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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. A satirical piece of fiction, not scientific prophecy. Satire:. A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt/anger.
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Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley A satirical piece of fiction, not scientific prophecy
Satire: • A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. • While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt/anger. • Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present.
Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place
What does this mean? • “Reading Brave New World elicits the same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has vanquished.”
Huxley exploits anxieties about Soviet Communism and American capitalism. • The price of universal happiness will be the sacrifice of honored customs/beliefs of our culture: “motherhood,”“home,”“family,”“freedom,” and “love.”
Huxley’s Life • Born in Surrey, England • July 26, 1894 • Family was deeply rooted in England’s literary and scientific tradition • Grandfather was a famous biologist, Aunt was a novelist, Great-Uncle was a poet,
Huxley’s Life (ctnd) • Mom died of cancer when he was 14…which gave him a sense of “the transience (brief/short-lived experience) of human happiness.” • When he was 16, he developed keratitis and was partially blind for two years! • He eventually graduated from Oxford University with Honors but was unable to fight in WWI.
Huxley Life (still ctnd) • He visited the US in 1926 and loved the hustle/bustle of America. • He wrote Brave New World five years later. • Critics were offended by Huxley’s portrayal of the future. • In the 1950’s Huxley became interested in psychedelic drugs.
Huxley’s Death • He died on November 22, 1963. • He took two injections of LSD on his deathbed. • This is the same day on which JFK was assassinated. • CS Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) also died on this day!
Mustapha Mond, Resident Controller of Western Europe, governs a society where all aspects of an individual's life are determined by the state, beginning with conception, and followed by assembly-line decanting. • A government bureau, the Predestinators, decides all roles in the hierarchy. • Children are raised and conditioned by the state bureaucracy, not brought up by natural families. • There are only 10,000 surnames. • Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have their own kids.
Brave New World, then, is centered around control and manipulation • Huxley instills the fear that a future world-state may rob us of “the right to be unhappy.”
time and place written: 1931, England • date of first publication: 1932 • settings (place): England, Savage Reservation in New Mexico
settings (time): 2540 AD; referred to in the novel as 632 years AF (“After Ford”), meaning 632 years after production of the first Model T car • narrator: Third-person omniscient • point of view: Narrated in the third person from the point of view of Bernard or John, but also from the point of view of Lenina, Helmholtz Watson, and Mustapha Mond
*propaganda, *censorship, *conformity, *genetic engineering, *social conditioning, and *mindless entertainment. • This novel is more applicable today than it was in 1932. OURS is a time of… • This was what Huxley saw in our future. His novel is a warning.
Do we have a modern soma? • Consider the number of ads for prescription drugs, which are permitted only in the United States and New Zealand • Doctors and consumer advocates believe these ads drive up health-care costs and seduce millions into asking their MDs for drugs they don’t need for diseases they had never before heard of, like restless leg syndrome
Whatever is wrong, there’s a drug for you, or so TV ads say
“Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t.”Aldous Huxley