British Literature Honors
Final Common Assessment: STUDY GUIDE
HELPFUL TIPS:
 Read ALL instructions, introductions, captions, footnotes, etc.
 Review all literary devices. Be sure you can come up with your own example for each.
Also, be sure you can recognize literary devices when you see them.
 Know the meaning of basic question words, such as: infer, assume, illustrate, assertion,
antecedent, excerpt, rhetorical question, restrictive, implication, and conclude.
 When you see the word EXCEPT in a question, it means that there are multiple right
answers and you are to choose the incorrect answer.
Section 1: Passage Analysis
In this section, you will read and compare themes in an essay and a poem you have not
read. There will be multiple-choice questions that ask you to analyze the readings.
Section 2: Critical Essay
In this section, you will read a critique by another author on a work you have read this
semester. You will then answer multiple choice questions based on the passage.
Section 3: Close Reading/Structural Analysis
In this section, you will read an excerpt from an unseen work of British Literature. You
will then answer multiple-choice questions about author’s purpose, word choice, diction
and syntax.
Section 4: Argument Analysis
In this section, you will read a short excerpt and identify thesis statements as defending,
refuting or qualifying.
Literary Terms
To assist you with answering questions in the close reading passages, you should be
aware of the following literary terms:
1. Allegory- a story which can be understood on two levels. Common characters
stand for something larger than themselves, leading to a second deeper meaning.
2. Aside- a comment in a play made to either the audience or another character.
There are other characters on the stage during an aside, but only the audience or a
specific character can hear the comment. It usually helps explain the plot,
treachery, or character motivation.
3. Connotation- the feelings associated with a word. Ex: pungent; people usually
associate this word with a bad smell, when really it just means a strong smell.
4. Denotation- the dictionary definition of a word
5. Denouement- the resolution of a play or novel. This is the point in the plot where
all loose ends are tied up and conflicts are resolved.
6. Dialect- when an author writes something exactly as it would be said. Usually this
will involve incorrect grammar and accents. This was used heavily with Tess’
parents in Hardy’s novel.
7. Epic- an extended narrative about the feats of a hero. It usually involves
superhuman triumphs. Beowulf was an epic.
8. Epic Hero-the central figure in an epic. This hero usually is the ultimate symbol
of his culture or race.
9. Simile- a comparison of unlike things using like or as
10. Metaphor- a comparison of unlike things without the use of like or as. Usually
one thing will become another
11. Character Foils- When two characters are similar or parallel situations in a novel.
They often reveal characteristics about the other. Examples: Hamlet and Laertes,
Jack and Ralph
12. Hyperbole- a exaggeration, usually used for effect in poetry
13. Motif- a theme or symbol that is repeated throughout a novel to add to the
author’s meaning
14. Pun- a language trick in which a word can have double meanings. This was used
repeatedly in Hamlet. Think about the scene with Polonius and Hamlet, where
Hamlet is making fun of him and Polonius does not even realize it.
15. Satire- a humorous tale that demeans a subject to bring about change.
16. Soliloquy- a long speech given by a character in a play alone on stage. Hamlet’s
“To b e or not to be” is an example
17. Symbol- an object that stands for something larger than itself
18. Tone- the overall feeling of a work created through the authors use of specific
words and images
19. Tragic Hero- a character with a fatal flaw that eventually leads to his or her
downfall. See Aristotle tragic hero sheet.
20. Irony- When the opposite of what is expected happens. There are several types:
dramatic, verbal, situational
Argument Terms
To assist you with answering question in the close reading passages, you should be know
the following literary terms:
1. Counterclaim (a.k.a. counterargument)
2. Call to action
3. Claim
4. Proof/Evidence
5. Conclusion
6. Defend
7. Refute
8. Qualify
Miscellaneous Terms:
1. Diction
2. Syntax
3. Exposition
4. Narrative
5. Dialogue
Excerpt from Huxley’s Brave new World chapter 1.
A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words,
CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield,
the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.
The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer
beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared
through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of
academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain
of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were
white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead,
a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and
living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in
long recession down the work tables.
"And this," said the Director opening the door, "is the Fertilizing Room."
