MGP+Group+8

Brave New Worl﻿d
Damara Miller, Wendy Owens, Clare McNally



Aldous Huxley Born: July 26, 1894 Died: November 22, 1963 (69 years)

**﻿Summary: **//Brave New World// by Aldous Huxley takes place in 632 A.F. ("after Ford"--equivalent to 2540 A.D.) within the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. At this point, the entire world is controlled by a common "World State" that decides everything about and for everyone. Babies are produced from bottles and children are "conditioned" to serve and believe in the twisted values of society. There is also a caste system in place, decided at birth: Alphas and Betas are relatively intelligent and free, while Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons are simple and one dimensional. One Alpha is Bernard Marx, except he wasn't properly conditioned. Along with being smaller than the rest of the Alphas, he has his own ideas about the World State and feels isolated from his peers. He's in love with a girl named Lenina Crowne, and one day he romantically offers to take her on vacation to New Mexico, to a Savage Reservation. When they arrive, they encounter a gruesome sight: a mother and her son. Since natural birth has long since been eliminated in civilization, Bernard is fascinated (Lenina disgusted), and brings them back to civilization to show everyone. At first everyone is curious about John, and Bernard becomes popular and famous.However, things take a turn for the worse when John's mother overdoses on soma and dies. Consumed by grief, he provokes the system in an attempt to get the emotionless robots around him to feel. However, it turns into the first domino in a long row of teetering events that throw the society over the edge.

**Why You Should Read It Today:** //Brave New World// is a classic novel about the the risks totalitarianism and socialism pose to future society. Huxley wrote Brave New World in the early 1930’s, when fascism and world depression were prevalent, but his message remains relevant. With organized government, there is always a chance it will become overbearing and abusive; however, it is incredibly important that we not let that happen. An overly involved government is a danger to its residents’ free will and overall well being, and while the dramatic image of society in Brave New World is unlikely to occur, the effects of dictatorship on the people. Huxley was also convinced that the path of increasingly useful technology and complacent self-satisfaction the world was on would lead us to self-destruction in the near future. Unfortunately, his vision is becoming more and more true, as he expressed in a 1958 follow-up novel entitled //Brave New World: Revisited//.


 * Biographical Criticism: ** The futuristic world that Aldous Huxley created in Brave New World was strongly influenced by his own life experiences. He also used the ideals of the current society to oppose and argue the societal views at that time. The book included multiple aspects that related to the life that Huxley once led. Living during a time where people were concentrated about the social order caused him to write the book to open the eyes of his fellow Americans as to what they had become. In Brave New World, the main focus of the all- controlling government was to maintain the “happiness and stability” of the World State and its people. Huxley used the chaos that surrounded him in the world at that time and channeled it to create the ideas of the book. A reader can not help but be offended by the dehumanizing essence of the book. The sense of individuality is gone and the common person is merely a pawn in a game of soma and sexual relations. Huxley used this approach to tell the world about the path he thought they were on. During the 1930’s and 40’s, people were being raised to panic and chaos. He believed that the government was the reason that the world was turning into what it was, and that there was no reason for the people to feel so unsafe in the place that they called home. In saying that, Huxley, believed throughout his life that complete happiness was virtually impossible to reach in all aspects. He was confused about why people spent so much time concentrating on the happiness and comforts of everyone, when there was no way for them to please everyone at one time.


 * Artifact 1: Map **

media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Godalming,+Surrey,+England&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.527387,86.396484&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Godalming,+Surrey,+United+Kingdom&ll=51.45743,-0.087891&spn=1.187668,2.334595&z=8&output=embed" width="425" height="350"

This map is of Godalming, Surrey, England, where Huxley was born, relative to London, England where the majority of Brave New World is set. Huxley grew up near London, so he most likely visited there occasionally. He probably grew fond of London, hence it being one of the main settings.


 * Artifact 2: Photo **



The cover of the radio broadcast of Brave New World, narrated by Huxley himself, definitely depicts the entire idea of the novel. A fetus is shown growing in a glass container, connected to tubes, as they are grown in the book. A malevolent-appearing man is caressing the glass like it is his son, although the spherical glass brings to mind a crystal ball, as if the man thinks of the manufacture baby as the future of his creation. In a similar way, Huxley believed that what he wrote in his novel would be the future, which also may have been purposefully implied in the mystical but eerie artwork.


