FREE ESSAY ON BRAVE NEW WORLD

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Brave New World
As man has progressed through the ages, there has been, essentially, one purpose. That
purpose is to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is
nonexistent, and
strife, anger, or sadness are unheard of. Only happiness exists. But when confronted
with
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we come to realize that this is not, in fact, what the
human soul really craves. In fact, Utopian societies are much worse than those of today.
In a
utopian society, the individual, who among others composes the society, is lost in the
melting
pot of semblance and world of uninterest.
In the science fiction book Brave New World, we are confronted with a man, Bernard
Marx. Bernard is inadequate to his collegues. So he resorts to entertaining himself most
evenings, without the company of a woman. This encourages his individual thought, and he
realizes that independent thought is rewarding, and that he must strive to become a real
individual. Although this is true to a certain extent, Bernard does not realize that he
would
much rather attain social recognition. At least, not until the opportunity presents
itself.
Thus, through a series of events, Bernard uses the curiosity of the society to his
advantage,
fulfilling his subconscious wish of becoming someone important; a recognized name in the
jumble of society. This ends when the curiosity of others ends, and as a supreme result
of his
arrogant behavior, he is exiled. The instigator of this curiosity as well as the author
of
Bernard's fame (and folly), is an outsider know as the Savage. The Savage is brought in
from outside of the utopian society by Bernard as an experiment. He faces civilized
society
with a bright outlook, but eventually comes to hate it bitterly.
Lenina, the supporting role of the novel, is the most pronounced example of the ideal
citizen. She adheres to the principles of the society without so much as a second
thought. In
the utopian society that Huxley presents, everyone is happy. There are no differences.
Everyone is brought up to be happy, and most do not even know what sadness or anger is.
All
is cured artificially through surrogates or drugs. Even happiness alone is not unique to
the
individual. Soma, the hallucinatory drug, the 'perfect drug' that is used by all, even
induces
the same kind of happiness. The only variant is to what extent this happiness overwhelms
the
user (one or two half-gramme tablets?). Everybody belongs to everyone else (127) is the
basic psychology of the society. This suggests that an individual owes everything to
society,
but society in turn owes everything to him or her. This applies to all. No one
capitalizes on the
efforts of others and no one performs excessive manual labor for minimum wage. Everyone
is
the same. In Huxley's perfect world, sex is a mundane undertaking. It happens to each
individual almost every night. And no one knows what marriage is. They simply have each
other and move on. All for one and one for all. Everyone is the same in bed. 
The inhabitants of this society are not given any sort of mental flexibility. If you
spend time alone, or think, you are considered strange, and are considered an outcast.
Nobody wishes for this, and so correspondingly nobody commits this unspeakable crime.
Everyone goes out at night with a different partner, or takes a few grammes of soma and
goes to bed for a soma-holiday. Nothing new, nothing different. Each person of this
society
has a predestined future. They all develop in their fetal stages inside a jar, where they
are
provided with their needs, are vaccinated against all known diseases. Also, special
treatments
are performed to aid in the mental growth (or standstill) of the individual after
'birth',
according to their future occupation. The first of a batch of two hundred and fifty
embryonic
rocket-plane engineers was just passing the eleven hundredth metre mark on Rack 3. A
special mechanism kept their containers in constant rotation. `To improve their sense of
balance,' Mr. Foster explained. `Doing repairs on the outside of a rocket in mid air is
a
ticklish job. We slacken off the circulation when they're right way up, so that they're
half
starved, and double the flow of surrogate when they're upside down. They learn to
associate
topsy- turvydom with well being; in fact, they're only truly happy when they're standing
on
their heads. (32) All two hundred and fifty beings will be the same - they will look
alike,
talk alike, act alike, have the same job, and generally be the same people inside
different
media. One never knows which is which. After birth, all children are mentally conditioned
to
think and act with the same motives. Through hypnopaedia, all of the basic rules of the
society are learned by the children, and they learn to repeat and obide by these rules.
There are no chances for anyone to develop any differences. Or if they do, they are
exiled so that they cannot influence those around them. Nothing changes, including the
government and the lifestyle of the inhabitants. Last and most importantly, the
Bokanovsky method of reproducing causes great numbers of genetically identical human
beings (up to 96 at a time from a single egg alone). As well, the same ovary can be used
to
produce over seventeen thousand individuals with the same basic genetic background.
Everyone is the same. Same birth, same upbringing, same lifestyle. Any differences are
remedied immediately.
Huxley presents the ultimate in utopian societies. But nobody is open for mental
growth. All are limited to set barriers. Although this would appear a perfect society at
first, it
becomes obvious later on in the novel that the race will no longer evolve. Nobody will
have new
ideas. Nobody will improve on society. Nothing will change. This is not what the human
race
desires. It desires to acquire knowledge, unceasingly and neverendingly. Without this
advantage, we will go mad.