Name: Calvin Ly
Title/Author: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Page Read: 107 - 152
Date: March 12, 2013
Quote: “‘Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much if you sit still and read
books.’ ‘Do I look all right?’ Lenina asked. Her jacket was made of bottle green acetate cloth with
green viscose fur at the cuffs and collar. ‘Eight hundred Simple Lifers were mowed down by machine
guns at Golders Green.’ ‘Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending.’ Green
corduroy shorts and white viscose-woollen stockings turned down below the knee. ‘Then came the
famous British Museum Massacre. Two thousand culture fans gassed with dichlorethyl sulphide.’”
(Aldous Huxley, 50-51)
Context: Mustapha Morde, one of the ten Controllers of the world, visit the Center of Hatchery and
gives a speech to the people working there as well as the students on the tour of the history of Ford -there rise to power, their belief, and how they rewritten history.
Author’s Style:
Aldous Huxley uses repetition of the word
“culture” to emphasize the center focus of the
this fragment of Mond’s speech. In addition the
way the ideas are presented infers how lightly it
was look at by the rest of society at that time -- all
this happens and another event occur after that.
Mond keeps listing one horrid event after another
to emphasize the ignorance of society. In a sense,
Huxley is drawing a parallel of this to Holocaust
when no one really did anything before it was too
late. Huxley uses interfacing of fragmented
scenes to further emphasize the chaos that
happened in society and the actions Ford took to
rise to power.
Response:
Culture, belief, social class, language, and citizen
all contribute to the creation of society; a society
that is able to stand upright and function
properly. Mustapha Mond believes a perfect
society needs more than random ingredients
mixed together -- if a society is to be perfect then
the citizens are need to be conditioned in a way
that they function as they should. Mond used to
be a scientist and as a scientist they value change
and progression more than anything else thus
there is a connection between his past and the
present him. His life in the past influences the
belief he currently holds and in a way he believe
society have improved after the years of Ford. In
his clouded perspective, the society that he
controls is not really progressing but at a
stalemate. People are not changing and neither is
the complexity of society. The reason why
modern society is able to progress is because
everyone have their own goals thus instead to
heading in one direction, society is heading in all
directions. In a sense this is more progress than
the vision of the world Ford believe a perfect
society exist.
Emerging Theme: Society ignorance of their surroundings will inevitably lead to their downfall.
Revised Version
Quote: “‘Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much if you sit still and read
books.’ ‘Do I look all right?’ Lenina asked. Her jacket was made of bottle green acetate cloth with
green viscose fur at the cuffs and collar. ‘Eight hundred Simple Lifers were mowed down by machine
guns at Golders Green.’ ‘Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending.’ Green
corduroy shorts and white viscose-woollen stockings turned down below the knee. ‘Then came the
famous British Museum Massacre. Two thousand culture fans gassed with dichlorethyl sulphide.’”
(Aldous Huxley, 50-51)
Context: Mustapha Mord, one of the ten Controllers of the world, pays a visit to the Center of
Hatchery and gave a speech to the employees as well as the students who were currently on a tour of
the facility. Most employees came to listen to Mond’s speech on the history of Ford -- their rise to
power, their belief, and how they rewrote history.
Author’s Style:
Aldous Huxley uses repetition of the word
“culture” to emphasize the center focus of this
portion of Mond’s speech. Culture is a rather
powerful word that has a potent meaning to it
and by using it repeatedly – it imposes another
meaning to the word, “culture.” As in what
exactly is culture? In addition the way the ideas
are presented infers how lightly it was look at by
society during that era. All this happens and then
another chunk of event occurs right after that –
there was little time to take in consideration of
the escalating crisis. Nevertheless, Mond
continues to list one atrocious event after
another to emphasize the increasingly noticeable
ignorance of society. In a sense, Huxley is drawing
a parallel to the Holocaust and how the people
did not retaliate before it was too late. Huxley
uses interfacing of fragmented scenes to further
emphasize the chaos that happened within
society and the actions Ford took to rise to
power.
Response:
Culture, belief, social class, language, and the
citizen are all factors that contribute to the
creation of society; a society which can support
itself and function properly like machine.
Mustapha Mond believes a perfect society needs
more than some random ingredients mixed
together -- if a society is to be perfect then the
citizens need to be conditioned in a way that they
function as they should. Mond used to be a
scientist and as a scientist he valued change and
progression more than anything else thus, there
lies a connection between his past and his
present. His life in the past influences the belief
he currently holds – he views society having
improved itself after the years of Ford. In his
clouded perspective, the society that he controls
is progressing but the price that society had to
pay was immense. The people are not changing
and neither is society. The reason why modern
society is able to progress is because everyone
has their own goals thus instead to heading in
one direction, society is able to expand in all
directions. In short, Ford’s vision of a perfect
world is nothing more than a delusion. A society
as close to a utopia as possible is not naturally
occurring, but forced in a way through the use of
technology.
Emerging Theme: Society ignorance will inevitably lead to its downfall.
The dialectical journal entry above received the following revisions in order to create a construct
a more coherent response and elaborate more on the ideas that this entry focuses on. The entry is
divided into sections, and the first one is the quote which required no necessary changes since it
captures the idea it is intended to express. Below that is the context of the quote, which need a little bit
of adjustment. Before the context did not clearly explain the scene accurately such as who were there at
that moment in time and what is occuring. Nevertheless, the author style response was lacking in
structure and flow of ideas. In short, the first sentence did not correlate with the next sentence and so
on. For example, before the revision the first idea introduced was the repetition of culture and the next
sentence focuses on it perception through society point of view. In a sense, the two ideas did not
connect, and what more is how the first idea was introduced and left as it is without any elaboration.
Some sentences following that lacked grammar thus, they need revision. The next column over is the
response which was well structured, but a majority of the sentences needed to be rephrase in order for
the ideas to flow and the response to actually be comprehensible. The response lacked a strong
conclusion thus; a few sentences were added at the end to to fix it. Nevertheless, the response needed
fewer revisions. The last section is the emerging theme which posed a great idea, but the sentence did
not quite make sense thus, the wording is change in order make the theme clearer. Thus, in the end the
revisions have improved the overall content of the dialectical journal entry.