Bent over their instruments, three hundred Fertilizers were plunged, as the Director of
Hatcheries and Conditioning entered the room, in the scarcely breathing silence, the
absent-minded, soliloquizing hum or whistle, of absorbed concentration. A troop of
newly arrived students, very young, pink and callow, followed nervously, rather abjectly,
at the Director's heels. Each of them carried a notebook, in which, whenever the great
man spoke, he desperately scribbled. Straight from the horse's mouth. It was a rare
privilege. The D. H. C. for Central London always made a point of personally conducting
his new students round the various departments.
"Just to give you a general idea," he would explain to them. For of course some sort of
general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently–though as little of
one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars,
as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually
necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the
backbone of society.
"To-morrow," he would add, smiling at them with a slightly menacing geniality, "you'll
be settling down to serious work. You won't have time for generalities. Meanwhile …"
Meanwhile, it was a privilege. Straight from the horse's mouth into the notebook. The
boys scribbled like mad.
Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director advanced into the room. He had a long chin
and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly
curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say. And anyhow the
question didn't arise; in this year of stability, A. F. 632, it didn't occur to you to ask it.
"I shall begin at the beginning," said the D.H.C. and the more zealous students recorded
his intention in their notebooks: Begin at the beginning. "These," he waved his hand, "are
the incubators." And opening an insulated door he showed them racks upon racks of
numbered test-tubes. "The week's supply of ova. Kept," he explained, "at blood heat;
whereas the male gametes," and here he opened another door, "they have to be kept at
thirty-five instead of thirty-seven. Full blood heat sterilizes." Rams wrapped in
theremogene beget no lambs.
Still leaning against the incubators he gave them, while the pencils scurried illegibly
across the pages, a brief description of the modern fertilizing process; spoke first, of
course, of its surgical introduction–"the operation undergone voluntarily for the good of
Society, not to mention the fact that it carries a bonus amounting to six months' salary";
continued with some account of the technique for preserving the excised ovary alive and
actively developing; passed on to a consideration of optimum temperature, salinity,
viscosity; referred to the liquor in which the detached and ripened eggs were kept; and,
leading his charges to the work tables, actually showed them how this liquor was drawn
off from the test-tubes; how it was let out drop by drop onto the specially warmed slides
of the microscopes; how the eggs which it contained were inspected for abnormalities,
counted and transferred to a porous receptacle; how (and he now took them to watch the
operation) this receptacle was immersed in a warm bouillon containing free-swimming
spermatozoa–at a minimum concentration of one hundred thousand per cubic centimetre,
he insisted; and how, after ten minutes, the container was lifted out of the liquor and its
contents re-examined; how, if any of the eggs remained unfertilized, it was again
immersed, and, if necessary, yet again; how the fertilized ova went back to the
incubators; where the Alphas and Betas remained until definitely bottled; while the
Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons were brought out again, after only thirty-six hours, to
undergo Bokanovsky's Process.
"Bokanovsky's Process," repeated the Director, and the students underlined the words in
their little notebooks.
One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will
proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a
perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six
human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress.
