Brave New World & human story

The book “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley begins describing the tour of the Conditioning Centre and the Central London Hatchery. Huxley writes that in the year of Our Ford 632 rational systems of society organizing were very popular. The birth process seemed to be mechanized and, moreover, strict societal hierarchy dominated, and the different societal casts were condition from the very start of their lives to accept their destiny of either rich or poor. Repression and persecution weren’t observed as all people followed the laws and orders set by governmental apparatus of security state.

Huxley assumes that population was biologically bent and chemically conditioned from the birth. The first two chapters of the book are devoted to walkthrough of this human factory. The author is willing to make people understand better the technical foundation of society and to provide the background for drama to happen in the future. Huxley assumes that people freely rejected their history, maturity and autonomy in order to become oppressed by technologies which were gradually destroying their capacities to think. The third chapter continues setting the stage for drama and provides overview of different viewpoints.

This chapter is important as the author introduces the main characters. The book is a human story centered on the destiny of Bernard Marx. Marx is shown as a person who isn’t suited restricted and fully controlled pacified world. Marx has other ideas about societal order and he doesn’t want to be similar to others. Despite the fact that Bernard is Alpha meaning he belongs to the highest hierarchical level, he doesn’t seem to be content with the order. Marx decided to take Lenina for vacation at a Reservation in New-Mexico. Lenina is a woman with strong belief of status quo.

Lenina and Marx get acquainted with a young man named Savage. Savage return to polite society with Marx and Lenin and the rest of the book is devoted to illustrating how Savage is trying to encounter with civilization. The author often refers to satirical devices to increase the intensity with the story progression. Moreover, metaphors in the book seem to be extreme: for example, the author describes that people have to make the sign “T” and to refer to their deity as “Our Ford”. Further, we see that Huxley describes Savage as sympathetic character.

For example, his mother is extremely unhappy and dies when returning to civilization and we will sorry seeing Savage’s despair. With book progression the author links Bernard Marx with the corrosive forces of civilization. For example, Marx displays his true essence when he decided to bow to the World Controller’s will. Nevertheless, Marx is the only character in the book who seems to be pitied, even though his choices are always shaped by society. Lenina is the pawn of Fordian society, and he relations with Savage seem to have no perspective because society assembled its own perspective for her future.

One more interesting character in the book is Mustapha Mond who is the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. Mond is educated as Savage and likes reading Shakespeare. Mond often exhort Savage arguing: “You can’t play Electro-Magnetic Golf according to the rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy”. (p. 194) In such a way the author manages to present unique character to eradicate fully the sense of happiness. Huxley worries about human state of mind and decided to put the sense of happiness into materialistic paradigm.

Sense of happiness is a method of control aimed at justifying as what population wants. Huxley clearly shows that technologies would change and destroy everything humane. Huxley underlines that there is no way out of existing system which will distort human characters. The book is very interesting, sharp and unrelenting in its satirical depictions. The book has endured because the author depicted in details the order in totalitarian state and showed that technologies would yield full control of biology. References Huxley, Aldous. (2001). Brave New World. New York: Voyager Classics.