Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Author Bio: Huxley's upbringing had profound effect on his work. He was born into a family that included some of the most distinguished members of English ruling class that made up of the intellectual elite. Throughout Brave New World there is an unsure attitude towards such authority by a ruling class.  Huxley wanted to expose this unfair system and so he satirized it by creating his own caste system in Brave New World with the Alphas, Betas, Gammas, etc.  to show the ridiculousness of such a society and that it is not ideal at all.

Plot Summary: Brave New World begins with a tour of the Central London in Hachery and Conditioning Center We see that the the birth process has been mechanized and the different castes of society are conditioned from birth to accept their role in life. It seems all very silly that human being would be made this way just like cars but that is the result Huxley gets by using satire to denounce high technology and the creation of a perfect society. Bernard Marx, a man who doesn't fit into his strictly controlled and pacified world, is an Alpha, the highest caste in society. He takes Lenina, a standard Beta, for a vacation at a Reservation where he meets John the Savage and brings him into society where he surrenders to its evil and finally commits suicide in the end. Huxley satirizes a number of things mainly  science, human nature, and love in society to expose the supposed "utopia" of the World State for what it truly is.

Character Analysis: John the Savage is a character who is damned from the very beginning. Being the unwanted child of the Director, he grew up living in the Savage Reservation and to not have gone through all the tests and hypnopaedia, it is no surprise he couldn't take it all in when he was in the World State. People see this innocent and fragile young man breakdown from all the pressures of the World State and finally gives in to evils. After realizing what he has done, John couldn't but blame himself for letting himself give in like that so he decides to end it all by committing suicide. Huxley satirizes the fact that even though John is completely normal, he is actually considered a Savage, while all the erractically behaving people in the World State are considered "normal citizens". John serves as an example and warning of the effects a "perfect" society can have on regular people such as himself and with John committing suicide in the end it helps to influence people to change their minds about wanting a utopian society.

Elements related to topic: The satire is heightened by the use of extreme metaphors in the novel such as the "assembly line", where babies and human life are manufactured in the same building as where material things are being churned out. In this society Ford replaces God which shows the controlling effects of technology so much so that even an important figure such as God could even be replaced by a man who invented the conveyor belt method of manufacturing cars. Huxley creates interesting ideas and words such as soma and hypnopaedia to exaggerate the things that could be created because of the gravitated use of technology and to warn people the dangers of it.