 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 3: Quotes **


 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">"Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness."
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">"I can sympathise with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody elses happiness."
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">"Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying."
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">"Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting."
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Huxley had many interesting and colorful opinions on the big issues (happiness, life, change, etc.), some of which are reflected in //Brave New World.// In the first and second quotes, he discusses happiness, a topic often brought up in the novel as a small price to pay for mere contentment. He also brings up wanting to do good, and how it, sadly, always turns into bullying (much like the World State). His point about reading manifests itself in John, who learned how to read (Shakespeare, specifically), and was then more more informed and enriched than the people in the World State, although that knowledge led to his ultimate demise. The last quote is a reminder of how everyone thinks they're right, and how you need to look at both sides of the argument before judgment. For example, many people find Mustapha Mond unsympathetic until they realize he truly believes he's right, at which point one can't really blame him.


 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 4: Trivia **

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Three parts of Huxley's life that played a large role in //Brave New World// were:
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Huxley lived in Italy for the majority of the 1920s; he then moved to Surrey, France in the 1930s before moving to California in 1937.
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">His mother died when he was 14 years old, his sister died 3 months
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">He faced the disease //keratitis punctata//, which caused him to be blind for 18 months and permanently sight-impaired throughout his life.

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">When Huxley lived in Italy, the country was under the rule of Benito Mussolini, who ruled as a fascist dictator. Although a great deal of the book involves things commonly associated with communism, it also demonstrates fascist morals. The society is ruled by a supreme state, as in fascism, and in an extreme demonstration, everyone is forcibly conditioned to believe what the state wants. Also, in the novel, the word “mother” is seen as dirty and explicit. This may express his feeling of betrayal from when his mother died. The novel also expresses the government more as the "mother" and "family" for the people of the society because the government controlled most, if not all, parts of a person's life from his/her birth to his/her death. Huxley relied on the government more after his mother and family died. The people of society would have been his "family" and the government was where he planned on working for, thus the government would have supplied him with the money that would pay for all his necessities. Huxley's disease, //keratitis punctata//, caused him often to feel isolated and unable to reach his original plans of working in the military. Similarly, his main characters often feel "different" and isolated from society.


 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 5: Pledge Card **



<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">This card is a pledge card from the Peace Pledge Union. During the 1930s, while Huxley was writing Brave New World, Huxley was very interested in this group and their actions. "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war," is their pledge. Huxley's concern shows through in the novel when he creates a "stable" society that is against any form of conflict such as war, revolts, etc. and has that be one of the only redeeming points of the entire idea.


 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 6: Interview **

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">media type="custom" key="7987856"

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">media type="custom" key="7987862"

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">In this truly fascinating 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, Huxley discusses his growing concerns over the eventual accuracy of //Brave New World//'s more disconcerting predictions. He says he believes America's government is moving in a direction of less and less freedom, due to many factors, and uses world examples to make his point. He talks about the pressure overpopulation is putting on third-world countries (and how it will eventually drive central governments to take more control), the consequences of over-organization in a increasingly complicated and technological world, the efficiency of Hitler's propaganda, a pharmacological revolution, and a lot more.

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">by: Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 7: Moral Criticism of Brave New World **

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">"Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a novel that, by and large, can draw the ire of many a moral critic. There is a strong preponderance of science in the work but this indeed is not the only element that some moralists may find upsetting; much-exercised sexual freedom, pervasive drug use, dissolution of the family in the World State, and a manipulation of religion toward the relevance of accommodating society are among the aspects of the novel that would irritate many a moral critic. <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Primarily, Brave New World, a glimpse at a future reality where "all men are physico-chemically equal," is based on a premise in which science plays a vast role not only in day-to-day life, but in life itself (74). "Bokanovsky's Process," a "principle of mass production [...] Applied to biology," is essentially a means of churning out engineered citizens who will live in work in a predetermined society (7). In effect, all of the World State citizenry has been born necessarily not through God's will but by that of the Controllers. Furthermore, the "many batches of identical twins" created through Bokanovsky's Process not only are biologically engineered, but they then are subjected to a highly refined, technical process of psychological and sociological conditioning that looks much less like concept of traditional schooling and resembles something more akin to the programming of robots. Finally, upon death, these citizens are cremated primarily to fulfill the economical purpose of "phosphorous recovery," a notion which compels an observer to believe the World State views humans as little more efficient cogs in a large social, scientific wheel (73)...

