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Unit 20: Aldous Huxley—Brave New World: Themes and Characterization

This is, of course, important for maintaining the structured and controlled environment of Notes
Huxley’s dystopia, but it also produces human beings who simply do what they have been
taught and have no reason to think on their own.

Dystopia
A dystopia is a kind of science fiction, or fantasy, world that predicts the future in a negative
light. Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 were two of the first modern
dystopian novels. Both told of a future society in which governments had complete dictatorial
control over people, while state control and conformity replaced the freedoms of modern life
and a person’s right to the pursuit of happiness.
Dystopian novels such as Brave New World are critiques of modern institutions. Such works
take an instance of injustice or perceived ill in a society and take those situations to what
would be their logical ends. In Brave New World, Huxley critiques modern governmental
institutions whose power has slowly crept into the lives of ordinary people. This process often
occurs in the name of security or peace, yet such actions inevitably lead to the destruction of
everything that is good in a society such as freedom or creativity.

Task In your opinion, is this brave new world a utopia or a dystopia.

Freedom

Brave New World largely defines freedom through the structures that prevent freedom. Bernard
feels these constraints most acutely, as in a scene from chapter 6, when Bernard and Lenina
have a conversation about freedom. Lenina insists that everyone has a great deal of freedom
- the freedom “to have the most wonderful time.” Soma represents this kind of freedom, as
it puts people in a hypnotic state in which they no longer feel as though they should ask
questions or defy the structures of society. Bernard insists that this is no freedom at all.
Bernard claims that his ideal of freedom is the freedom to be an individual apart from the rest
of society. Bernard strives to be free in his “own way...not in everybody else’s way.” Huxley
argues here that certain structures in our own modern society work in the same way that
drugs like soma work in this fantastical dystopia. Huxley often argues against the use of
advertising specifically for the way that it hypnotized people into wanting and buying the
same products. Such things keep people within predefined structures, and it quashes free
thought, which ultimately restricts freedom.

Human Impulse

Human impulses play a complicated role in the novel. First, Huxley suggests that they can
both stabilize and destabilize society, as in the case of sexual activity. In Brave New World,
the authorities encourage all humans to sleep with as many other people as often as they can.
In previous generations, institutions such as marriage controlled these impulses. People tried
to confine their impulses, buy when they no longer could, such institutions unraveled.
By abolishing institutions such as marriage and encouraging behavior that society once considered
immoral, the leaders of the new world have gotten rid of the inherent dangers of these sexual
impulses. However, Huxley also suggests that the freedom of these impulses undermines

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