After finishing Brave New World, I realized that there is a totally different message being given in the novel, which you don’t really get to until the last couple of chapters. The rest of the story is just a build up to the remaining fifty or so pages. The beginning of the story begins with what, at first glance, seems like an idealistic world where war and unhappiness don’t exist. That’s what everyone wants, right? To be happy and have no war or battles going on? But at what cost is everyone willing to wage for it. In Brave New World, society is all within the hands of one man, but everyone is happy with that. No one cares about his or her positions in life, because they have all been “programmed” to like where they are. If anyone ever gets angry, they have pills called “soma” that will make you happy again within a matter of minutes. Death is seen as a trivial matter. “Everyone belongs to everyone.” No emotional attachments to anything. The past means nothing to them—they know nothing of it. They all live in this dreamlike island separated from the real world, which is somewhat interrupted by a man named John, otherwise known as the “savage.”
John, who was born on a reservation outside of the factory, is a dose of reality for everyone from the factory. He introduces things such as pain, suffering, attachment, morals, history, Shakespeare, true emotions, religion. All of which are foreign to the “islanders.” When he first arrives at the factory, he is amazed at their huge advances in technology; however, he soon realizes that these people know nothing about life. In the last couple of chapters, he has this long conversation with Mustapha Mond, the leader of the factory, about why no one knows about the real joys of life—Shakespeare, history, etc..and why Mond hates all of it. Mond explains to John, that he loves all of that, and that it makes up an integral part of life; however, if everyone knew about that, then the factory would become a place of quarrel and strife. According to Mond, in order to have a functioning world, where peace and happiness exist and no war, everyone has to have the same beliefs. You have to make sacrifices. Mond says he chose this new factory life, not because he likes it better, but because it makes for a better world.
How can one man decide what a better world would be for millions of people? I think the ideal world would be a perfect balance of everything, not one, where the lives of people are being lead on false terms. It is a tough subject.
JSTOR
-The Two Future Worlds of Aldous Huxley by Rudolf B. Schmerl
-Science and Conscience in Huxley’s Brave New World
-Brave New Worlds: Philosophy, Politics, and Science in Human Biotechnology
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Sue--good post. It is through John Savage, and especially his reactions to London, a world the likes of which he has never seen or imagined, that Huxley allows us to see his true purposes in the novel. I think the first part (pre-John) might be read as a satire of completely controlled society rather than as an idealistic world, but I completely agree that when John gets his hour alone with Mustapha Mond, the issues become clearer. And as a result the second half of the novel becomes more serious in tone, even tragic.
Good luck finding strong ideas in the criticism to help you get started on your paper. Any idea yet what your focus will be?
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