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">...An issue which many readers (especially those who have adopted a moral perspective) may find particularly unsettling is the fact that World State citizens do not "know what a home is" and have no concept of "what living with one's family" means (36). Furthermore, the term "mother" is considered an "obscenity" and even the term "father" carries a similar (though lesser) connotation of repugnance (151). To make matters even worse for the moralist, the concept of monogamous marriage is foreign to citizens of the World State. In addition to an absence of the family, moral critics would also be quite disquieted with the fact that 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. In fact, Christian rituals are observed only by the residents of the savage reservation, a place which is supposed to suggest an under-developed, backward, unclean realm of human nature. In effect, the Bible and a score of other sacred, religious documents, books, and literary reflections on religion are hidden away in the Controller's safe, where the "whole collection of pornographic old books" is housed (231). Instead, the industrial wizard Henry Ford is the God-like, central idol of World State citizens and religion (if one would be so inclined to suggest World State citizens indeed practice any) is centered around singing "Solidarity Hymns" and living according to Fordian philosophy (81). Indeed, the very thought of revering Henry Ford (a mortal human without any divine connection to the Lord, God, nor any other noted higher power) as a "Greater Being" could be seen by a moral critic as a most grievous blasphemy to the sacred nature of religion (83). Moreover, the typical moral critic would abhor the sacrilegious thought of the Bible and other religious texts as being locked away in a safe on the grounds of the materials being "pornographic old books.""

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">This moralistic view on the book focuses on the mindset of the people of the World State. He earnestly comments on the lack on modern day concepts of today in the brave new world. He compares the replaced societal views with the "new and improved" aspects of life.


 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 8: Letter **



<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">(entire letter can be found [|here])

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">This beautiful 8-page letter was sent from Huxley's widow, Laura, to his older brother, Julian, and his wife, Juliette, directly after Huxley's death in 1963, and describes the last few hours of his lost battled with cancer, during which he was in excruciating pain and, right near the end, requested that his wife to give him LSD. Although Huxley believed psychedelics could produce beautiful things from the mind and environment (as demonstrated in his book, //The Doors of Perception//, which detailed his first mescaline trip), in //Brave New World// he wrote as if he thought they could only be used as a way to ignore life's problems. However, even at the very end of his life he only wanted the beauty of mind that drugs produced to be the last thing he remembered, which is an interesting contrast to the opinions implied in //Brave New World.//

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">By: John Walsh
 * <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Artifact 9: Eulogy Annotations **

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">KW: handwritten note, draft not sent to //Science//.; <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">re: Huxley, Aldous. //Science// 12/13/63 eulogy by John Walsh;

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">draft for -->//Science// 1/64 <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">The eulogy of Aldous Huxley in <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">//Science// (by John Walsh, the 13 <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">December issue) might have reassured <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">him that scientists were not so <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">obliviously irresponsible despite their <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">aspiration to the "higher life". <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">At least in a personal <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">conversation he was equally <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">critical of the scientific <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">ignorance and [know]-nothing attitude <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">that permeates contemporary <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">literature. If Huxley's criticism was <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">so focussed on scientists, this was the <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">compliment of some hope of their <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">understanding. Among our great writers <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">he stood nearly alone in his <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">apprehension of the modern world and <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">the technical forces that impel its <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">uncertain gyrations. [Not sent]

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">These are the unfinished eulogy annotations of Huxley by John Walsh. Although they are not completed, the uniquiness of Huxley's work and the effects it had on the world are expressed in the draft. Huxley was one of few that questioned the "scientific ignorance" of the world. He often critizied the societal views of the world in terms of scientific and technological concepts. Walsh also talks about the fact that Huxley constantly argued the scientists' views and their desire to reach a new level of comfortable living on earth. His arguements were mirrored in Brave New World to show the power of science and technology and its impact on the way that the people lived in the World State.

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">Learning Log: <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">

<span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">﻿Works Cited Page: <span style="color: #150e7c; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">

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