BOOK REVIEW

Brave New World

-Aldous Huxley

By
Noel Jose | ME10B091 | IIT Madras
Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931 while he was living in Italy. By this time, Huxley had already established himself as a writer and social satirist. Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H.G. Wells, including A Modern Utopia and Men Like Gods. Unlike the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future.

Brave New World is a classic written to make its readers uncomfortable. It depicts how humanities will take its due course in this technological age. Set in London of AD 2540, the World State is an uncomfortably sterile and controlled futuristic society where genetic science has brought the human race to perfection. From the Alpha-Plus mandarin class to the Epsilon-Minus SemiMorons, designed to perform menial tasks, man is bred and educated to be blissfully content with his pre-destined role. He is made to believe in the ideals of Society before Individual. As if it were not enough that science plays a tremendous, core role in the lives of World State, the typical citizen in this brave new world is encouraged to, from the earliest of ages, to enjoy sexual freedom. After all, as these people are taught, "every one belongs to everyone else. As morally troubling as the society's grand expression of sexual liberty is the citizens' rampant use of drugs. In an effort to remain happy, pain-free and unscathed from misery and depression, citizens routinely use soma to get through daily life. The citizens of the World State do not "know what a home is" and have no concept of "what living with one's family" means. Furthermore, the term "mother" is considered an "obscenity" and even the term "father" carries a similar connotation of intense disgust. The concept of monogamous marriage is foreign to citizens of the World State. In addition to an absence of the family, Christianity, God and the concept of divine religion as known to man today is ancient and not practiced in the brave new world of the future. On a whole the book deals with how the citizens of the savage are unable to cope up with the world state, how they are confused to choose between Utopia or of unimpeded, Stoic freedom. With the former, they would live in a happy yet conditioned and sometimes insane state; with the latter they can live freely, but risk being driven by unhappiness or solitude to the brink of insanity. This fear drives John the savage towards his own death. In the book the author has envisioned a new world. Being sarcastic about the present world, he reminds us of all the good things we possess. He emphasizes the need for strong relationships among family members and the due respect our parents deserve. He points out how people who claim to be great believers and worshippers of god do inhumane things. Believing in god is not about mere proclamation but realizing the need for helping others. His forecasts about the future is something which we can relate ourselves to in this modern age. We want to believe that technology has the power to save us, but the author shows the dangers as well. I feel that author was successful in conveying the message quite clearly. He has not only given us something to think about our present day lifestyle but also reminded us of the close human bonds in the medieval societies. Huxley's characters allow us to see this new world through different eyes. Through Lenina Crowne, the well-conditioned, perfect citizen of the state, we see how the ordinary people are happy and stable in their conditioned world; Bernard Marx, the anarchist and maverick who wants at the same time to be a

part of the state and to be outside of it, shows us the failures of the state. And then there's John the Savage, the philosopher of the book, brought up on Shakespeare and religion, who yearns for beauty, truth and knowledge. Through him we see the new world as we would regard it today. With this variety of perspectives, Huxley gives us incredible insight into the optimistic ignorance, cynicism, and philosophy that surrounds his 'new world'. There are a few holes in Huxley's creation. For one, how could Lenina fall in love with the Savage when she has been conditioned not to love? Then there is Darwin Bonaparte, the photographer who stays in the bushes for seventy-two hours to get a shot of the Savages whipping. But how could he do so, when he has been conditioned to detest solitude and discomfort? Although the author has set his work in a futuristic society he has included some of the aspects of the present society. The women have still been considered lower to men and have to abide to the sexual desires of any man and any number of men. The author has made a rather extensive use of eroticism just to go with populist desires. I feel that there was no need to bring in these aspects as there was no real need. Viviparous reproduction was considered obsolete in the World State and the citizens were trained to be content with their pre-destined role. Hence, there is no logical reasoning why the citizens were induced with sexual pleasures and that too in such huge amounts. The author brought in the caste system into the future too. With the division based on castes being opposed so strongly, I think it would have been wise from the authors side to not carry it into the future. He could have just stated that the citizens were programmed to perform different taks and should have put all the citizens on a equal level. Another thing which made me uncomfortable was the shifting of scenes randomly. The author, in an attempt to be more versatile, has made reading very complicated. In some parts of the book there was a change of scene for every sentence which made it difficult to understand the passage of events. Concluding, Brave New World is Huxley's prediction for our world, but it also fulfills another role, to present a moral choice to mankind. It shows us a startling vision of the future and how it affects the characters depicted. After all, we're the future, and this is a memorable example of what we do not want it to become.