Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1 This presentation was created following the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia. Certain materials are included under the Fair Use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law. Further use of these materials and this presentation is restricted.

Introduction  Written in 1932  Predicts world in A.F. 632 (After Ford): translated as A.D in our terms  Ford- represents “God-like” figure  Symbolizes mass production and source of all information and truth  “State centered” not “God centered” not “individual centered” 2

Intro continued…  Profound pessimism  That which creates consumpution=GOOD  Work and leisure have become mechanized  Mechanized-to make automatic or unspontaneous; render routine or monotonous; to equip with machinery 3

Intro continued…  Brave New World IS  an anti-humanistic utopia  totally amoral world  Warns of a “soulless” future 4

ISSUES/TOPICS EXPLORED  Brainstorm a list of issues and topics Huxley explores in the novel. 5

ISSUES/TOPICS EXPLORED  Heredity  Conditioning (hypnosis)  Genetics  Brain chemistry  Nature vs nurture  Role of values (sex, family, religion, etc. )  Role of government  Purpose of society  Effect of literature  Views of death  Views of corollaries (live v death, clean v. dirt, educated v uneducated, individuality v conformity, free-will v group think; sick v healthy)  Roles of science and industry  Drug usage 6

Motivation for novel  20 th century problem-population outgrowing natural resources  Some ideas to control were: 1) Birth control (reliable?) 2) Government intervention 7

Huxley’s Pessimism  Aldous Huxley believed  World- blow itself up  OR  would organize around one or more totalitarian governments because of the chaos of advancing technology (nuclear power, for instance) 8

The Brave New World State  Motto: Community, Identity, Stability  Priorities:  Group  single political ideology  conformity 9

BNW SHOWS-  Result of changing or bending the world to meet our needs and desires  Need to create a population required to serve the world’s needs  Man’s (human’s) only real value or function:  Produce and Consume 10

BNW POPULATION  Governing “class”: aimed toward social stability NOT anarchy  Separation of people into classes/levels is beneficial to society People created to fill a need  (example: when a group of people dies, the group is replaced to fill that particular need) 11

 Bosses and managers control population- slaves  no coercion needed  slaves “love” their servitude  The state gets people to “love” what they do through infant conditioning, sleep teaching, and drugs 12

Science and Social Stability  Must be responsibly controlled by man  OR man will use it to control the world  The novel depicts the uses and misuses and the perils and promises of Science 13

People of the Brave New World  World Controllers: Government (Director of Hatcheries  Classes: Alphas (highest), Betas, Gammas, Deltas, Epsilons (lowest)  Children created in bottles= the “womb”  Grown in Hatcheries-live in bottles on conveyor belts for 9 months  After reaching “maturation” they are decanted (born) 14

Bokanovsky’s Process  Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons undergo this process  Process: one egg is divided multiple times to produce anywhere from 8 people to 96 (all from that one egg)  Like having 96 “twins”  Imagine that! 15

Process continued…  In the bottles the eggs are “messed with” to create a specific type desired  Examples:  inserting alcohol in the blood surrogate  take out oxygen  This “process” will create lower class citizens of the society  Yikes! 16

What is important in all of this?  Remember- this was a prediction of what the world might become!  Pay attention to how frightening this prospect is.  Are there signs of these things today?  Remember- technology is extremely advanced in BNW 17

BNW and families  Belief in Promiscuity – Does not accept Monogamy  Parents don’t exist- Women do not have babies  “Mother” and “Father” are words of smut (filth)  Essentially there are no families  What are the pros and cons of this situation? 18

What happens when people refuse conditioning or are not happy with their place in society?  Sent to Savage Reservation: -Savage community enclosed in a barbed wire electric fence - No electricity -Much like an Indian Reservation yet far more primitive of course Or they are sent to Iceland or a similar remote place 19

UTOPIAN IDEA  ANCIENT GREEKS-  Socrates- man’s role should be predetermined; philosopher’s should rule; large group of warriors next in line to keep order; followed by the largest group- workers.  Plato- had a scientifically organized community idea, a plea for the regulation of population; maintained that some are natural leaders, while others are followers; children should be nurtured (raised) by the State- no marriage union- communal wives (polygamy) 20

Middle Ages  Sir Thomas Moore- Utopia- included ideas such as…  Population control  State produced products distributed by the State  Short work day  Free education for all  Compulsory but few laws  Worst evil? Property ownership 21

Renaissance  Francis Bacon- promise of science- harnessing of nature to do man’s bidding; science will liberate man  Jonathon Swift- (Gulliver’s Travels)- satire of man’s institutions- presents a Utopian land ruled in peace and with integrity  Jean-Jacques Rousseau-Romantic view: society is responsible for all of man’s ills; advocated a return to nature and simple life (“the noble savage”); the least government is the best government; Henry David Thoreau (transcendentalism) was a disciple of Rousseau 22

Utopian experiments  Began in 18 th century- early on were religious (Mormons, Mennonites, Shakers, etc)  Simple communal living; simplified living, “crafty”  Others:  Brook Farm (during Civil War)-Emerson and others  Early 20 th century: many writers explored idea “communal living” – blissful life for man with machines doing all the work- naïve!  1960’s: Communes and hippies- return to the more Romantic Utopian ideal of man living simply 23

Experiments Continued…  mid to late 20 th century: (post wars): the reverse of Utopia was introduced – bitterly acknowledging man’s corruption in the modern world- called ANTI-utopia  Authors:  George Orwell- (Animal Farm in 1946 and 1984 in 1948)- greatest evil is totalitarianism-POWER CORRUPTS  Aldous Huxley- Brave New World- mechanized, impersonal world 24

Aldous Huxley  Born in England 1894, grandson of famous scientist, Thomas Huxley  Eton, Oxford -traditional upper-class education  Eye infection kept him out of Medical School; disappointment “colored” his outlook on life, but did keep him out of WWI  Tried journalism, then poetry, finally novels  Wrote primarily about the decadence of modern society-primary problems in his eyes were “over consumption and over population”  BNW (1932)- most serious work-lacked with and humor of earlier books  Moved to US in ’37; settled in CA; awarded honorary doctoral degree from Univ. of CA in ’59; died in L.A. on November 22,

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Created for Mona Shores English Classes  By Jolynn Walek and Vickie Clock, adapted by Roxanne Schaner 28