Multiple Choice Questions:
1. The second paragraph contain all of the following except
a. Simile – polished tubes like butter
b. Personification - the light is “hungrily seeking some draped figure”
c. Parallelism NOT USED
d. Metaphor - the light was a ghost
e. Imagery – throughout eh passage
2. In the sentence “Not philosophy but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose
the backbone of society,” the word “fretsawyers” most likely means
a. Loggers
b. Professors
c. Bookbinders
d. Artists – must be similar to a stamp collector, someone who does little to
advance society. All other s are practical tasks
e. Dictionary writers
3. “One egg, one embryo, one adult—normality,” is an example of
a. Humor – yes, but the absurdity and message make it satire
b. Satire - should be one woman, one man
c. Metaphor
d. Allusion
e. Hyperbole
4. “Begin at the beginning,” is an example of (a/an)
a. Antithesis
b. Simile
c. Alliteration
d. Anastrophe
e. Antecedent
5. According to the director, Bokanovskification is a good thing because it
a. Creates intelligent humans
b. Eliminates the need of providing a source food
c. Eliminates the unpredictability inherent in natural fertilization
d. Promotes a sense of family
e. Lacks the stability that is hallmark of the World State
6. In the second paragraph (beginning “The enormous room”) the room could best
be described as
a. Organized and productive
b. Shining and sterile
c. Scientific and creative
d. Lifeless and cold
e. Luscious and intriguing
7. The demeanor of the students is one of
I. Awe of the Director
II. Intimidation due to the setting
III. Nervous eagerness
a. I only
b. II only
c. I and II only
d. I and III only
e. I, II, and III
8. In the sixth paragraph (beginning “ ‘Tomorrow,’ he would add”), the words
“Menacing geniality” are an example of
a. Oxymoron
b. Parallelism
c. Metaphor
d. Double entendre
e. Reversal
9. From the passage, the reader can infer all of the following about the society
except that
a. It is highly organized and efficient
b. It is more interested in productivity than in intellectual pursuits
c. It is focused on the good of the whole more than on the good of the
individual
d. It is scientifically advanced in the areas of medicine and reproduction
e. It is totally dispensed with generalities in favor of particulars
10. In the paragraph beginning “Still leaning against,” the comment about the
voluntary operation reveals that
a. People in this world will voluntarily do what is good for society
b. All operations are done for the good of individuals
c. People probably consent to the operation for money rather than for the
good of society
d. The operation is very popular and profitable for the state
e. The state must perform the operation to increase the population
From Novels for Students,
Gale, 1997 Donna C. Woodford
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Wuthering Heights was the only novel Emily Brontë ever published, and both it
and the book of poetry she published with her sisters were printed under the pen name,
Ellis Bell, a name which Emily chose because she was afraid works published under a
woman's name would not be taken seriously. Emily Brontë died shortly after her book
was published and just prior to her thirtieth birthday, but her single novel remains one of
the classics of English literature. Wuthering Heights is a complex novel, and critics have
approached it from many different standpoints. Feminist critics have examined the strong
female characters and their oppression by and resistance to violent men. Marxist critics
have pointed to the class differences that set in motion the primary conflicts of Wuthering
Heights, and psychoanalytic critics have analyzed the dreams that fill the book. While all
of these approaches are useful and valid, Wuthering Heights is, above all, a book of
repeating cycles and recurring patterns, and perhaps the simplest way to begin an
examination of this book is by tracing the course and resolution of some of these patterns.
When Lockwood spends the night at the Heights, he finds the window ledge
covered with "a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine
Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine
Linton." Indeed, the repetition and variation of these four names, Catherine, Earnshaw,
Heathcliff, and Linton, fills the book just as the writing fills the window ledge. The
original Catherine begins life as Catherine Earnshaw. In what Terry Eagleton in Case
Studies In Contemporary Criticism: Wuthering Heights calls "a crucial act of selfbetrayal and bad faith," she rejects the opportunity to become Catherine Heathcliff and
instead becomes Catherine Linton. She then gives birth to another Catherine Linton, who
enters the world only hours before her mother leaves it, and this second Catherine first
marries Linton Heathcliff, becoming Catherine Heathcliff, and finally, at the end of the
book,
becomes engaged to Hareton Earnshaw. The cycle of names thus comes full circle as this
final marriage will give the second Catherine the original name of the first.
At the same time, Catherine's marriage with Hareton completes another cycle—
the union of souls for which the reader has longed. The second Catherine is in many ways
a reincarnation of her mother. Though she is softened by the characteristics which she has
inherited from her father, she has "the Earnshaw's handsome, dark eyes" and, as Nelly
states, she has the same "capacity for intense attachments" as her mother. Similarly,
Hareton is a gentler version of his oppressor and foster father, Heathcliff. Though
Heathcliff does his best to make Hareton a tool of his revenge against the first Catherine's
brother Hindley Earnshaw, he succeeds instead in creating a reproduction of himself. He
reveals his own knowledge of this strange turn of events when he tells Nelly, "Hareton
[seems] a personification of my youth … the ghost of my immortal love, of my wild
endeavors to hold my right, my degradation, my pride, my happiness, and my anguish."
Thus, even more than the reunion of Catherine's and Heathcliff's ghosts, the union of
their spiritual descendants gives the reader the impression that a great wrong has finally
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been set right.
