Essential Questions to connect the literature to today’s culture:

• Is it better to be free than to be happy? • Is freedom compatible with happiness?• Is the collective more important than the individual?• Can children be taught effectively to think in only one

certain way?• Can young people be taught so well that they never

question their teachings later?• Is stability more important than freedom?• Can alterations made by advanced science to

mankind be made permanent at the DNA-level?• Can mankind be conditioned by science?• Should the individual be limited/controlled for the

greater good? If so, how much?

• Brave New World– Author

– Born

– Family Life

– Writing Style

– Writing Focus

– Aldous Huxley

– 1894

– Came from a family with both a literary and scientific background

– Combined thoughts on the morality and nature of man with scientific findings and predictions

– Focused many of his works on the conflicts between the individual and society

• Brave New World– Huxley’s Influence

• Writings became especially popular during the 1960s

• His works often featured the use of various drugs, which he experiments with as well in his lifetime

• His work The Doors of Perception was the inspiration for Jim Morrison to name his band The Doors.

• Literary Focus– Publication

– Genre

– Setting (time)

• 1932

• Dystopian Future

• 2450 A.D– Set 632 “After Ford”– Meaning after the invention

of the Model “T”– This is symbolic of the

societal shift in thinking—time is referenced in terms of a technological breakthrough versus a religious landmark

• Literary Focus– Setting (place)

• England and a place referred to as the “Savage Reservation”– England is known as

“the brave new world”– The “Savage

Reservation” is where people still feel emotions like love and grow old

• Literary Focus– Point of View

• Omniscient Third Person

• The unique thing about the narration is that it is used through the perspective of various characters

• This allows the reader to see inside the minds of people who belong to the different castes in the society

• Literary Focus– Dystopia

• A “Brave New World” predicts a future where people don’t have serious relationships, where they don’t have opinions and are classified from birth into a caste

• People sleep carelessly with many different partners

• People are filed into five castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon

• Literary Focus– Themes and Conflicts

• Technology and Its Ability to Manipulate

• Control versus Emotion

• Religion versus Technology

• Free-Will versus Stability

• Fantasy versus Reality

• Science versus Technology

• Corruptive Nature of Power

• Literary Focus– Satire

• By making the Dystopia of the “Brave New World” so extreme, it is easy for readers to see the ridiculousness of the society

• Some examples of the over-the-top nature of the novel– Frivolous sexual

encounters– Reverence for Henry Ford– Humiliation of over having

a child

• Literary Focus– Symbols

• Soma

• Savage Reservation

• The government uses a drug called Soma to symbolize the control and power of the government over the people

• Representative of the old ways—the ways when humans felt emotion and love

• A Brave New World– Overview

• Huxley offers a fictional future in which man’s free will, ability to love and ability to be an individual has been marginalized at the expense of the stability of society

• Huxley’s work, in essence, forecasted many of the world’s future conflicts such as Hitler’s rise to power, World War II and the Cold War

– Overview • Humans living in “a brave new world” are filed into five different castes.

• The Highest caste is for the leaders and thinkers

• The lowest caste is for those who will perform menial labor

– Overview • The State, in order to bring stability, has attempted to eliminate human emotion, human desires and human relationships

• The State’s strict control is shown in sharp contrast with the religion, aging and strong emotions seen on the “Savage Reservation”

– Overview • When an outsider from the “Savage Reservation” is brought back to the “brave new world” he is met with awe and curiosity

• This outsider named John rebels against the controlling government and leads a riot

• The ultimate questions arises: It life worth living when a human is deprived all feeling of exploration, wonder and love?

Characters• One of the great strength’s of Aldous Huxley’s Brave

New World lies in characterization. • Huxley draws characters that the reader admires without

totally understanding and also characters that the reader understands but who s/he cannot admire.

• Rather, like Dostoevsky, Huxley intends to make the reader uncomfortable and confused in the characters s/he likes. Dostoevsky wanted to teach his reader that one should not judge people on single qualities but should, rather, look at the whole person. (One might even pity a pedophile)

• What is Huxley’s purpose?

• Characters– John

• Grew up outside of the confines of the “brave new world”

• Grew up in the “Savage Reservation”

• John’s new ideas about relationships, love and individuality challenge the system of the State

• Characters– Bernard Marx

• Part of Alpha Caste• Has unusual views

and combined with his unusually short height is somewhat of an outcast

• Bernard takes advantage of his relationship with John

• Characters– Mustapha Mond

• One of only 10 World Controllers

• In charge of censoring scientific discoveries and exiling people who have beliefs that go against the State

• Despite his job, Mond himself was a prolific scientist and an avid reader

• Characters– Hemholtz Watson

• Friend of Bernard’s • He questions the

State on a far deeper and more intellectual level than Bernard

• By the end of the novel Bernard is ready to leave the restrictive boundaries of the State

Modern Society

• Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a dystopian novel, one in which the author imagines a world in which everything has gone wrong.

• It is a mistake, however, to read the novel simply as a cautionary tale. In fact, what Huxley is trying to say to his reader is that the modern world is already dystopian.

• This novel is more applicable today than it was in 1932. This is a time of:

propaganda, censorship, conformity, genetic engineering, social conditioning, and mindless entertainment.

• This was what Huxley saw in our future. His book is a warning.

