Brave New
World
By Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
• July 26 1884- November 22 1963
• Born in Surrey, UK
• Third son of Leonard Huxley, writer/schoolmaster,
and Julia Arnold, founder of Prior’s Field School.
• Grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, “Darwin’s
Bulldog”- famous zoologist
• His brother and half-brother were also well-known
biologists
• Aldous himself very well-educated
• In 1911, suffered from illness which left him almost
blind for several years. Disqualified him from service
in WWI
• After graduating from Oxford, he was financially
indebted to father. Taught French at Eton where Eric
Blair (George Orwell) was one of his students
• In 1920s worked at a chemical plant (inspiration for
Brave New World)
• In 1919, married Maria Nys
•In 1937, moved to Hollywood, California to work as screenwriter. Not successful. (Walt
Disney rejected his synopsis of Alice in Wonderland because “he could only understand
every third word.”)
• After WWI, Huxley applied for US citizenship, but continuously denied because he
refused to take up arms to defend US (on philosophical, rather than religious, objections)
• On December 24, 1955, took first dose of LSD. Became pioneer of psychedelic drugs
• In 1956, married Laura Archera after 1st wife died of breast cancer
• Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer.
• Upon his deathbed, requested LSD, wife obliged with 2 separate injections before he
died.
• Died on November 22, 1963, the same day as C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy
Brave New World in
Context
• Written in 1931, published in 1932
•Huxley wrote Brave New World while living
in Italy
• He was already established as writer and
satirist
• Brave New World was his fifth novel and
first dystopian work
• H.G. Wells had written utopian novel, Men
Like Gods, Huxley decided to write parody,
“negative utopia”
• Novel is set in future, but contains issues
of 20th century.
• Industrial Revolution
• Mass production
• Russian Revolution of 1917
• WWI (1914-1918)
•Huxley visited US and was “outraged by
the culture of youth, commercial
cheeriness, sexual promiscuity, and the
inward-looking nature of many
Americans.” Also found a book about
Henry Ford on boat to America. Wrote
Brave New World with America in mind.
• “feelies” were response to talking
movies, and sex-hormone chewing
gum was parody of chewing gum, a
symbol of US at the time
•In 1999, Modern Library ranked it as 5th
on list of 100 best English-language
novels of the 20th century
•It is rated number 52 on The American
Library Association’s list of most
challenged books, and has been banned
in several instances because it “centers
around negative activity.”
The Title
• Title comes from Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
•Used ironically
• In different languages, title is
changed, sometimes to reflect
their versions of works:
• French: The Best of All
Worlds
• German: Beautiful New
World
• Italian: The New World
• Spanish: A Happy World
•In Shakespeare’s time,
“brave” meant “beautiful” or
“good looking”
The Setting
• Set in the year A.F. 632 (2540 A.D.)
•Most of the population unified under
The World State; population limited
to 2 billion people
•Peaceful, stable global society
•Goods and resources are plentiful
•Everyone is happy
Community, Identity, Stability
Reproduction
•Natural reproduction no longer exists
•Children are created in bottles in Hatcheries and Conditioning
Centres where they are decanted
•Each fetus is treated correspondingly to its predetermined social
class (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon)
•The members of the lowest classes are essentially poisoned to stunt
growth and development while in bottles.
•Members of lower classes are created using Bokanovsky process,
producing up to 96 identical children at a time.
•Podsnap’s Technique is also used for lower classes to mature all of
the eggs in an ovary simultaneously
•Member of upper classes are developed naturally and are unique
•Sex is purely recreational
•Ideas of family, motherhood, pregnancy are considered
pornographic
Ford
•The World State’s calendar begins with year 1 A.F. as
1908 A.D. the year Ford’s first Model T was completed on
his assembly line
•Although no true supernatural religion exists, Ford is
worshipped
•called Our Ford.
• “Oh, Ford!”
• the sign of the T
•The World State’s society is built on the principles of
Ford’s assembly line: “mass production, homogeneity,
predictability, and consumption of disposable consumer
goods”
•Freud is sometimes said instead of Ford.
•Thought to be same person by World State citizens
•Incorporate Freud’s idea that sex is essential to
happiness and should not be limited to reproduction,
even in children.
Soma
•Hallucinogen
•Hangover-free
•Creates “holidays”
•Used at any sign of stress, discomfort
•Sprayed at a riot
•Taken for enjoyment (ice cream soma bar, half-gramme raspberry sundae)
•Taken during Solidarity Services in the Fordson Community Singery
•12 people sit in circle
•Take soma tablets and pass around strawberry ice-cream soma
•“Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,
Like drops within the Social River;
Oh, make us now together run
As swiftly as thy shinning Flivver.”
•Proclaim that they hear Ford coming
•“Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,
Kiss the girls and make them One.
Boys at one with girls at peace;
Orgy-porgy gives release.”
Hypnopædia
•Discovered on accident
•Could not be used to teach, only memorize
•“Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to
be rational.”
•“A gramme is always better than a damn.”
•“A gramme in time saves nine.”
•“One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments.”
•“Everybody’s happy nowadays.”
•“Everyone works for every one else.”
•“When the individual feels, the community reels.”
•“Never put off till to-morrow the fun you can have today.”
•“Ending is better than mending.”
•“Everyone belongs to everyone else.” (one hundred
repetitions three nights a week for four years= 62,400
Death
•People typically die at age 60, remaining youthful whole
life
•Death isn’t feared: children are conditioned, given treats
when visiting hospitals
•Concept of family doesn’t exist, so no one mourns
•Bodies are cremated, and 98% of phosphorous is
recovered, instead of being wasted
•“Fine to think we can go on being socially useful even
after we’re dead. Making plants grow.”
A Brief Plot Summary
•Opens in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre
•Lenina Crowne, an employee, is reprimanded by her friend Fanny
Crowne for being in a nearly exclusive relationship.
•Lenina admits her attraction to the strange Bernard Marx.
•Lenina accepts Bernard’s invitation to visit a Savage Reservation in
New Mexico.
•There, they meet John and his mother Linda, who is from the World
State, and bring them back with them.
•John is dissatisfied with the World State.