Download
1 / 36
360 likes | 370 Views
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a satirical piece of fiction that ridicules the subject of the work. Through ridicule, irony, and exaggeration, Huxley reflects contempt for societal vices. This article explores the different types of satire, the concept of utopia and dystopia, and provides historical context for the novel.
E N D
Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley A satirical piece of fiction, not scientific prophecy
“O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new worldThat has such people in’t!” Miranda from The Tempest by William Shakespeare
A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. • While satire can be funny, its aim is to reflect contempt or disapproval. • Ridicule, irony, and exaggeration are almost always present. What is satire?
SATIRE HORATIAN Horatian satire, named for the Roman satirist Horace (65-8 BCE), playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humor. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humor toward what it identifies as folly. Horratian satire generally maintains a sympathetic tone JUVENALIAN Juvenalian satire, named after the Roman satirist Juvenal (late 1st century – early 2nd century CE), is more contemptuous and abrasive than Horatian. Juvenalian satire addresses social evil through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often pessimistic, characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on humor. Strongly polarized political satire is often Juvenalian.
Utopian and Dystopian Literature ELF 40S Ms. Van Den Bussche
A Utopia is a place or society that appears perfect in every way. • The government works to improve society’s standard of living through control • There is no war or disease, only peace and happiness. Everyone outside this Utopian society looks to this place in wonder and awe, believing it is completely perfect in every such way. What is Utopia?
Dystopia is the antithesis of Utopia. • It defines a place or society which is in complete chaos. • The citizens are all suffering and are miserable. • Oftentimes in novels what appears to be a Utopian society at first is actually revealed to be a dystopian society. • The citizens are often revealed to live in terror, under complete control by the government, unaware of corrupt world in which they actually live in, or suppressed by the society as a whole. What is Dystopia?
“Brave New World is a book about the future . . . A book about the future can interest us only of its prophecies look as though they might conceivably come true.” Aldous Huxley from “Preface to the 1946 edition.”
“Utopias seem to be much easier torealize than we formerly believed them to be.Now we find ourselves presented with another alarming questions: How do we prevent utopias from coming into existence? The utopias are attainable. Life marches towards the formation of utopias. And it can be that as a new century begins, a century where the intellectuals and the privileged will dream of ways to eliminate utopias and to return a non-utopian society, less ‘perfect’ and more ‘free’.” Nicolas Berdiaeff Inside the front cover of Brave New World – translated from French
Aldous Huxley was born in England in 1894, grandson of the prominent biologist T.H. Huxley. Huxley first studied at Eton College but later went to Balliol College in Oxford. At 16, he suffered months of blindness but one eye recovered and with special glasses he completed his studies. He majored in English when he was unable to pursue his chosen career as a scientist.
HISTORICAL TIMELINE Historical Context • 1879: The first psychological laboratory opens in Germany • 1886: Freud opens his psychology practice in Austria, experimenting with techniques such as hypnosis, free association, and dream analysis. From 1900-1905, he publishes his major works on psychoanalysis, also known as the "talking cure.“ • 1900: Gregor Mendel’s scientific work on genetic inheritance is rediscovered.
1900’s-20's: Introduction of chewing gum, radio, movies, and advertising: The Industrial Revolution transformed the world with “Mass Production” that included cars, telephones, and radios cheaply made and widely available. Accordingly, many of the novel's characters named after widely-recognized influential people of the time, for example: PollyTrotsky, BenitoHoover, Lenina and FannyCrowne, MustaphaMond, HelmholtzWatson, and BernardMarx. • 1930's-40's: Rise of Fascism and Communism: the dictatorships of Hitler (German head of state from 1934-1945), Stalin (in power in the Soviet Union from 1924-1953), and Mussolini (Italian head of state from 1943-45). • 1931--Brave New World written: Huxley is inspired by travels to America and a visit to the newly opened and technologically advanced Brunner and Mond plant, part of Imperial Chemical Industries. Brave New World was inspired by the H. G. Wells’s utopian novel Men Like Gods.Wells' optimistic vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novel, which became Brave New World. Contrary to the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave New World as a “negative utopia.” Historical Context Continued…
Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) was from Detroit, Michigan, USA and made his first car in his back yard in 1896. After several false starts, the Ford Motor Company was formed in 1903. The first product was the Model A, introduced in the same year. Their most successful product ever, the Model T, came out in September 1908. .