In addition to being later versions of Heathcliff and the first Catherine, Hareton
and the second Catherine are the last in a long line of orphans and outcasts. In an article
in American Imago Philip K. Wion has observed that the absence of mothers in
Wuthering Heights has a profound effect on the identities of the orphaned children, and
certainly the book is full of orphaned and abandoned characters seeking fulfillment
through union with others. Heathcliff, of course, is a foundling taken in by Mr. Earnshaw,
and after the old man's death Hindley makes him an outcast. The first Catherine, also
orphaned by Earnshaw's death, becomes still more isolated after Heathcliff's departure.
Heathcliff has been her one true companion, so much a part of herself that she tells Nelly,
"if all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else
remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger." The
loss of her soul mate thus leaves her alone in the world, and her death, likewise, orphans
him for a second time, leaving him "lonely, like the devil, and envious like him." The
next generation fares no better. Linton Heathcliff loses his mother and is raised by a
father who despises him; Hareton's mother dies shortly after his birth, and the death of his
alcoholic and abusive father leaves him penniless and at the mercy of Heathcliff.
Likewise, the second Catherine is born only hours before her mother's death, and the
death of her father leaves her "destitute of cash and friends." Once again, it is the
marriage of Hareton and Catherine that will bring this cycle of orphanhood to a close.
The housekeeper, Nelly, proudly tells the tenant Lockwood that they are both "in a 60
measure, [her] children," and the union of her two charges finally ends the progression of
lonely, isolated, orphaned individuals.
Heathcliff's death and the second Catherine's gaining control of the property also
bring to an end the series of tyrannical men who rule the Heights with violence and
curses. The first Mr. Earnshaw is easily vexed, and "suspected slights of his authority
nearly [throw] him into fits." Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw's successor, is still worse. He
threatens to "demolish the first who puts [him] out of temper," and his abuse of Heathcliff
is "enough to make a fiend of a saint." Heathcliff, in his turn, does turn out to be a fiend,
and deserves the term "Devil daddy" with which young Hareton christens him. He takes
pleasure in inflicting on Hindley's son the same abuse which Hindley had given 70
Heathcliff because he wants to see "if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the
same wind to twist it," and he values his own son only because he wants "the triumph of
seeing [his] descendent fairly lord of their estates; [his] child hiring their children, to till
their father's lands for wages." Thus, even Heathcliff's plot to reverse past patterns by
making his child lord of the Earnshaws and Lintons, only results in the reestablishment of
an old pattern. Heathcliff, the former victim of tyranny, becomes yet another tyrannical
man ruling Wuthering Heights. This cycle is only broken when, after Heathcliff's death,
the property is granted to the second Catherine, the first woman in the book to own her
own property. Her marriage to Hareton will, of course, make her property his, but it
seems unlikely that his "honest, warm, intelligent nature" will allow him to become a
tyrant like his predecessors. The pattern of violent men ruling the Heights, like so many
other patterns in the book, ends with the death of Heathcliff and the marriage of the
second Catherine and Hareton.
1. What is the author’s main purpose in this essay?
a. To comment on the strangeness of the female novel
b. To expose Heathcliff as a tyrant
c. To provide and overview of different critical approaches to Wuthering
Heights
d. To analyze cycles and patterns in the novel
2. The absence of mothers in Wuthering Heights, according to Phillip K. Wion,
could have which of the following possible effects?
a. Inheritance of property
b. Marriage between Catherine and Edgar
c. The development of a strong female character
d. The foreshadowing of death
3. Paragraph 3 (lines 27-40) of the essay showcases which elements of quote
incorporation?
a. Proper citation for reference in MLA format
b. Paraphrasing to help keep Bronte’s originally intended message
c. Skillfully included quotes in Woodford’s own words
d. Woodford restates the quote after it is included
4. One possible critique of Woodford’s essay would be:
a. The author does not include enough evidence
b. The opening sentences do not match the thesis
c. The topic sentences do not match the paragraphs
d. The essay provides too much plot summary
5. In the opening sentence of paragraph 2 (lines 14-17), why are the names of the
various Catherines italicized?
a. Lockwood is reading the names to himself
b. Lockwood is citing the title of books on the window ledge
c. Woodford is drawing attention to the names
d. Lockwood believes that the three names are actually the same person
6. In paragraph 4, after a series of long sentences Woodford includes the sentence,
“The next generation fares no better” (lines53-54). What effect does Woodford
create by incorporating this simple sentence?
a. Woodford wants the reader to pause for emphasis
b. Woodford is attempting to transition to a new, related topic
c. Woodford is trying to quicken the pace of the reading
d. Woodford is repeating herself to reflect the goal of her thesis statement
Literary Criticism
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited
The soul of wit may become the very body of untruth. However elegant and memorable,
brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a complex situation.
