Brave New World Research Paper

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley shows how scientific advances could and have destroyed human values. Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932, and most of the technologies he examines in the book have, to some extent, turned into realities. He expresses the concern that society has been neglecting human-being distinction in the progression of worshipping technology. In the story there are no mothers or fathers and people are produced on a meeting line where they are classified before birth. They also use a drug called, soma, to control themselves which illustrate the lack of personal freedom. Everyone in the state world do whatever they were taught since they were growing. For example, one of the tasks they give people is sexuality which is shown as an everyday and simply entertaining activity with no emotions or feelings whatsoever. We can see an extreme loss of human values because what makes a human being is the fact that they feel, think, and choose. It is amazing how Huxley wrote this book more than 60 years ago, yet we see resemblance to it in our society today. For example, society uses different kinds of drugs to control moods if they want. Another good example could be how doctors are now producing children with particular qualities based on what their parents want and using donors' genes. A very shocking moment for me in the novel was when Linda, John's mother, was dying and the people in the state world were watching and laughing at it. Today we see a lot of people who don't respect their parents and people who enjoy the suffering of others. What has society gone to? How would you feel to be in a twisted world where we are produced in factories? How would you feel to be in a world where there are no such things as freedom or ethics? I think society is close to get there and it's sad because all our feelings, thoughts, and values make the meaning and beauty of life.

First of all, Aldous Huxley conjures up a weird vision of a future life in which people are processed, trained, disciplined, and drugged into complete social conformity. Everyone, while still in their container, is trained to fit into a specific social group. There is no such thing as a family, which would only get in the way of conformity. The story focuses on Bernard Marx. As we see in the conversation of Max and his girlfriend Lenina in chapter six: He laughed, "Yes, 'everybody's happy nowadays." We begin giving children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way." -Bernard Marx (91), Max is disaffected with the manipulation of society. He takes Lenina to the American Southwest where Native Americans live in an "uncivilized" state for Londoners, but which for us would be normal. There they come upon a young man named John, who turns out to be the son of the director of the state, and his mother Linda; who they bring to the state world. The purpose of the Savage is to question the brave new world. His positioning in the novel as the "other" reveals the narrowed state of humanity and lack of individualism in the creation of people. Everyone in the new world is very adapted to the lives they have been given from the controllers and they see real life, our life, as pornographic scene. In this world, only those who conform are welcome and those who are "defected", like Max; are rejected by everyone and sent to the island. In chapter 15 a group of Deltas show conformity when John starts telling them that the soma is poison and that he has come to bring them freedom. Instead of listening to him, they get upset because they are not getting their soma. The Utopians are amazed with John and they want to know everything about him. This drives John crazy; who tries to hide and run away as far as he can.

Secondly, in Brave New World, Huxley describes a world where the state controls the citizens in a very inhumane way. "Call it the fault of civilization. God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That's why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They're smut." -Mustapha Mond (234). Instead of relying on fear to control the people and letting them choose from their own perspective, the government controls them through happiness; a fake happiness which is put into their heads as they grow up. In the novel, according to the World State, happiness is combined with stability. The basic goal of the brave new world is, supreme: the "happiness" of all, even if the consequences lead to the loss of freedom and free will. We can see how important it is for the state to improve happiness upon the people when Mustapha Mond says: "The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma." (220). The government's goal is to control people but it uses a very inhumane way. People aren't experiencing what life is really about because the state wants to keep people away form questioning. The essay Brave New World Society's Moral Decline found in www.123helpme.com, talks about Huxley's beliefs and predictions of the future when he was writing the novel. Some of these, he believed were sexual freedom, over-population, brain-washing/sleep-teaching, and the use of mind altering drugs. These are ways that the government manage to control the citizens. In the essay, China is used as an example of Huxley's predictions; being a communist and over-populated country. It also talks about the use of a drug called "soma" in the novel. Soma makes them feel better so they would have a positive attitude towards those who supply such happiness. Soma is described in the essay as "the perfect tool of the dictator", since it creates a passive and conformist society; in other words, easier to control. As the essay estates, soma becomes the perfect escape from reality and