Do we have a modern soma?• Consider the number of ads for

prescription drugs, which are permitted only in the United States and New Zealand

• Doctors and consumer advocates believe these ads drive up health-care costs and seduce millions into asking their MDs for drugs they don’t need for diseases they had never before heard of, like restless leg syndrome

Whatever is wrong,there’s a drug for you,

or so TV ads say

Catching patients’ eyes• Lipitor: Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the

artificial heart, rowing on a beautiful lake

• Lamisil: ugly yellow creatures tucking themselves under your toenails

• Lunesta: a luna moth

• In 2005, drug companies spent more than $4 billion on what is termed direct-to-consumer advertising, according to the Government Accountability Office.

• That is about 1/7 of the amount the companies spent on research and development

•Nearly 1/3 of that TV ad money was for what type of medication?

Sleeping aids

Allusions• Lenina• A variation of Lenin --

Nikolai Lenin, the Russian Socialist, who had a tremendous influence in the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the present-day Russia.

• Believed capitalism must be suppressed.

MUSTAPHA MOND

• Reference to Mustapha Ataturk - Modernizer of Turkey

Reference to Pope Tewa – Navajo leader who resisted Europeanization of his tribe.

Pope

Freud

• Blamed modern woes on parents and repressed sexuality.

Ford• An important figure in the

formation of the World State. His utilization of the mass-production technique influenced social, political, and economic life.

• In Huxley's Utopia, the life, work, and teachings of Ford are the sources of inspiration and truth. Even time is reckoned according to Ford.

Bernard Marx• Marx is an obvious reference to Karl

Marx, a German Socialist, whose best-known work, Das Kapital, expresses his belief that the fundamental factor in the development of society is the method of production and exchange. Karl Marx called religion the opium of the people; in Huxley's Brave New World, soma is substituted for religion.

Neopavlovian Conditioning• Conditioning is defined as the

training of an individual to respond to a stimulus in a particular way. The Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov conducted experiments to determine how this conditioning takes place. In Brave New World individuals are conditioned to think, act, feel, believe, and respond the way the government wants them to.

Benito Hoover

• Benito Hoover combines the names of two men who wielded tremendous power at the time Huxley was writing Brave New World: Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, and Herbert Hoover, the American President.

• Hoover felt there was

A technological solution

to every problem.

The Malthusian belt:Thomas Malthus

• This English political economist believed that unless the population diminished, in time the means of life would be inadequate. Improvements in agriculture, he predicted, would never keep up with expanding population, and

increases in the standard

of living would be impossible.

Shakespeare!The Tempest

Macbeth

Hamlet

Romeo & Juliet

King Lear

Othello

“Nay, but to live / in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty…” - Hamlet

“Do you see that damned spot?” - Macbeth

“O brave new world that has such people in it.” - Tempest

“On the white wonder of [her] hand, may seize / And steal immortal blessing from her lips, / Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, / Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.” – R & J

“O thou weed, who are so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet that the sense aches at thee. Was this most goodly book made to write ‘whore’ upon? Heaven stops the nose at it…” – Othello

“The gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us.” – King Lear

Adages/Nursery Rhymes

“What man has joined, nature is powerless to put

asunder.”

“A gramme in time saves nine.”

“Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun Kiss the girls and make them one.”

“Bye Baby Banting, soon you’ll need decanting.”

“A doctor a day keeps the jim-jams away.” “Ford’s in his flivver…All’s well

with the world.”

Terms to KnowTerm Definition

Malthusian Belt Holds contraceptives in the BNW

Social Predestination Means by which the caste and future job of an embryo are determined

Vanguard Party One of ten people who run society in the BNW

Podsnap’s Technique A way of ripening all the eggs of the ovary at once so that thousands of siblings can be made within a two year period.

Dystopia A work about a future world that appears good but that is really bad

Pneumatic “Filled with air”; also meaning, curvaceous, voluptuous, attractive

Mescal A drink distilled from agave; they drink it in the Savage Reservation

Bokanovsky’s Process Dividing eggs

Peyotl A cactus that causes hallucinations

Terms to Know

Terms Definitions

Freemartin Sterile females, with a slight tendency to grow beards.

Hypnopaedia Moral teachings that take place while a child sleeps

Ectogenesis Growing something outside of the body rather than inside; in this case growing embryos in bottles rather than in a mother's womb

Propaganda Information that is spread for the purpose of swaying people

Bokanovsky Group A group of identical twins created by dividing a single egg many times.

Viviaprous Bringing forth live young rather than eggs

Solidarity Service A ceremony that replaces religion with strong sexual elements

Decanting Room The room in which the babies are removed from the bottles

Terms to KnowTerms Definitions

Savage Reservation A place of primitive life outside civilization

Soma A narcotic used to create pleasant sensations without any after-effects. The word is actually taken from a drug that exists in India.

Hatchery A place where children are created in the BNW

D.H.C The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, the man who leads the students on a tour in the first few chapters

Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning This process is used on all babies to condition them to like or dislike certain objects. It is one of the main conditioning techniques which helps ensure social stability.

Pregnancy Substitute An intravenous injection that tricks the body into thinking it is pregnant and that balances the hormones

Feelies Movies that appeal to sight, sound, and touch

Noble Savage Theory of how man is pure in his natural state but corrupted by society