New vs Old Society

The final few Chapters of Brave New World are a flurry of action and the thought behind the morality of the society, which begs the question of who can tell what is right for a person or a society. After Linda’s death, John, in a fit of rage, tries to liberate the society, and is captured by the police. He is brought to the Controller of Europe and gets in a discussion over literature, God, and rights. The controller argues that God may exist, but that he isn’t conducive to their society of production and as such they have removed God in the favor to seek perpetual happiness. John says that God is necessary, and should be given to the people, because he tells people their morals of chastity and the like. He also argues that God and the old way are necessary, because it teaches people to live through the their troubles, not to give up or find the way of least resistance John rather have the hardships and misery that goes with life than take the route of civilization and purge emotion and use scientific unnatural means to be unnaturally happy. This discussion of morals and the roles of God made me think of who can call what is right and wrong to do. Both of these people thought their way was best and thought everyone else should follow it as the best course of action, but who can make that decision. Because as an outsider in the 21^st century, who is agnostic, I agreed more with the scientific controller who rely on God and thought scientific advances were good for society, but I also thought it wasn’t perfect. I also felt that it didn’t have the right to control everyone and make the decision for them. The old society wasn’t much better with its pain, violence, and unhappiness, as John willingly takes pain as well as doles out violence. I thought this turn of events was interesting for the novel. In most dystopian novels, while they admit the mistakes of the old society, they tend to romanticize them and want to go back to the old ways. This book however is different. Brave New World makes both societies out as terrible, one is controlled using psychology and the other is full of violence and misery. Neither one is preferable, but each thinks theirs is better, telling the audience that no society is perfect and no one can accurately make a choice for everyone else. All dystopian novels do this to a degree, but I think this novel does the best at demonstrating this to the audience, through the ending discussion and events.

The Conclusion

The conclusion of Brave New World  is in many ways more ambiguous than the rest of the novel. For the most part. I thought that Huxley's writing was straightforward and to the point, which mirrored the scientific precision of the society itself. The final chapter centers on John and his struggle with civilization. Disheartened by Linda's death and his conversation with Mond, it seemed to me as if John had lost all hope for returning to the "savage" way of life that he had been used to. He began to use soma as a way of numbing his discontent. From that point on, the book takes a rather dark turn. As Christian mentioned, the majority of the novel features characters who are happy with the society. Most of the plots are relatively light - love triangles, golf outings, etc. At the same time, in a society where free will has been eliminated, there is obviously going to be some heavy undertones throughout the book. The final chapter of the book is a sudden release of all of the negative implications of the society. The climactic scene of John's violent outburst against Lenina followed by the mass orgy seemed to demonstrate the worst elements of Huxley's world.  People lose their bodies and their identities to become part of the greater oppressive power. It is so unbearable that John pays the ultimate price by taking his life. The final paragraph of the novel is haunting. Huxley describes John's feet as he hangs. He uses the cardinal directions of a compass to evoke a detachment from the scene. The reader is reminded of the clinical nature of the society itself as if to say that civilization will go on in its dystopian state despite the damage done to John.

Everyone Isn't Happy?

At first when reading Brave New World, I got the idea that most people were happy except for the few rare exceptions, such as Bernard. After reading 12 chapters, it seems that as a reader you are discovering more and more people who are unhappy. These people do not tell others that they are unhappy, however. One example is Lenina. Lenina seems to like John a lot, but no matter what she does Lenina cannot express these emotions with him. In this society, you are not supposed to like only one person. Lenina has not expressed these feelings to anyone else yet which has allowed her to maintain a high social level. She has been with several higher up males, but she has still only wanted John.
When people in this society start to feel emotions other than happiness, they turn to soma. They go on soma holidays where they only feel happiness, but are in a coma so they cannot interact with real people. The length of these soma holidays differ; sometimes they are only for an hour or two, and other times people go on them for days. Linda is currently expected to be in her soma holiday for 30 days. In our society, if someone were to take a drug and it knocked them out for hours on end, the person would have a major problem and would need to get help. In Brave New World, it is normal and if you were not to go on soma holidays, then you would have a problem and you would need to get help in order to fit back into society. It is interesting how Huxley turned this social norm around. The 1930's was probably a time when drugs were becoming an issue and Huxley wanted to take this issue and show what life might be like if drugs were to take over a part of society. It seems that Huxley has taken a lot of themes of what was happening in the 1930's and took them to the extreme, such as with the conveyor belt.