On such a theme one can be brief only by omission and simplification. Omission and
simplification help us to understand -- but help us, in many cases, to understand the
wrong thing; for our comprehension may be only of the abbreviator's neatly formulated
notions, not of the vast, ramifying reality from which these notions have been so
arbitrarily abstracted.
But life is short and information endless: nobody has time for everything. In practice we
are generally forced to choose between an unduly brief exposition and no exposition at
all. Abbreviation is a necessary evil and the abbreviator's business is to make the best of a
job which, though intrinsically bad, is still better than nothing. He must learn to simplify,
but not to the point of falsification. He must learn to concentrate upon the essentials of a
situation, but without ignoring too many of reality's qualifying side issues. In this way he
may be able to tell, not indeed the whole truth (for the whole truth about almost any
important subject is incompatible with brevity), but considerably more than the
dangerous quarter-truths and half-truths which have always been the current coin of
thought.
Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World Revisited in 1958. His purpose was to reexamine
some of the issues he had introduced in the novel. The following is an excerpt from the
first chapter; in it, Huxley discusses a dystopian novel that followed on the heels of his
own.
From Chapter 1: Overpopulation
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Twenty-seven years later, in this third quarter of the twentieth century A.D., and
long before the end of the first century A.F., I feel a good deal less optimistic than I did
when I was writing Brave New World. The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true
much sooner than I thought they would. The blessed interval between too little order and
the nightmare of too much has not begun and shows no sign of beginning. In the West, it
is true, individual men and women still enjoy a large measure of freedom. But even in
those countries that have a tradition of democratic government, this freedom and even the
desire for this freedom seem to be on the wane. In the rest of the world freedom for
individuals has already gone, or is manifestly about to go. The nightmare of total
organization, which I had situated in the seventh century After Ford, has emerged from
the safe, remote future and is now awaiting us, just around the next corner.
George Orwell's 1984 was a magnified projection into the future of a present that
contained Stalinism and an immediate past that had witnessed the flowering of Nazism.
Brave New World was written before the rise of Hitler to supreme power in Germany and
when the Russian tyrant had not yet got into his stride. In 1931 systematic terrorism was
not the obsessive contemporary fact which it had become in 1948, and the future
dictatorship of my imaginary world was a good deal less brutal than the future
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dictatorship so brilliantly portrayed by Orwell. In the context of 1948, 1984 seemed
dreadfully convincing. But tyrants, after all, are mortal and circumstances change. Recent
developments in Russia and recent advances in science and technology have robbed
Orwell's book of some of its gruesome verisimilitude. A nuclear war will, of course,
make nonsense of everybody's predictions. But, assuming for the moment that the Great
Powers can somehow refrain from destroying us, we can say that it now looks as though
the odds were more in favor of something like Brave New World than of something like
1984.
In the light of what we have recently learned about animal behavior in general,
and human behavior in particular, it has become clear that control through the
punishment of undesirable behavior is less effective, in the long run, than control through
the reinforcement of desirable behavior by rewards, and that government through terror
works on the whole less well than government through the non-violent manipulation of
the environment and of the thoughts and feelings of individual men, women and children.
Punishment temporarily puts a stop to undesirable behavior, but does not permanently
reduce the victim's tendency to indulge in it. Moreover, the psycho-physical by-products
of punishment may be just as undesirable as the behavior for which an individual has
been punished. Psychotherapy is largely concerned with the debilitating or anti-social
consequences of past punishments.
