BRAVE NEW WORLD (Aldous Huxley)

About the Author

Aldous Huxley was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey (GB).

He wanted to become a medical doctor, but because of an eye disease that left him virtually blind, he studied literature and became an author.

He bagan writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties, but is was his first novel 'Chrome Yellow' (1921) which established his literary reputation.

Brave New World was published in 1932.

Huxley died 1963 in California.

Genre

B.N.W. is considered a part of the utopian tradition in literature. The word 'Utopia' derives from the Greek language and means 'no place' and 'good place'.

Normaly an utopic novel portrays an ideal society wich the reader is invited to contrast with his own. Fact is, that most people think that the society of B.N.W. is not a perfect one, it rather presents an anti-utopia, or dystopia (from the greek word for 'bad place').

Setting

The story is set in the year A.F. 632, that is 632 years after Henry Fords invention of mass production.

Ford is also the deity of the 'World State', a global caste with ist members ranging from alpha-plus intellectuals down to epsilon-minus semi-morons for menial tasks.

The motto for this state is 'Community, Identity, Stability'.

Each one of the ten zones of the wold is run by 'his fordship', the Resident World Controller.

The World State has 2000 million standardised citizens that have not been born, but 'hatched' to fulfill their predestined social roles. During childhood every citizen is preconditioned with the help of sleep-teaching and hypnose.

Because of this everyone is perfectly happy with his role in society. To keep the people occupied through their spare time the goverment gives free handouts of drugs, and approves promiscuity.

The only places were life like we know it is allowed to exist are the 'Savage Reservations'.

Story

Bernhard Marx, an alpha-plus intellectual, who is dissatisfied with life takes a holiday trip to a savage reservation in New Mexico. From there he brings the savage John with him. At first John is fascinated by the 'Brave New World' but soon becomes desillusioned because he realises that no one is allowed to think freely. He incites a riot in his rage against the system and is arrested together with Bernhard Marx, and a friend of Marx, Helmholtz Watson.

'His fordship' Mustapha Mond exiles Marx and Watson to islands that serve as asylums for alpha.plus misfits.

The savage, however, escapes. For a brief time he is happy living alone in the english countryside. But curiosity-seekers find him, ruin his peace, and so John commits suicide by hanging himself.

Major Characters

The two charakters in B.N.W., Bernhard Marx and the Savage, can be considered major Charakters, because the novel follows primarly their stories.

Although different in most ways, because Marx is a product of the Brave New World and the savage is only a visitor, both are outcasts in their society.

Unlike the other Alpha-Plus Marx is short, scrawny and even ugly. He is melancholic because his physical deficiencies seperate him from his fellow men. Moreover, this flaws have created in him a 'mental excess', wich makes it impossible for him to adjust to the life in the Brave New World. In general is Marx a very unpleasant character, he alternates between arogant and self-pity.

The Savage, in contrast, is a splendid physikal specimen, but he is, after all, an outcast in his own society of Red Indians because of his white skin, blond hair and blue eyes.

Because of this he identifies with Marx. But unlike Marx he does not repress his violent instincts as clearly seen in the revolt he starts. In the end he is unable to manage his grief for his mother, his sexual problems and his dislike for the society, and so he commits suicide.