1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A satirical piece of fiction or a scientific prophecy?

2. “O wonder. How many goodly creatures are there here
“O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world That has such people in’t!” Miranda, The Tempest Shakespeare - Miranda spends a dozen years on a remote island with her father & a slave - Expresses shock and wonderment at the existence of other men - Expresses repressed sexuality

3. What is satire?
A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work.
While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt & thus inspire change.
Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present.

4. Utopian and Dystopian Literature
ELF 40S Ms. Van Den Bussche

5. A Utopia is a place or society that appears perfect in every way.
The government is perfect, working to improve society’s standards of living rather then their own, social aspects of the community run perfectly.
There is no war or disease, only peace and happiness. Everyone outside this Utopian society looks to this place in wonder and awe, believing it is completely perfect in every such way.
What is Utopia? The etymology of the word utopia is Greek: ou means no or not, and topos means place. No place.

6. What is Dystopia? Dystopia came from the term Utopia.
It defines a place or society which is in complete chaos.
The citizens are all suffering and are miserable.
Often times in novels what appears to be a Utopian society by the visiting protagonist is actually revealed to be a dystopian society.
The citizens are often revealed to live in terror, under complete control by the government, unaware of corrupt world in which they actually live in, or suppressed by the society as a whole.

7. Some Famous/Important Dystopian Novels

8. The Author -
Aldous Huxley was born in England in 1894, grandson of the prominent biologist T.H. Huxley and brother of Julian Huxley, also a biologist. Huxley first studied at Eton College but later went to Balliol College in Oxford. At 16, he suffered months of blindness but one eye recovered and with special glasses he completed his studies. He majored in English when he was unable to pursue his chosen career as a scientist.
Published Brave New World in 1932
Lived in the US in later life, died while living in L.A.
His “novels of ideas” have sometimes been criticized as being “too intellectual”

9. Brave New World was inspired by the H. G
 Brave New World was inspired by the H. G. Wells's utopian novel Men Like Gods.
Wells' optimistic vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novel, which became Brave New World.
Contrary to the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave New World as a “negative utopia.”

10. Historical Context
Huxley exploits anxieties about Soviet Communism and American capitalism.
The price of universal happiness will be the sacrifice of honored customs of our culture: “motherhood,” “home,” “family,” “freedom,” even “love.”

11. Context to Know - Ford
Henry Ford ( ) was from Detroit, Michigan, USA and made his first car in his back yard in After several false starts, the Ford Motor Company was formed in The first product was the Model A, introduced in the same year. Their most successful product ever, the Model T, came out in September * Most successful car of pre-WWII era
**** Assembly Line production
In BNW, the citizens will worship Ford (and Freud). Ford (and Freud) replaces God & religion.

12. Sigmund Freud Context to Know - Ivan Pavlov Psychiatrist
Psychoanalysis
Mental health and illness spring from a child’s upbringing, not his heredity
Soma – an anti-depressant, semi-hallucinogenic drug introduced by the World State
Orgy Porgy – group sexual experience to unify all people (sex is not the focus, unity is)
Solidarity Service – group of men and women who gather to take Soma and have a spiritual experience
Ivan Pavlov
Russian physician & psychologist
“Classical conditioning” using dogs
RESULT: Trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, even without giving food.
Caste System:
Alphas (Α)– highest, grey
Betas (Β)- mulberry, bottle green
Gammas (Γ)- leaf green
Deltas (Δ)- khaki
Epsilons (Ε)– lowest, black
There are also pluses and minuses, so one can be an Alpha Plus or a Gamma Minus.
Differentiation achieved through oxygen deprivation

13. Bokanovsky Process Some individuals are created using the
Fertilization process used to create Deltas & Epsilons
Divide fertilized eggs to produce identical twins
Produces up to 96 embryos, but 72 is the average
Primary instrument of social stability

14. Mustapha Mond, Resident Controller of Western Europe, governs a society where all aspects of an individual's life are determined by the state, beginning with conception and conveyor-belt reproduction.
A government bureau, the Predestinators, decides all roles in the hierarchy.
Children are raised and conditioned by the state bureaucracy, not brought up by natural families.
There are only 10,000 surnames.
Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have their own kids.

15. Setting: 2540 AD; referred to in the novel as 632 years AF (“After Ford”), meaning 632 years after production of the first Model T car (London & New Mexico Indian reservation)
Narration: Third-person omniscient
Point-of-View: Narrated in the third person from the point of view of Bernard or John, but also from the point of view of Lenina, Helmholtz Watson, and Mustapha Mond *** Chapter 3 multiple POVs

16. Although the novel was originally published in 1932, the themes in Brave New World are quite relevant to the world in which we live today. Some would even call this novel prophetic, considering the present state of things: brain-numbing advances in technology and the internet; our tendency to waste time on meaningless diversions such as television and video games; consumerism surpassing religion (take Christmas, for example); promiscuity surpassing morality; issues of eugenics, cloning, stem-cell research and genetic engineering; and, most strikingly, the overly-prescribed and overly-used medications such as anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

17. Essential Questions to connect the literature to today’s culture:
Is it better to be free than to be happy?
Is freedom compatible with happiness?
Is the collective more important than the individual?
Can children be taught effectively to think in only one certain way?
Can young people be taught so well that they never question their teachings later?
Is stability more important than freedom?
Can alterations made by advanced science to mankind be made permanent at the DNA-level?
Can mankind be conditioned by science?
Should the individual be limited/controlled for the greater good? If so, how much?

18. Brave New World’s Epigraph
Meaning? A utopia is no longer imaginary; it is becoming real. Baerdiaeff’s message is not, “when can we have a perfect world and solve all of our global problems?” but rather, “how can we keep the world from ever becoming perfect?”
We begin with a philosopher telling readers to avoid utopias like the plague, and we finish with a rousing look into the misery and horrors of a dystopia.
“Utopias seem to be much more achievable than we formerly believed them to be. Now we find ourselves presented with another alarming question: how do we prevent utopias from coming into existence? …Utopias are possible. Life tends towards the formation of utopias. Perhaps a new century will begin, a century in which intellectuals and the privileged will dream of ways to eliminate utopias and return to a non-utopic society less "perfect" and more free.””
Nicolas Berdiaeff, Russian Philosopher & Marxist (and Huxley influencer)
Marxism is a kind of thought that wonders why certain people in a society have more money and power than others.

19. What to do while reading:
Keep track of the changing POVs
Look for a hero/protagonist
Look for moments of satire
Look for what Huxley is criticizing – what scares him?
Mark passages/paragraphs worthy of analyzing for style/rhetoric
Use post-it notes