The society described in 1984 is a society controlled almost exclusively by
punishment and the fear of punishment. In the imaginary world of my own fable,
punishment is infrequent and generally mild. The nearly perfect control exercised by the
government is achieved by systematic reinforcement of desirable behavior, by many
kinds of nearly non-violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by
genetic standardization. Babies in bottles and the centralized control of reproduction are
not perhaps impossible; but it is quite clear that for a long time to come we shall remain a
viviparous species breeding at random. For practical purposes genetic standardization
may be ruled out. Societies will continue to be controlled post-natally -- by punishment,
as in the past, and to an ever increasing extent by the more effective methods of reward
and scientific manipulation.
In Russia the old-fashioned, 1984-style dictatorship of Stalin has begun to give
way to a more up-to-date form of tyranny. In the upper levels of the Soviets' hierarchical
society the reinforcement of desirable behavior has begun to replace the older methods of
control through the punishment of undesirable behavior. Engineers and scientists,
teachers and administrators, are handsomely paid for good work and so moderately taxed
that they are under a constant incentive to do better and so be more highly rewarded. In
certain areas they are at liberty to think and do more or less what they like. Punishment
awaits them only when they stray beyond their prescribed limits into the realms of
ideology and politics. It is because they have been granted a measure of professional
freedom that Russian teachers, scientists and technicians have achieved such remarkable
successes. Those who live near the base of the Soviet pyramid enjoy none of the
privileges accorded to the lucky or specially gifted minority. Their wages are meager and
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they pay, in the form of high prices, a disproportionately large share of the taxes. The
area in which they can do as they please is extremely restricted, and their rulers control
them more by punishment and the threat of punishment than through non-violent
manipulation or the reinforcement of desirable behavior by reward. The Soviet system
combines elements of 1984 with elements that are prophetic of what went on among the
higher castes in Brave New World.
Meanwhile impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be
pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal
pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political
organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the
interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses. The techniques of
manipulation will be discussed in later chapters. For the moment let us confine our
attention to those impersonal forces which are now making the world so extremely unsafe
for democracy, so very in-hospitable to individual freedom. What are these forces? And
why has the nightmare, which I had projected into the seventh century A.F., made so
swift an advance in our direction? The answer to these questions must begin where the
life of even the most highly civilized society has its beginnings -- on the level of biology.
…
It is worth remarking that, in 1984, the members of the Party are compelled to
conform to a sexual ethic of more than Puritan severity. In Brave New World, on the
other hand, all are permitted to indulge their sexual impulses without let or hindrance.
The society described in Orwell's fable is a society permanently at war, and the aim of its
rulers is first, of course, to exercise power for its own delightful sake and, second, to keep
their subjects in that state of constant tension which a state of constant war demands of
those who wage it. By crusading against sexuality the bosses are able to maintain the
required tension in their followers and at the same time can satisfy their lust for power in
a most gratifying way. The society described in Brave New World is a world-state, in
which war has been eliminated and where the first aim of the rulers is at all costs to keep
their subjects from making trouble. This they achieve by (among other methods)
legalizing a degree of sexual freedom (made possible by the abolition of the family) that
practically guarantees the Brave New Worlders against any form of destructive (or
creative) emotional tension. In 1984 the lust for power is satisfied by inflicting pain; in
Brave New World, by inflicting a hardly less humiliating pleasure.
Questions for Brave New World Revisited
1. How does Huxley contrast the world situations that influenced Brave New World
and 1984?
BNW is written before the rise of Stalin and Hitler. Totalitarian
government turns out to be more brutal than envisioned in BNW as
reflected in 1984.
2. What does Huxley mean by the sentence which begins “Recent developments in
Russia…” (lines 19-21)
The actual developments of the things in 1984 make 1984 seem blown out
of proportion.
3. What aspect of Brave New World does Huxley believe has been proven accurate
by recent science and history?
Punishment of undesirable behavior is not as effective as encouraging
positive.
4. How does the society in 1984 differ in this respect?
Society is controlled by punishment and fear.
5. According to Huxley, how has Russia (then the Soviet Union) changed to reflect
this new knowledge about behavior?
They pay more and tax less (the upper class) when they do good work.
6.
In lines 63-65, Huxley states, “The Soviet system combines elements of 1984
with elements that are prophetic of what went on among the higher castes in
Brave New World.” Considering what you know about the latter society, what
elements must be present in 1984?
Punishment to straying from the norm.
7.
How are the sexual ethics in 1984 different from those in Brave New World?
