Jamie Goering
Mrs. Getchell
Summer Reading 2011
Brave New World Essay
Equal and Opposite
1991: Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two
cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas
that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two
such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents,
and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.
Imagine a world where you could have anything you wanted, instantly, and you
could do whatever you desired whenever you felt like it. Now imagine a world where you
have to work tirelessly for every small bit of food, and fight for your own survival every
day. These contrasting societies are the two main settings in Brave New World by Aldous
Huxley. The first, a technologically advanced future society, or “Brave New World”, is
the main setting in the novel. The second is a “Savage Reservation” for those who do not
accept the policies and culture of the New world. By employing these societal extremes
and what they stand for, Huxley is able to intensify and drive home the meaning of the
story; a technological utopia is not necessarily any more civilized, moral, ethical, or
devoid of problems than a third-world reservation.
The New Society and the Savage Reservation could not be more different from
one another. In the New world, technology has advanced to a point where children are no
longer born through the natural methods of fertilization, pregnancy, and delivery, as they
are at the Reservation. Instead, children are created in labs to exact genetic specifications
and live in-vitro, in bottles on a conveyer belt, until they are fully developed and
“conditioned” to exact socioeconomic standards. At the Reservation, history and tradition
are embraced, and people look to the past for ideas on how to live in the future. History is
a disgusting and shameful prospect in the New Society, however, and even speaking of
ones childhood is considered vulgar. Rather than being built on cultural ideals for the
furthering of traditions, like the Reservation is, the New Society is committed to only
economic, governmental, and behavior stability.
The intended representations of these two settings are intentionally very clear.
The New Society represents a utopia, where life is peaceful and perfect, and everyone is
always happy. It stands for the wonder of technology and its use in bringing instant
gratification to the masses in order to stabilize a traumatic world. The Savage
Reservation, on the other hand, represents the history and traditions which have been lost
in the New Society. It symbolizes the problems of the world today and the path they
would take if uninterrupted by technology. Both are examples of cultural extremes, and
because of this they are perfect to help enforce the idea of compromise which is the
meaning of the novel.
The underlying meaning of Brave New World is one of how utopia and instant
gratification, though they seem ideal, present a set of problems akin to those we have in
our society today, and that a seemingly stable society can be surprisingly unstable. The
contrast between the New Society and the Savage Reservation helps to illustrate this
point by highlighting the successes and failures of each arrangement. This naturally leads
the reader to a conclusion that, since perfect happiness and morality is impossible in
either extreme, the most efficient societal arrangement is one in the middle of the scale.
Though even a compromising civilization does not ensure peace, happiness, and stability,
it is the most plausible and carries the most benefit with the least undesirable effects to
humanity.