Name:
Final BNW Portfolio 1
Final BNW Portfolio
Include the following items (the assignments are on the following pages):
This should all be typed, in the same document, submitted by 6/11. If you are
interested in potentially exempting, you may get this in earlier.
1) Respond, in one typed paragraph, to the French quote on Utopia from
the beginning of Brave New World.
2) Close Reading assignment from Page 119-122 (in three typed
paragraphs.)
3) Response to three of the quotes. Each response should be one typed
paragraph long.
4) Respond to the final two questions—two typed paragraphs each.
Disclaimer: You are expected to provide thoughtful, meaningful,
analysis and work. Meeting the paragraph minimum does not imply a
maximum score. You should be insightful, and analytical. Put real time
into this, and you will do well. If you put it off and hand in something
that is not very good, your grade will suffer.
Name:
Final BNW Portfolio 2
1. French quote response:
Les utopies apparaissent bien plus réalisables qu'on ne le croyait autrefois. Et nous nous
trouvons actuellement devant une question bien autrement angoissante : comment éviter leur
réalisation définitive ?… Les utopies sont réalisables. La vie marche vers les utopies. Et peutêtre un siècle nouveau commence-t-il, un siècle où les intellectuels et la classe cultivée rêveront
aux moyens d'éviter les utopies et de retourner à une société non utopique moins « parfaite » et
plus libre.
-Nicolas Berdiaeff
Utopias appear much more feasible than was formerly believed. And we are now faced with a
question far more distressing: how to avoid their final realization? ... Utopias are achievable. Life
march towards utopias. And perhaps a new century begins there, a century in which intellectuals
and the educated class will dream means to avoid utopias and return to a non-utopian less
"perfect" and more FREE society
Essentially, your question, to which you will respond in ONE REAL, SOLID,
paragraph, is why wouldn’t someone like Nicolas Berdiaeff want to live in a
Utopia? What is unattractive about them (the utopias, not the
aforementioned “someones” who wouldn’t want to live there)?
2. Close Reading 119-122
Close reading: Pg. 119 “Oh, my dear” until 122
Reread this portion and write one full paragraph for each of the following: Context, Style,
Themes. Use the following questions to help guide your response.
Context: (Who is speaking or the subject? Who is the audience? What just happened? What is
about to happen?)
Style: (What kind of writing is implemented? What is the tone? What are some key words?
Which words have important connotative meaning? What are some examples of figurative
language? Why is it used how it is used? Is there any irony? Juxtaposition? )
Themes: (Why is this in the text? How does this relate to any overall themes or ideas of the
story as a whole? What is implied but maybe not explicitly said? )
Name:
Final BNW Portfolio 3
3. Quote Responses
Include your full, one-paragraph response to three of the following
quotes. If you feel that you responded adequately when we did it in
class, just include a typed version of what you did then. Your responses
can be totally societal, totally related to Brave New World, or a
combination of the two, but must be thorough, and your connections
must be explicit.
“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed
upon him?” ― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
“Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes
at Society itself.”(Huxley, 148)
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things
for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of
history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”-Aldous
Huxley
“The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort?
Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is
there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that
we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it? “-John Lennon
“Freedom breeds uncertainty; uncertainty invites chaos.” –R.J. Leahy,
Angel of the City
Name:
Final BNW Portfolio 4
“Our contemporary Western society, in spite of its material,
intellectual, and political progress, is increasingly less conducive
to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security,
happiness, reason and the capacity for love in the individual; it
tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human
failure with increasing mental sickness, and with despair hidden
under a frantic drive for work and so called pleasure.”
― Erich Fromm
4. Final Two Questions:
Write a typed, two-paragraph response to each of these. Your
paragraphs must be thorough, thoughtful, and specific. Minimal
work does not entail full credit.
Why does Huxley end the book the way he does?
What commentary do you think he is making on one of the main
overall themes we have covered this year.