O Brave New World, that Has Such People In’t!

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley- Book Review

“Orgy porgy, Ford and fun, kiss the girls and make them one” (Huxley, 1931, p. 56). This may be the single phrase that conveys Aldous Huxley's Brave New World's entire idea. The science fiction novel, written in 1931, anticipates developments in psychological manipulations present in 2054 London's society, or as a fellow bookworm would know, 632 A.F. Characterized by a technology-dependent, controlling state, Huxley designs a negative utopia meant to exhaust the reader with human engineering, sex defamation, and drug abuse. Brave New World is a phenomenal reflective piece with a controversial argument; nonetheless, the story becomes overwhelming after a certain point and the plot lacks development.

The novel recounts the lives of a group of characters that are unsatisfied with their supposedly happy lives. Though they belong to the most privileged of five social classes, the Alphas, they disagree with the World State's means to reach their motto- “Community, Identity, Stability”. Bernard Marx, one of the self-defined "outcasts", has a personal grudge against the system. His shortness leads him to feel inferior and to question the system; he condemns sex orgies as the answer to calm desire, and soma drugs as the method to reach oblivion rather than to face reality. Watson, Bernard’s friend, rubbishes the World State for restraining truly insightful writings, such as Shakespeare’s, and believes that his career as a teacher is hollow. Finally, John, will appear in the second half of the novel to evidence the fact that the system is incapable of customizing foreigners and to include his disapproval of the administration. These three discontent characters are doomed to form part of the created dystopia, and thus forced to face the consequences of their alienation.  

   
Huxley's motives for writing Brave New World can be summarized as his attempt to criticize the so-called scientific progresses of mankind at the time of publication. Among others, mass consumption, line production, and technology blend with power abuse and indoctrination to design a negative utopia. Stability and happiness are achieved in the World State through human genetic engineering and hypnotization. The motif of Henry Ford, present in the year designations (After Ford) parodies human’s dependence and glorification of line production; In the novel, the World State’s citizens are sequentially manufactured and modified to have different levels of intellect and appearances. Moreover, they are instructed to consume everything and everyone as a basis to maintain a firm economy. People take drugs to calm down anxieties, have unrestrained sex orgies to satisfy impulses, watch movies called ‘feelies’ to stimulate their bodies, and buy and read any rubbish as long as it is new. Huxley also conveys the idea of abuse of power from part of the government in order to denounce the European regimes. The State’s directors, the only members with access to the truth, resemble the military leaders of these developing dictatorships. Though they differ in methods, their ultimate objective is to distract the citizens, as they are enslaved. They condition them to appreciate their inescapable social destiny (Huxley, 1931, p.13).

I found the first half of the novel delightful and entertaining, but I feel that Huxley should have developed the plot further. After reading a hundred or more pages of people having sex, taking drugs, and being taught to be rude to other people, you get frustrated. You expect for the characters to evolve, to change and to pursue a change, but their attitudes are far too flat. I personally liked John, who seems to be the most unconventional individual. He fights for what he believes and refuses to accept the World State’s indoctrination as he claims: “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Huxley, 1931, p. 163). Overall, the recurrent events are overwhelming and it is difficult to empathize with the personages.

The flaws mentioned above, however, are not enough to take away Huxley’s merit. Brave New World is still a breathtaking reflective novel, ideal for teenagers and young adults who enjoy fictional dystopian tales. I consider that the author’s brilliance lies on directing the reader to abhor the depicted society by writing subjectively in between the lines. O brave new world, that has such people living in’t! (5. 1. 187-188). O brave new world!
 

References
Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros.
Shakespeare, W., & Horne, D. (1955). The tempest ([Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press.