Brave new world is a book written by Aldous Huxley in 1932. The story is about a future world in which everything is done to make life more beautiful and try to make a perfect world. The majority of the population agrees with this way of life but some people don't like the way this society works. So we are going to try to see if life in this book is a utopia or a dystopia. We will first start with arguments in favour of utopia and then in favour of dystopia and we will end with a conclusion in which we will give the answer to the question.
Firstly, it is a perfect world because there is no poverty. Not everyone has the same standard of living because there are social classes, but in spite of this everyone has a job and the vital needs of all citizens are met. In our world this is not the case, there are many countries where poverty is present and people are starving. In Brave New World people do not live in poverty and do not starve to death, so we can speak of a utopia.
Secondly, in this world there are no wars. Since the beginning of their lives people have been conditioned to be able to live together in the best possible way. This starts at a very young age, a social class is chosen for all people and they are told that this is how society works. So people are used to living with social classes, it doesn't bother them and so there is no conflict. Thanks to this Brave New World is a world of peace where there are no wars.
Also thanks to the system set up in Brave New World people don't get sick. Everyone comes from artificial fertilization, the embryos are modified during their development. Nurses such as Lenina Crowne inject vaccines into the embryos so that no one can get sick. Because of this everyone is immune to all diseases for the rest of their lives.
Then a solution was found so that people are no longer unhappy. In Brave New World everything is done so that people don't have problems and are happy. In spite of this, sometimes people may feel bad. To solve this problem a medicine has been created: soma. It is a drug that people take when they are unhappy, it makes people happy and makes them forget all the problems. Thanks to soma there is no unhappiness in Brave New World and everyone lives a happy life.
However, because of the system in place there are many inequalities. It is because of the social classes that have been created so that the world can function better. The more people are part of an upper class, the more privileges they have and the better life they have. We can see it in the book when Lina and Henry come home from their golf game. They are part of a higher social class and travel by helicopter while others take the monorail. It is also explained that the Alpha and Delta live in houses while the others live in barracks. The upper classes have many more privileges whereas they did not do anything for that but were just created to be part of the upper class.
Then the citizens don't have a lot of freedoms. Everything is decided and chosen for them from the moment they are born. They are created to be part of a social class and have decided for them what they are going to do with their lives. When they are small they are educated not to like some things and to like others. As an example we can quote the beginning of the book. When people are still babies they receive electric shocks when they approach a book or a flower. This frightens them and they don't like it for the rest of their lives. Books because they are considered subversive, that means it could cause people to turn against the system. And flowers because they are free and everyone is free to pick them.
Another argument is that children are mistreated. When people are still babies they are educated with electric shocks and sirens. This is not at all an ethical way to take care of a child. Yet they do it with every child every day. This proves that it is not a perfect world because in a perfect world one could educate children without hurting them and terrorizing them.
In conclusion, this world can make us think of a utopia. Everything is done in it so that people are happy and don't have problems. It makes sure that they can live together without problems and that they lack nothing to live for. There is even a medicine that cures misfortune. On the other hand, if we look a little further, we can see that this world is not utopian. The solutions that have been found have created other problems. Citizens have almost no freedom and have a life that has been chosen for them. On top of that there are huge inequalities between the different social classes.
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Utopia And Dystopia In Brave New World.
(2021, August 19). Edubirdie. Retrieved December 22, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/utopia-and-dystopia-in-brave-new-world/
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