Aldous Huxley, in his lexis and syntax, have proven his proficiency in language through the successful delivering of the layering meanings behind “Brave New World”.
The book, “Brave New World”, has certainly stood different from other books, especially with the challenging set of vocabulary it requires of the reader to wholly understand its meaning. Worthy and reflective of the author’s scholarly upbringing, the abundance of long, complicated words in the novel radiated the formal, scientific tone of the future. In addition, the book also featured many unique terms Huxley created in order to accurately depict the World State.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
Alongside his impressive choice of word, Huxley had an undeniable talent to thread those words into lustrous, flowing fabrics of literature. His gift revealed itself in the use of complex, lengthy sentences, the third-person narrative, and the lack of individual’s appearance description, all of which further reinforce one of the book’s main theme: community. Furthermore, his repetition of phrases, imitating the World State’s way of hypnopaedia education, highlighted the characters’ absence of freedom in will, even as far as in thought. Within the novel, Huxley employed an extensive number of rhetorical devices, most noticeably: metaphors of humanity, allusions to historical figures and references of Shakespeare’s works.
Through the academic lexicon and intricate sentence structuring, the language of “Brave New World” has both provoked the tone of the setting and signified the controlling theme of the book. As such of any creation, there are imperfections that accompany the appeals. Of no exception, “Brave New World”, praised it may be, contains a number of shortcomings I would like be revised, most notably: the arrangement of protagonists, explorations of the background settings, and the clarification of context implications.
Protagonists are identified as those of the story’s main focus, and usually bestowed with the most developed introspection. In the case of “Brave New World”, though, I was surprised by the extent to which Huxley covered the protagonists’ characters. Our first protagonist – Bernard – seemed to have fallen into the cast of supporting characters at the mid-point of the novel. The narration was no longer from his point of view, but instead of John, our new protagonist. The shift in central character made me feel that the growth for two protagonists is too much to cram into the novel, which resulted in one left out of the spotlight and both under-developed. Thus, I believe it would be beneficial if Huxley has either included Bernard more towards the ending, or stuck with only one leading protagonist so the character can be examined in further depths.
Another facet I would like to see be displayed in greater complexity would be the functioning and application of the World State. Huxley has dedicated almost the entirety of the beginning to building such a detailed vision of the future. Yet, it appeared that just one part of the design was featured as a plot device, while the rest remained as only background settings for the world the events takes place. As a reader, discovering the life on the islands that Hemholtz and Bernard are banished to, or taking a glimpse into the work of the World Controller would interest me immensely.
Through every flip of the page, readers are familiarized to the vaguely obscure tone of the book, which created an underlying emphasis on the communality of the world. However, there are moments where I find the ambiguity a bit confusing, and can lead to false or deficient interpretations of the context. Upon my first read, I failed to catch the hints of John’s unconscious participation in the crowd’s chaotic revel, which I only realized after thorough research on the novel’s plot. In my opinion, as much as I enjoy contemplating the meaning behind each act, delivering the story in a slightly more direct way would let the implication of a situation be more comprehensible to readers, without necessarily making it too blunt.
In my subjective point of view, I regard “Brave New World” as a thought-provoking novel with, inevitably, a few minuses in certain aspects. If improvements were to made to the book, I would recommend they be in allocation of the central characters, discovery of the meticulously built world, and elucidation of context insinuation. With the core of satirizing the contemporary society, the book is written with little to no target group of audience in mind, but rather addressed to the community as a whole. Perhaps it is the ever-changing nature of humanity that drove the impact of “Brave New World” to change so incredibly throughout the course of history.
Upon its initial release, the book received much criticism, each varying greatly on the spectrum of praise and condemnation. Many papers, literary critics and even political figures voiced their disapproval of the novel’s content as well as Aldous Huxley’s capability. And while there were positive reviews, only a handful of them reserved the more awe-inspiring adjectives to laud Huxley’s work. The public seem to also shared the critics’ thoughts, with largely mixed feedbacks, leaning more towards scepticism and reproach of the book.
Stuck on your essay?