THE MODEL-T AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE
THE MODEL-T AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE Bokanovsky’s Process – Brave New World
“Reading Brave New World elicits the same disturbing feelings in the reader which the society it depicts has vanquished.” What does this mean?
Huxley exploits anxieties about Soviet Communism and American capitalism. • The price of universal happiness will be the sacrifice of honored shibboleths of our culture: “motherhood,”“home,”“family,”“freedom,” even “love.”
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 conveyor-belt reproduction. • 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 is centered around both control and manipulation • He instills the fear that a future world state may rob us of the right to be unhappy.
Setting: 2540 AD; referred to in the novel as 632 years AF (“After Ford”), meaning 632 years after production of the first Model T car • Narration: 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
Critical Reception: At the time of Publication “After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made capitalism the common good...Brave New World is more of a revolt against Utopia than against [traditional values].” -British Press, 1935 "Brave New World is inert as a work of art: nothing can bring it alive." - New Statesman and Nation, 1932 "[He] has money, social position, talent, friends, prestige and he is effectively insulated from the misery of the masses. Of course he wants something to worry about--even if he has to go to a long, long way to find it...Mr. Huxley must have his chance to suffer and be brave." -The New Republic, 1932
"Mr. Huxley is eloquent in his declaration of an artist's faith in man, and it is his eloquence, bitter in attack, noble in defense, that, when one has closed the book, one remembers." -Saturday Review of Literature "A fantastic racy narrative, full of much excellent satire and literary horseplay." -Forum "It is as sparkling, as provocative, as brilliant, in the appropriate sense, as impressive as the day it was published. This is in part because its prophetic voice has remained surprisingly contemporary, both in its particular forecasts and in its general tone of semiserious alarm. But it is much more because the book succeeds as a work of art...This is surely Huxley's best book." -Martin Green Contemporary Critical Reception
Although the novel was originally published in 1932, the themes in Brave New World are quite relevant to the world in which we live today. Some would even call this novel prophetic, considering the present state of things: brain-numbing advances in technology and the internet; our tendency to waste time on meaningless diversions such as television and video games; consumerism surpassing religion (take Christmas, for example); promiscuity surpassing morality; issues of eugenics, cloning, stem-cell research and genetic engineering; and, most strikingly, the overly-prescribed and overly-used medications such as anti-depressants and sleeping pills, so like the fictional “Soma” of Huxley’s novel.
Huxley on advertising, the media, and propaganda "This is rather alarming that you're being persuaded below the level of choice and reason... Advertisement plays a necessary role but the danger of it to a democracy is this: a democracy depends on the individual voter making a rational choice for enlightened self-interest. What these people are doing [advertisers] when their purpose is selling goods, what the dictatorial propagandists are doing, is to try to bypass the rational side of humanity and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surface--so that you are in a way making nonsense of the democratic procedure which is based on conscious choice on rational grounds... Today's children walk around singing beer commercials and toothpaste commercials."
“The theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals.”from “Preface to the 1946 edition.”
This novel is more applicable today than it was in 1932. This is a time of: propaganda, censorship, conformity, genetic engineering, social conditioning, and mindless entertainment. • This was what Huxley saw in our future. His book is a warning.
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 Do we have a modern soma?
Is it better to be free than to be happy? • Is freedom compatible with happiness? • Is the collective more important than the individual? • Can children be taught effectively to think in only one certain way? • Can young people be taught so well that they never question their teachings later? • Is stability more important than freedom? • Can alterations made by advanced science to humanity be made permanent at the DNA-level? • Can humanity be conditioned by science? • Should the individual be limited/controlled for the greater good? If so, how much? Essential Questions to connect the literature to today’s culture:
“Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t.” - Aldous Huxley
