blog




  • Essay / Brave New World: Out of Control - 1019

    Brave New World: Out of ControlIn the 1932 satirical novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley describes a mechanized, emotionless future world, set primarily in London, in which individuality is eliminated, creativity is stifled, and institutions such as marriage, family, and the Church are unpleasant artifacts of a world long gone. In this society, people are mass produced; human eggs are made artificially by technicians. Happiness is achieved through physical gratification and peace is safeguarded by the conditioning of youth and the distribution of soma, a tranquilizer. Bernard Marx is the main character and his unorthodox views and physical difference from the rest of his caste make him an outsider. Bernard and Lenina, his current "girlfriend", receive permission to visit a wilderness preserve in New Mexico. They return to “civilization” with a savage, John. There, he struggles to understand this so-called utopia and is ultimately driven to suicide while Bernard is exiled to an island due to his unconventional beliefs. Bernard Marx's bitter nonconformism stems from his resentment toward the state and its citizens. Dark and short when he should be blond and tall like the Alpha-plus he is mentally, he is a social outcast. He is essentially an opportunist who just wants to be accepted, who just wants "no more talk about the alcohol in his surrogate blood, no more making fun of his physical appearance" (156 ). Nevertheless, Bernard is the ideal character to highlight the moral values ​​of utopia or their absence. In Brave New World, Bernard fights against a society that devalues ​​his individuality and thus diminishes his sense of identity and personal worth. From birth... middle of paper ... I don't want change. All change is a threat to stability" (224-5). The idea of ​​keeping an individual preoccupied with meaningless or useless tasks so that he can never question his own individuality is an important idea and constitutes the basis on which their society is built When Bernard criticized this social order in his report to Mond on the Savage, the Controller of the World vowed to “teach him a lesson” (159), which he ultimately did. Huxley attempts to disrupt the reader's uncritical faith in progress and technology is a fantasy of order and technology in which he warns us that if we do not solve problems such as overpopulation and poverty ourselves now. overconsumption, a police state will do it for us, without being able and unable to balance progress and human needs to control our own technology, we may be forced to give up more than we imagine..