An Analysis of Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World

written by Sierra Nevada

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in't!"

-Shakespeare’s The Tempest

        Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World is a dystopian piece of fiction that was published in 1932 in London by Chatto and Windus. The novel takes place in a futuristic society where no longer are children raised by their parents. Infants are genetically manufactured and programmed to be ideal adults in a tightly knit community. The main character struggles to fit in because of a decanting malfunction that enabled him to think for himself and analyze situations. This outcast, throughout the novel, grasps a better understanding of the underlying workings of society, which create an urge for him to be alone and discover what else is outside of the bubble of community he is stuck in. Eventually he travels to a place where people still live and thrive in the old ways, isolated from the ideal world. There he meets a half-savage young man who turns his life around and opens his eyes. In the end of it all the society doesn’t change but some of the main characters are relocated to a place where their differences are accepted and they can live without constant ridicule as they were before.

             During the span of the novel, characters are surrounded by an illusion. Geographically it takes place in a future London, England where the reader is taken through many different facilities and locations. The novel opens up to the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Center where the Director is giving a tour of the establishment to a group of young boys. No specific dates are given to the reader, probably a tactic the author used so as not to limit the reader’s ability to relate to the story. The book was written in the early 20th century, so by not providing dates it gives the reader a chance to relate the situations to their own time, with any generation. The atmosphere of the book is sinister, yet in a way, paints a vivid picture of the naïve illusions that the residents of this society live within. As the novel starts off the atmosphere is eerie, explaining the processes in which people are created and programmed within the confines of government-run factories.
Then as the story picks up, it develops a more personal feeling, portraying the society through the eyes of the oblivious people that live there; giving it a more comfortable tone. After the characters interact more and gain knowledge, the novel returns an eerie state but this time with much more bewilderment and concern.



            The main characters of the novel include Bernard Marx, a member of the Alpha group. Bernard has unorthodox beliefs on community events, sexual relationships and sports. This singular trait already sets Bernard out of the social ring of the community as others continuously question and speculate his actions. He is insecure about himself, is shy about asking women out, and yearns to have privacy, traits no one else holds or understands. In having these traits he grows apart from the community yet with frustrated desire, struggles to make his place in society. However, he refuses to enjoy or take place in any of it’s events.
     
              For example, this can be easily illustrated in a scene of the novel in which Bernard attends some sort of song-circle meeting. At the get-together he refuses to take a popular stimulant, soma, that is rationed daily to the public to keep them satisfied and in a state of prolonged bliss.  He feels this is wrong and he’d rather feel his own feelings instead of being fed illusions (they call being under the influence of soma, a "holiday"). During the course of this scene he grows extremely uncomfortable yet still desires to be a part of it, so he pretends he has taken his soma.

At this event he is accompanied by Lenina Crowne, who finds Bernard curious yet an attractive person to be around.

         Lenina Crowne is a vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Center. She is described as one of the most beautiful and sought after woman in her caste, Delta. Minor and major characters pursue and desire her, such as Bernard, John, and Henry Foster. She seems to be perfectly in tune with her community, yet sometimes unorthodox traits shine through. Lenina’s curiosity and view on relationships are something that set her aside from others. For example, she likes to date Henry Foster more than once, keeping a relationship going for four months without any other men.

In this dystopian society dating one person only and for an extended amount of time is considered strange. Her overall quirky behavior is intriguing and cute, something that makes her attractive to the reader. Even though she has these quirky moments, she still can’t relate to people without sex (a positive trait in this society). This makes her unable to understand or tolerate Bernard’s discontent and strange thinking.

She also fails to comprehend any of John’s "old-way" values and morals due to her programmed World State conventional values. Her failure to understand John can be seen in a scene where she attempts to attain John’s "love." She had developed an intense passion for John (the savage) after meeting him the first couple of times. Unfortunately in this scene she is rejected, even though he finds her insanely desirable. He’d rather have a relationship in the old conventional way. She still can’t understand his reasoning at that point and becomes very offended.

       
            Helmholtz Watson is a friend of Bernard’s who is also an Alpha. He differs from Bernard though in that he is a perfect example of his caste. Yet in his tremendous success, Helmholtz feels that his work at the College of Emotional Engineering is meaningless and futile. Bernard and Helmholtz both share discontent for the World State, a prime reason for their friendship. However unlike Bernard’s petty complaining, he expresses his criticism on a more intellectual, philosophical level. Due to this major difference in personality, Helmholtz often finds Bernard’s bragging and cowardice annoying or tedious.
    
         Other characters include Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller of Western Europe. He was once a scientist conducting illegal work, but when presented with a choice of exile or training to be a World Controller, he gave up science to pursue that career. So as a result he has to exile people for thinking that is considered is unorthodox in the society. Secretly though, he stashes important cultural books like poetry, art, science, and religious works (such as the Bible).

Another character is John, who people of the World State call "Savage." He gets that name because he was born from his mother’s womb at the New Mexico Savage Preservation. His parents were Linda and the Director, an interesting story because the Director and Linda went on a holiday vacation where events took place where Linda was separated from him and lost there. The Director left her there after shortly searching for her and thought her dead. Unfortunately he got her pregnant before parting and caused her to birth John at the Preservation. This made John an outcast from the village that they lived in there, causing him to dream of place to go where he could be accepted.

