Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

1. Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley A satirical piece of fiction, not scientific prophecy

2. 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.

3. Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place

4. What does this mean? • “Reading Brave New World elicits the same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has vanquished.”

5. 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.”

6. 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,

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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!

10. 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.

11. 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.”

12. time and place written: 1931, England • date of first publication: 1932 • settings (place): England, Savage Reservation in New Mexico

13. 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

14. *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.

15. 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

16. Whatever is wrong, there’s a drug for you, or so TV ads say

17. “Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t.”Aldous Huxley