Why are they different?
In 1984 sex is strictly controlled to keep the society in a constant state of
tension which war demands, whereas in BNW sexual freedom is
encouraged to keep society in a state of bliss so they don’t cause trouble.
Brave New World quotes for structural analysis
Directions: Read each of the following quotes carefully, focusing particularly on syntax
and diction, and then answer the questions below.
“After the scene in the Fertilizing Room, all upper caste London was wild to see this
delicious creature who had fallen on his knees before the Director of Hatcheries and
Conditioning—or rather ex-Director, for the poor man had resigned immediately
afterwards and never set foot inside the Centre again—had flopped down and called him
(the joke was almost too good to be true!) ‘my father.’” (153)
1. What is the main verb of this sentence?
a. see
b. fallen
c. resigned
d. flopped
e. was
2. Why is the phrase beginning “or rather ex-director” set off by dashes?
a. It’s an aside
b. To avoid a run on sentence
c. It shows a contradiction
d. It is a predicate nominative
e. It is an essential clause
3.
Why does Huxley choose to use the word “delicious” to describe the savage?
a. To emphasize the appeal of the situation
b. To emphasize the director’s reaction
c. To emphasize the greed nature of the Brave New Worldians
d. To make the comparison of the savage being consumed
e. To present irony
“And long evenings by the fire or, in summertime, on the roof of the little house when
she told him those stories about the Other Place, whose memory, as of a heaven, a
paradise of goodness and loveliness, he still kept whole and intact, undefiled by contact
with the reality of this real London, these actual civilized men and women.” (201)
4.
The work “undefiled” in the quotation most nearly means
a. Not categorized
b. Removed from a category one was placed in
c. Not effected or warped
d. To be made proper and pure
e. To be organized
5. The main verb in the sentence is
a. told
b. kept
c. contact
d. of
e. undefiled
6. Huxley uses a form of repetition in which he restates a phrase. An example of
this is
a. “The Other Place”
b. “on the roof”
c. “actual civilized men and women”
d. “Undefiled by contact with reality”
7. Huxley’s comment “these actual civilized men and women” is an example of
a. Satire
b. Metaphor
c. Parallelism
d. Pun
e. All of the above
“‘Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the
overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as
instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against
misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal
overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.’” (221)
8.
This quotation’s dominant literary device is
a. Satire
b. Parallelism
c. Irony
d. Antithesis
e. None of the above
9. In the quotation the best synonym for “picturesqueness” is
a. Romance
b. Idealness
c. Pragmatisms
d. Grandiose
e. All of the above
10. The best paraphrase of the quote above is
a. Happiness is the root of all evil
b. Happiness is never as good as it seems
c. Happiness is really not happiness, but causes the fall of society
d. Man doesn’t really know what he wants
British Literature Honors
Name: _________________
Brave New World: Defend, Refute, Qualify
Directions: The following passage comes from “The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World,” a 1984 essay by American writer Peter Edgerly Firchow.
After reading the passage, decide whether the provided thesis statements defend, refute,
or qualify Firchow’s ideas about the complexity and threat of the main characters in
Brave New World.
Despite the apparent fact that Huxley once had more exalted intentions for him,
Bernard belongs very much to the familiar Huxleyan category of the anti-hero, best
exemplified perhaps by Theodore Gumbril, Jr., the so-called Complete Man of Antic
Hay (1923). Like Gumbril, Bernard is able to envision and even seek after a love that
is not merely sexual, but, like Gumbril again, his search is half-hearted. He is willing
to settle for less because it is so much easier than trying to strive for more. Bernard is
weak and cowardly and vain, much more so than Gumbril, and this makes him an
unsympathetic character in a way that Gumbril is not. Nevertheless Bernard is
undoubtedly capable of seeing the better, even if in the end he follows the worse.
Bernard is certainly a more fully developed character than Helmholtz; he is, in fact,
with the exception of the Savage, the character about whom we know most in the
entire novel. Just why this should be so is a question worth asking, just as it is worth
asking why Bernard is the first of the novel's three malcontents to be brought to our
attention.
