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…
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