When Bernard and Lenina take a vacation to the Reservation, they find Linda and are shocked and sickened at her old age (old age doesn’t exist in Wold State society).

           They meet John and take him willingly back to London where he eventually discovers that he passionately despises the place. He is even more of an outcast there, but in an even more isolated way. The people there are in awe at him and only think of him as a research experiment or freak-case. John ends up sparking Bernard’s popularity among the community, bringing him faux acceptance. Eventually it all goes down hill though and Bernard blames it on John. Fed up with it all, John becomes a better friend with Helmholtz (because of his desirable intellect) and Bernard becomes jealous of their friendship. Even though John takes a liking to Helmholtz, he is appalled at the reaction he got when he read them Shakespeare.

Bernard and Helmholtz think the writing is hilariously shocking, yet strange, which offends John. John has a passion for art and religion, but the two men just ridicule it and think it is strange because they have never been exposed to such culture.
             Some other notable minor characters include Henry Foster, one of Lenina’s lovers, Linda, a previous Beta and John’s mother, The Arch-Community Songster (equivalent to modern archbishop), and Pope` who is Linda’s lover at the Reservation and also the man who gave her the Shakespeare book. Linda hated the book and gave it to John. Also another small character was Lenina’s friend, Fanny Crowne. Fanny Crowne is a typical programmed, conventional World State value type of girl. She finds Bernard weird and dislikes him. Her role in the novel was basically voicing the conventional values of her (Delta) caste and society. She is there just to warn Lenina against unconventional thinking, for example, telling her that staying with one man for too long looks bad to others.

This novel is classified as science fiction as well as dystopian fiction. Dystopian fiction is basically the offshoot of utopian fiction (the creation of an ideal world). It is a genre of literature that explores social and political structures but with the creation of a nightmare world "dystopia." In this type of genre, a metaphor is created that uses both dystopia and utopia to create a speculative work of fiction where humanity takes a different direction, showing how humanity could possible end up. In the case of A Brave New World dystopian fiction accurately identifies it as that genre. The novel displays this type of world in which humanity is manufactured to be ideal and presents values that can be considered as horrifying. This exemplifies the definition of sci-fi dystopian fiction in the nightmarish world that Aldous Huxley has created. The author does this by locking the reader in with powerful, creative, and vivid detail that describes this futuristic world. He uses a fast paced, chronological writing style that clearly displays the characters and makes it easy for readers to relate to them on a personal level. Many times in the book I caught myself truly curious and on the edge of my seat about what would happen next. This story is written from a third-person point of view, which was nice because the reader is able to see and understand the thoughts and actions of the characters.

The plot of the story follows Bernard Marx through this dystopian world in which people are born and programmed in government facilities. While babies are sleeping information, rhymes and phrases are repeated to them constantly to sculpt them into model citizens. People think, feel, and act in whatever ways they are taught. Bernard was isolated in himself from the community, struggling to fit in. Finally after pining and worrying, he got the girl he wanted and went on a vacation to a Savage Reservation where they were exposed to a tiny civilization of people untouched from the horrid ways of the World State. Never seeing such a thing before, Lenina got scared and turned to soma for consolement, Bernard, however, had his eyes opened. The climax: they met and took back half-savage, John to London. Bernard used John as a way into acceptance, but it eventually backfired. This is where the climax of the story really got truly intense. John was appalled at the way things were run there and struggled to find a way back out, or at least some answers. John, Bernard and Helmholtz were eventually noticed and recognized as unorthodox and were sent to the Controller. There they found out about the true reasons why society was run the way it was. John wanted culture, Helmholtz wanted a intellectual challenge, and Bernard just wanted acceptance. After they all realized they could not find what they wanted in London or World State society, they were given the option to go to Iceland. Where normally to conventional citizens this was a threat, the Controller explained that it was part of the world that was not under "Ford" (messianic figure) and World State order. At hearing this they all accepted the admittance into this other world society and this is basically where the story ends. Every part of this novel kept me interested. I literally could not put the book down, only to sleep, until I had read up to the very last word. Huxley was very successful at hooking me into this wonderfully, amazing and outrageous piece of fiction.

Huxley’s message seems to be that of warning to humanity. He opened up a door into a world where we can almost look into the future to see what would happen if humanity’s modern trends continue at the speed they are going and if the threats of oppressive regimes prevail. It also gives us an idea of how the world could be if culture, art, religion, and freethinking were taken away from us. The most astonishing thing about it is that in this portion of humanity’s control on Earth, A Brave New World doesn’t seem too far-fetched. The novel basically shows how all of this can happen, what it would be like, and in a way that is explained as plausible and possible. In fact, in reading the novel, it is easy to believe that something similar could make itself reality in the near future if we let it happen.
I simply adore this book for it’s shear creativity, originality, and vividness. I commend this novel and it’s author, Aldous Huxley and wish that they made this a required-reading book for high school or college students so that more people can be aware of the possibilities of the future. This story is one of the best that I have ever laid my eyes upon and I have already begun recommending it to my friends, family, and random people. I believe that if more people read it and are able to understand it, then maybe when a similar global situation starts to happen there will be the informed ones who can counter it and save the world from cultural demise.