Inclusion in Society

Unlike The Road or The Handmaid’s Tale, where everyone seems to be discontent and separated from each other, for most of the inhabitants of Brave New World, it seems to be the opposite. In The Handmaid’s Tale designated into roles, and everyone resented their roles, and the stereotypical roles of other, the economy wives, and the blue-wearing wives hate the handmaids, and to an extent the handmaids hate the wives and the commanders. Everyone hates their role. But in Brave New World, most of the people seem to be for the most part content in their roles. The people are conditioned for their roles in society, to make them the best at it and to make them somewhat happy. They are also conditioned in their sleep through little phrases to love their own role and society, and dislike the other roles, but at the same time, they are programmed to acknowledge that every rank has a place in society and should be respected. While this hierarchy of preprograming one person to be better than another in size or intelligence in unfair, the conditioning seems to work. Most of the people feel content working, playing golf, and so on, as they all feel they are a part of the norm and are a part of everyone else, or at least, they are made to feel that way. Then there are outsiders such as Bernard, who may have had alcohol put in his decanting bottle, and as a result he is an alpha with stunted growth and weaker conditioning. He doesn’t like golf, he doesn’t like how he holds less authority then the other alphas, and he hates how relationships are so open. Because of these things he is an outsider and dislikes the society, criticizing it and trying to be an individual of his choosing. But when he finds The Savage, and everyone now is polite to him because they want to meet John, he still criticizes the society to a degree, but he is also happy enjoying the privileges he never had before. He enjoys how people now listen to him, and how he can get any girl he wants. He uses the savage to get over six different girls in a week, and he used to hate promiscuity. Now he revels in it. This change in heart in Bernard seems to suggest that as long as a society makes people feel included, the people will be content with their society and behave.

                I know Lanina’s new behavior regarding her sadness over not having John goes against this, as she is discontent despite her sudden fame and inclusion in elite activities, but I think the point of inclusion is still worth mentioning.   

monogamy vs promiscuity

I don’t know much about the 1930s, during which this book was written, other than that it was the time of the Great Depression. But, it seems that during this time there must have been a fear or at least skepticism and curiosity of what the assembly line would bring, given that this book poses the absurd notion of babies being produced along a slow moving assembly line that creates perfect humans made to fit their jobs. But what is even more striking in some ways then the assembly line is the question of sexuality. Brave New World talks about how in the old world, before Ford Motors took over, monogamy was stressful to follow and that having a family of mother, father, and children was like a cult, with everyone in close proximity and the mother stressing over her children. The new society got rid of this presumed problem of family by having babies scientifically made and raised and getting rid of monogamy altogether. In this society, every one belongs to each other and as such they are expected to have sex with many people. Even while in a relationship, which shouldn’t last more than a few months, the people involved are seeing others on the side. Also this sexuality is started as young as six where the children in the facility are enjoying “erotic games” with each other.

This look at society seems very different from The Handmaid’s Tale, and today’s societies which are both concerned with the idea that society is too promiscuous.  Today’s society is trying to teach kids about abstinence, as well as trying to keep married couples from turning to divorce through counseling and other means. The Handmaid’s Tale on the other hand took sexuality and allure out of the process and made relationships and sex strictly a way of procreating. These methods are very different from Brave New World where procreation isn’t necessary and being promiscuous is which talks of the differences between the two time periods. The 1930s thought being promiscuous would help society while today’s period thinks it hurts. This leads me to wonder which is better or worse, because neither way of looking at it looks preferable. It also questions whether humans are destined to continuously go from one extreme to another, as we did in reality move from monogamy to promiscuity, all the while wondering if the other way was better.

The Conveyer Belt History

After reading the first 2 chapters of Brave New World, it is very obvious that the conveyer belt is an important piece of the book. It stretches for two kilometers and everything happens around it. After having a discussion in class about the conveyer belt, I decided to do a little research on it. It was first majorly used by Henry Ford at Ford Motor Company in 1914 to mass produce cars which was a big change. Before, everything had to be done by hand which caused varieties in some things. Once they started to use the conveyer belt, everything was the exact same. Brave New World was first published in 1932, which is not too long after the conveyer belt was started to be used by everyone.

It seems that Aldous Huxley took this new idea of everything being the exact same and brought it to the extreme. His thought process probably went something like this; 'If everything is now being made on a conveyer belt, what will the future of it look like? What if humans were created like this in the future?' Huxley took this idea of human creation on a conveyer belt and wrote Brave New World. Humans are now created to be the same person to do a single job, just like things on a conveyer belt.

Brave New World Ch. 1-3

The first three chapters of Brave New World show similarities and differences with the other dystopian novels we have read. The overarching theme of fertility parallels that of The Handmaid's Tale. In both books, fertility has been institutionalized in a way that prevents the idea of parenthood with which we are familiar. However, in The Handmaid's Tale, the institutionalization of fertility restricts sexual expression in the society. Brave New World paints the picture of a society where procreation is no longer a goal of sex, so people are expected to engaged in free sexual activity. 

Brave New World also hinges on the idea of a universal human morality, much like The Road. In The Road, the post-apocalyptic circumstances forces the characters to weigh their morality against their survival. The book is a constant conflict to preserve the goodness of human nature. In Brave New World, the institutionalization of fertility weights the society's morality against progress. While the advancements in the society are accepted by the characters as good, the reader must question the moral justifications for such progress. 

There is a fundamental difference that sets Brave New World apart from the other novels. The dystopian nature of the society is a byproduct of its advancement whereas in both The Handmaid's Tale and The Road, a catastrophic event causes society to regress to a less developed state. In some ways, the book paints an even grimmer image of the future by creating a society based on the scientific and technological advancement that we value so highly.