Essential Questions to connect the literature to today’s culture:

2. 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?

3. Brave New World Author Born Family Life Writing Style Writing Focus Aldous Huxley 1894 Came from a family with both a literary and scientific background Combined thoughts on the morality and nature of man with scientific findings and predictions Focused many of his works on the conflicts between the individual and society

4. Brave New World Huxley’s Influence Writings became especially popular during the 1960s His works often featured the use of various drugs, which he experiments with as well in his lifetime His work The Doors of Perception was the inspiration for Jim Morrison to name his band The Doors.

5. Literary Focus Publication Genre Setting (time) 1932 Dystopian Future 2450 A.D Set 632 “After Ford” Meaning after the invention of the Model “T” This is symbolic of the societal shift in thinking—time is referenced in terms of a technological breakthrough versus a religious landmark

6. Literary Focus Setting (place) England and a place referred to as the “Savage Reservation” England is known as “the brave new world” The “Savage Reservation” is where people still feel emotions like love and grow old

7. Literary Focus Point of View Omniscient Third Person The unique thing about the narration is that it is used through the perspective of various characters This allows the reader to see inside the minds of people who belong to the different castes in the society

8. Literary Focus Dystopia A “Brave New World” predicts a future where people don’t have serious relationships, where they don’t have opinions and are classified from birth into a caste People sleep carelessly with many different partners People are filed into five castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon

9. Literary Focus Themes and Conflicts Technology and Its Ability to Manipulate Control versus Emotion Religion versus Technology Free-Will versus Stability Fantasy versus Reality Science versus Technology Corruptive Nature of Power

10. Literary Focus Satire By making the Dystopia of the “Brave New World” so extreme, it is easy for readers to see the ridiculousness of the society Some examples of the over-the-top nature of the novel Frivolous sexual encounters Reverence for Henry Ford Humiliation of over having a child

11. Literary Focus Symbols Soma Savage Reservation The government uses a drug called Soma to symbolize the control and power of the government over the people Representative of the old ways—the ways when humans felt emotion and love

12. A Brave New World Overview Huxley offers a fictional future in which man’s free will, ability to love and ability to be an individual has been marginalized at the expense of the stability of society Huxley’s work, in essence, forecasted many of the world’s future conflicts such as Hitler’s rise to power, World War II and the Cold War

13. Overview Humans living in “a brave new world” are filed into five different castes. The Highest caste is for the leaders and thinkers The lowest caste is for those who will perform menial labor

14. Overview The State, in order to bring stability, has attempted to eliminate human emotion, human desires and human relationships The State’s strict control is shown in sharp contrast with the religion, aging and strong emotions seen on the “Savage Reservation”

15. Overview When an outsider from the “Savage Reservation” is brought back to the “brave new world” he is met with awe and curiosity This outsider named John rebels against the controlling government and leads a riot The ultimate questions arises: It life worth living when a human is deprived all feeling of exploration, wonder and love?

16. Characters • One of the great strength’s of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World lies in characterization. • Huxley draws characters that the reader admires without totally understanding and also characters that the reader understands but who s/he cannot admire. • Rather, like Dostoevsky, Huxley intends to make the reader uncomfortable and confused in the characters s/he likes. Dostoevsky wanted to teach his reader that one should not judge people on single qualities but should, rather, look at the whole person. (One might even pity a pedophile) • What is Huxley’s purpose?

17. Characters John Grew up outside of the confines of the “brave new world” Grew up in the “Savage Reservation” John’s new ideas about relationships, love and individuality challenge the system of the State

18. Characters Bernard Marx Part of Alpha Caste Has unusual views and combined with his unusually short height is somewhat of an outcast Bernard takes advantage of his relationship with John

19. Characters Mustapha Mond One of only 10 World Controllers In charge of censoring scientific discoveries and exiling people who have beliefs that go against the State Despite his job, Mond himself was a prolific scientist and an avid reader

20. Characters Hemholtz Watson Friend of Bernard’s He questions the State on a far deeper and more intellectual level than Bernard By the end of the novel Bernard is ready to leave the restrictive boundaries of the State

21. Modern Society • Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a dystopian novel, one in which the author imagines a world in which everything has gone wrong. • It is a mistake, however, to read the novel simply as a cautionary tale. In fact, what Huxley is trying to say to his reader is that the modern world is already dystopian.

22. propaganda, censorship, conformity, genetic engineering, social conditioning, and mindless entertainment. • This novel is more applicable today than it was in 1932. This is a time of: • This was what Huxley saw in our future. His book is a warning.

23. 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

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

25. Catching patients’ eyes • Lipitor: Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, rowing on a beautiful lake • Lamisil: ugly yellow creatures tucking themselves under your toenails • Lunesta: a luna moth

26. In 2005, drug companies spent more than $4 billion on what is termed direct-to-consumer advertising, according to the Government Accountability Office. • That is about 1/7 of the amount the companies spent on research and development • Nearly 1/3 of that TV ad money was for what type of medication? Sleeping aids

27. Allusions • Lenina • A variation of Lenin -- Nikolai Lenin, the Russian Socialist, who had a tremendous influence in the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the present-day Russia. • Believed capitalism must be suppressed.

28. MUSTAPHA MOND • Reference to Mustapha Ataturk - Modernizer of Turkey Reference to Pope Tewa – Navajo leader who resisted Europeanization of his tribe. Pope

29. Freud • Blamed modern woes on parents and repressed sexuality.

30. Ford • An important figure in the formation of the World State. His utilization of the mass-production technique influenced social, political, and economic life. • In Huxley's Utopia, the life, work, and teachings of Ford are the sources of inspiration and truth. Even time is reckoned according to Ford.

31. Bernard Marx • Marx is an obvious reference to Karl Marx, a German Socialist, whose best-known work, Das Kapital, expresses his belief that the fundamental factor in the development of society is the method of production and exchange. Karl Marx called religion the opium of the people; in Huxley's Brave New World, soma is substituted for religion.

32. Neopavlovian Conditioning • Conditioning is defined as the training of an individual to respond to a stimulus in a particular way. The Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov conducted experiments to determine how this conditioning takes place. In Brave New World individuals are conditioned to think, act, feel, believe, and respond the way the government wants them to.

33. Benito Hoover • Benito Hoover combines the names of two men who wielded tremendous power at the time Huxley was writing Brave New World: Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, and Herbert Hoover, the American President. • Hoover felt there was A technological solution to every problem.

34. The Malthusian belt:Thomas Malthus • This English political economist believed that unless the population diminished, in time the means of life would be inadequate. Improvements in agriculture, he predicted, would never keep up with expanding population, and increases in the standard of living would be impossible.

35. Shakespeare! The Tempest “Nay, but to live / in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty…” - Hamlet “Do you see that damned spot?” - Macbeth “O brave new world that has such people in it.” - Tempest “On the white wonder of [her] hand, may seize / And steal immortal blessing from her lips, / Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, / Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.” – R & J “O thou weed, who are so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet that the sense aches at thee. Was this most goodly book made to write ‘whore’ upon? Heaven stops the nose at it…” – Othello “The gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us.” – King Lear Romeo & Juliet Macbeth Hamlet Othello King Lear

36. Adages/Nursery Rhymes “A gramme in time saves nine.” “Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun Kiss the girls and make them one.” “What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.” “Bye Baby Banting, soon you’ll need decanting.” “A doctor a day keeps the jim-jams away.” “Ford’s in his flivver…All’s well with the world.”

37. Terms to Know

38. Terms to Know

39. Terms to Know