Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Pre-Reading Guide

1. Brave New Worldby Aldous HuxleyPre-Reading Guide

2. “O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beautious mankind is!O brave new worldThat has such people in’t!”-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (V, ii)

3. Aldous Huxley • 1894-1963 • Family had many notable members, including great uncle, poet Matthew Arnold • Plagued with vision problems throughout his life • Attended Oxford University, became a teacher • Published Brave New World in 1932 • Lived in the US in later life, died while living in L.A. • His “novels of ideas” have sometimes been criticized as being “too intellectual”

4. Prologue Translated from French “Utopias appear to be much easier torealize than one formerly believed.We currently face a question thatwould otherwise fill us withanguish: How to avoid their becomingdefinitively real ?The utopias are attainable. Life marches towards the utopias. And it can be that a new century begins, a century where the intellectuals and the educated class will dream means to avoid the utopias and to return a non-utopian society, less ‘perfect’ and ‘free’.” Nicolas Berdiaeff

5. What is a Utopia? • A Utopia is a place or society that appears perfect in every way. • The government is perfect, working to improve societies standards of living rather then their own, social aspects of the community run perfectly. • 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.

6. What is a Dystopia? • Dystopia came from the term Utopia. • It defines a place or society which is in complete chaos. • The citizens are all suffering and are miserable. • Often times in novels what appears to be a Utopian society it first by the visiting protagonist 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.

8. Some Famous/Important Dystopian Novels

9. Important People, Terms, and Concepts • Utopia – perfect society • Dystopia – dreadful, dysfunctional society • Satire – writing intended to ridicule and arouse contempt – especially by using irony and exaggeration • Caste System – social structure which divides people on the basis of inherited social status • Ivan Pavlov • Russian physician & psychologist • “Classical conditioning” using dogs • RESULT: Trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, even without giving food.

10. More People, Terms, and Concepts: • Sigmund Freud • Psychiatrist • Psychoanalysis • Mental health and illness spring from a child’s upbringing, not his heredity • Soma – an anti-depressant, semi-hallucinogenic drug introduced by the World State • Orgy Porgy – group sexual experience to unify all people (sex is not the focus, unity is) • Solidarity Service – group of men and women who gather to take Soma and have a spiritual experience

11. What is the Brave New World ? A dystopian tale about a possible future world where human faith in scientific progress, freedom, dignity, and individuality are all called into question. Set in two locations in the 26th century: London and a New Mexico Indian reservation

12. What is the Brave New World ? • Religion of the World State based on the life and philosophies of Henry Ford. • American car manufacturer, inventor of the assembly line • Invented the Model T car – designed to be affordable to everyone; only available in black • Mass production & mass consumption • Assembly line = improved efficiency • Vertical structure = self sufficient “Our Ford”

13. The Assembly Line

14. What is the Brave New World ? Caste System: • Alphas (Α)– highest, grey • Betas (Β)- mulberry, bottle green • Gammas (Γ)- leaf green • Deltas (Δ)- khaki • Epsilons (Ε)– lowest, black • There are also plusses and minuses, so one can be an Alpha Plus or a Gamma Minus. • Differentiation achieved through oxygen deprivation

15. What is the Brave New World? Some individuals are created using the Bokanovsky Process • Fertilization process used to create Deltas & Epsilons • Divide fertilized eggs to produce identical twins • Produces up to 96 embryos, but 72 is the average • Primary instrument of social stability

16. What is the Brave New World ? Government organization “conditions” the lower caste children using Hypnopaedia “The greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time” (28). • Sleep teaching • Moral education • Class conditioning “The child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind” (28-29).

17. What is the Brave New World ? • 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. • Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have their own children.

18. 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

19. 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.

20. Are you living in a Brave New World? Do you agree that… • History is worthless? • Everyone belongs to everyone else? • Throwing something away is better than fixing it? • No one really needs a mother? • The elderly are worthless members of society? • Cleanliness is next to godliness? • You should never put off until tomorrow the fun you can have today?

21. 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.

22. 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

23. Brave New World Community Identity Stability

24. 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."  

27. Essential Questions to connect the literature to today’s culture: • 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 mankind be made permanent at the DNA-level? • Can mankind be conditioned by science? • Should the individual be limited/controlled for the greater good? If so, how much?

28. Works Cited Edmondson, Elizabeth. “Brave New World Powerpoint.” Gilmour Academy. 8 May 2007. PDF file. Web. 19 Apr 2010. A Guide to Brave New World. Austin, Texas: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 2003. Print. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Collins, 1998. Wood, Lisha. “Brave New World Intro.” Sprayberry High School. Typepad. 6 Sept 2006. Web. 19 Apr 2010.