Brave New World


So ever since I read 1984, I have been absolutely obsessed by dystopic books and their ideas, which is why today I am going to review another dystopic classic: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. So lie down in the summer sun and relax while reading this brand new review.

The story takes place in London in 632 After Ford. So you must ask yourself who Henry Ford is. We are talking about the one who made the car company; Ford. In the book, his mass production of the Model-T inspired people to mass-produce people. So for the characters in the book we can relate to him as a god. 

To mass-produce people? How is that possible?

In laboratories, they have big artificial embryos where the babies are created. One egg can produce 96 identical babies. There is no such thing as mothers and fathers or families.

The babies are conditioned since very little. They are conditioned in different ways because there are different classes of people: Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilons, and Gamma…The best is Alpha. For instance, to condition a Delta they put the babies in front of books and flowers and electrocute them so they will always seem repelled by these things and can do the jobs in the lower classes (workers).

They also are all conditioned to not be scared of death, to not be modest, but to be social… The adults are never bored because they have soma (drugs) and sex. In other words this seems like the perfect society…Or not.

The story revolves around Bernard Marx, a psychologist in the higher class. He feels different because he is smaller than the others and likes being alone with his thoughts. He wants to feel free and more like an individual. The only person who understands him is Hemholtz Watson, his friend.

There are no such things as couples or marriages. People have sex with everybody and they find it perfectly normal.

Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne want to go to Mexico together to a Savage Reservation even though they have no feelings for each other.

Bernard goes to see his boss to ask him if he can go.  His boss tells him about when he went there. Apparently, he had gone there with a girl and they decided to take a nap, but when he woke up, she had disappeared. He never saw her again. His boss also tells him that he is unsatisfied with his habits outside of work and threatens to send him to Iceland but still gives him permission to go on vacation.

So they go to Mexico with Lenina and when they get there they go see the Savage Reservation. They watch a boy get whipped and Lenina is horrified.  Afterwards, the boy comes to them.  Unlike the others, he is white. He tells them that his name is John and that his mother isn’t from Mexico and has a hard time dealing with it. Since she is from the “civilized” part of the world she sleeps with a lot of men and some are married. She doesn’t understand why since for her it is normal but the people whip her and spit on her. John has to go through it too.  

Lenina finds John very handsome and attractive and the feeling is reciprocal

John tells them that they should come to speak to his mother, Linda. She is a corpulent and depressed woman. Linda explained to them that she was from the civilized part of the world and that she came to the Savage Reservation on vacation. She said that she was with a man and he was taking a nap. But she had decided to go for a short walk when all of a sudden she fell.  When she woke up, people from the Reservation brought her to their homes and she never found the man again. Apparently, Linda was already pregnant with John and this man was his father.

Bernard made the connection with his boss´s story and deduced that he is John´s father.  They found it so peculiar talking about fathers and mothers since for them since they didn´t exist!
Bernard had the idea to bring them back to London so that they could live life more easily there and, Bernard could use them so that he wouldn’t have to leave for Iceland. Because if people found out that his boss was a father he would be humiliated and the scandal would force him to leave.  It´s bizarre when you think about it but, it’s also sort of clever.

So when Bernard comes back to work, his boss announced in front of everyone that Bernard´s work and social life are unsatisfying and that he is sending him away. For revenge, Bernard calls Linda and John in. John starts yelling “Father! Father!” and Linda falls to his feet and claims him as the father of her son. The workers around them start laughing thinking it is a joke. But when their boss runs out of the room they stop.

Bernard and John (named “The Savage”), become popular, while Lenina falls in love with John.  Linda starts taking a lot of soma.

But they don´t know that there is something horrible hiding behind this perfect seeming world…
This book, like 1984 (read first article) is very interesting and the ideas are very developed.  In both books the theme is the same; is it better to be happy and oblivious or aware of what is going on? It’s a hard question to answer… Leave what you think in the comments. But in Brave New World people seem freer than in 1984 but they really aren’t.  The society is just constructed differently. I hope you liked this review and don´t forget to read next week´s review! :)

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