Bernard's importance resides, I think, in his incapacity. The stability of the new world
state can be threatened, it is clear, from above and from below. In the case of
Helmholtz the threat is from above, from a surfeit of capacity; in Bernard's case it is
from below, from a lack of sufficient capacity. This is not simply to say that Bernard
is more stupid than Helmholtz, which he probably is, but rather that because of his
physical inferiority he has developed a compulsive need to assert his superiority. It is
this incapacity which, paradoxically, seems to make Bernard the more dangerous
threat, for it compels him to rise to a position of power in his society; he wants to be
accepted by his society, but only on his own terms, terms that are not acceptable in
the long run if stability is to be maintained. Helmholtz, on the other hand, is a loner
who really wants to have nothing to do with the society at all, and in this sense he
represents much less of a threat. The Savage, on the other hand, though most violent
and uncompromising in his hatred of and desire to destroy the new world state, is
really no threat at all, for he originates from outside the society and is a kind of lusus
naturae. There is never likely to be another Savage, but it is very probable that there
will be or that there are more Bernards and Helmholtzes.
1. Bernard and Helmholtz represent a greater threat to the stability of the World
State than John because they work within the established rules of the society.
2. Bernard has more capacity to disrupt the World State; however, the Savage’s
inability to disrupt the World State highlights Huxley’s thematic message of the
dangerous powers of conformity and alienation.
3. Bernard’s inferiority and his desire to be accepted have a greater propensity to
disrupt the order of the World State.
4. Bernard is more developed and cannot be considered an antihero because he is
capable of divergent thoughts and functions on a higher level than his
subordinates.
5. John the Savage is the greater threat to the society because he originates from
outside the society and he is recognizable as an individual.
6. It is through John the Savages’s inability to disrupt the world state that
inequalities in the class structure of both Malpais and the World State are most
evident.
7. Although Helmholtz’s intelligence gives him the ability to disrupt the World
State, his conditioning prevents him from separating himself from the values of
the World State such as love and passion.
Literary Term Review
Match each example to the literary term above.
Allegory
Antithesis
Aside
Character Foil
Connotation
Denotation
Denouement
Dialect
Epic
Epic hero
Hyperbole
Irony
Metaphor
Motif
Pun
Satire
Simile
Soliloquy
Symbol
Tone
Tragic hero
1. Soliloquy
Claudius: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; words
without thoughts never to heaven go.”
2. Epic
Beowulf, Odyssey, Iliad, The Lord of the Rings
3. Tone
“On that bleak hill top the earth was hard with black frost, and the
air made me shiver through every limb.”
4. Dialect
“‘What are ye for?’ he shouted. ‘T’ maister’s dahn I’ t’fowld. Goa
rahund bt th’ end ut’ laith, if yah went tuh spake tull him.’”
5. Simile
“And the Champak’s odours fail like sweet thoughts in a dream;”
6. Foil
Heathcliff and Edgar, Heathcliff and Hindley, Hamlet and Laertes
but not Simon and Piggy
7. Motif
The Moors in Wuthering Heights
8. Symbol
The gold, the old man, and the tree in “The Pardoner’s Tale”
Excalibur in “Day of Destiny”
9. Irony
Hamlet’s inability to kill Claudius because he is praying
10. Epic Hero
Beowulf, Frodo Baggins, Odysseus, King Arthur
11. Pun
Rosencrantz: “—over my step over my head body!—I tell you it’s
all stopping to death, it’s boding to a depth, stepping to a head, it’s
all heading to a dead stop—“
12. Dénouement Hamlet uses his dying words to pronounce Fortinbras the heir to
the throne of Denmark
13. Antithesis
“To thine own self be true”
14. Tragic Hero
Hamlet, John , and Heathcliff
15. Aside
Hamlet enters backwards, talking, followed by Polonius, upstage
Hamlet: “…for you yourself, sir, should be as old as I am if like a
crab you could go backward.”
Polonius: “though this be madness, yet there is method in it.”
16. Denotation
Cool- temperature
17. Connotation
Cool- one who is hip and with it
18. Metaphor
“degrading her [Lenina] to so much mutton”
19. Allegory
“The Pardoner’s Tale” Lord of the Flies, Brave New World
20. Satire
a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize
foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using
humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule. It intends to improve
humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles.
21. Hyperbole
“I had to wait in the station for ten days-an eternity.”