms of manipulation and seduction.
The drugs would control society and in late modernity, social planning was to be found in the society where you would be offered drugs that would give you immediate relaxation, sensation, and pleasure. This form of persuasion would seduce people into going after products, and spoil them into the large production of easily digestible entertainment, huge re-formation, and a politics of distraction that irrigated, if not destroyed, the very possibility of thinking itself. For Huxley, the subject had lost his or her feeling of organization and had turned into the result of a logically and foundationally made type of folly and similarity.
The Brave New World society is based on a caste system. There are five castes, Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each caste is assigned different tasks or jobs, which they have to perform to uphold the stability of the supposedly perfect society. The Alpha caste is the most powerful and influential one, while the Epsilon caste which is the least powerful, can be compared to slaves. Even before birth, the produced children are destined to belong to one of the castes, each bred and conditioned with different characteristics. Before birth, human embryos are provided with different amounts of oxygen depending on which social caste the individual is going to belong to. This shows how there are no equal rights as each individual in the World State has a different position, some more smarter or powerful than others, which is unfair and wrong.
Huxley shows how people are brought to life in the World State by creating them in labs and raising them in odd ways to control them and make them into different castes. This conveys that people are not naturally born but instead made like robots because of how they change people’s brains and other characteristics. People aren’t free to be normal and choose who they want to be or what they wish to do, the decision of what they will be and what their jobs are going to be is determined by the rulers. What this means is that society might seem stable and happy but in reality, it’s being controlled without people’s wishes.
John, the son of Linda and the Director, who is the only major character to have grown up outside the World State is greatly unhappy after he visits the World State and is unable to fit in. Before John visits the World State he hears a lot about how the World State is such a good place and how people have such good lives but after he goes to the World State he finds out how bad it is and rejects it. John makes plans to go as far as possible from the World State to live his own life alone. He goes to live in a lighthouse outside London and undergoes purification for “eating civilization.” Wiping himself, vomiting, and fasting. John attempts to expel the guilt he feels for Linda’s death and his horror of sexual contact with Lenina. Reporters, film crews, and then crowds invade his privacy. When Lenina herself approaches him, heartbroken and love-struck, John attacks her with a whip. An uproar breaks out and turns into a sexual carouse. John awakens the next day, dazed from the soma, and realizes what has occured. Filled with distress and self-hatred, he commits suicide. This shows a point of view of society from a human being that is born naturally and not created through a lab and brainwashed.
In Conclusion, Brave New World interprets a society in the future where people are created through labs and are controlled by a dictatorial government in the belief of having a stress-free society where everyone is happy. The author, Aldous Huxley, shows how society functions and what issues arise through Bernard Marx who is an Alpha male in the World State. Huxley reveals how wrong and unfair society is by using the hierarchy system which has different classes of people that are created with different intelligence levels, characteristics, and power. There is no freedom and unique techniques, such as the drug soma, are used to control society.
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