Do Now: 1. Take 15 Minutes to have someone else read your essay and fill out the peer review.2. When you’re done, you can speak with the person about it and give them your review. 3. Staple the review of your essay to the back of your essay and hand in (Pile on front Wu-Tang desk.)
A satirical piece of fiction,
not scientific prophecy
Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley
ELF 40S Ms. Van Den Bussche
Utopian and Dystopian Literature
What is Utopia?
A Utopia is a place or society that appears perfect in every way.
The government is perfect, working to improve societies standards of living rather then their own, social aspects of the community run perfectly.
What is Dystopia?Dystopia came from the
term Utopia. It defines a place or society
which is in complete chaos. The citizens are all suffering
and are miserable. Often times in novels what
appears to be a Utopian society it first by the visiting protagonist is actually revealed to be a dystopian society.
Some Famous/Important Dystopian Novels
Dystopian Films
Aldous Huxley was born in England in 1894, big science
family…… grandson of the prominent
biologist T.H. Huxley and brother of Julian Huxley, also
a biologist.
He majored in English when he was unable to pursue his chosen career as a scientist.
HISTORICAL TIMELINE
----Psychology and the subconscious
----Industrial Revolution/ Mass Production
---- Public Relations/ Advertising
----- Eugenics - is the belief and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population (Originated in US)
-----Pharmacology/Drugs
Historical Context : Major new fields/ ideas, goings-on of the time.
Conditioning and conditioned Response:Pavlov’s Famous Experiment
Henry Ford & THE FORD
MOTOR COMPANY
Setting: 2540 AD; referred to in the novel as 632 years AF (“After Ford”), meaning 632 years after production of the first Model T car
Narration: Third-person omniscient
Point-of-View: Narrated in the third person from the point of view of Bernard or John, but also from the point of view of Lenina, Helmholtz Watson, and Mustapha Mond
Huxley on advertising, the media, and propaganda
"This is rather alarming that you're being persuaded below the level of choice and reason... Advertisement plays a necessary role but the danger of it to a democracy is this: a democracy depends on the individual voter making a rational choice for enlightened self-interest. What these people are doing [advertisers] when their purpose is selling goods, what the dictatorial propagandists are doing, is to try to bypass the rational side of humanity and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surface--so that you are in a way making nonsense of the democratic procedure which is based on conscious choice on rational grounds... Today's children walk around singing beer commercials and toothpaste commercials."
BRAND ALPHABET
This novel is as 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.
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
Do we have a modern soma?
Nature of Happiness
Nature of Freedom
Collective vs. Individual
Applied Science (Technology) and what it does to Human well-being, culture, and happiness
Distractions vs. Higher art and thinking
Essential Questions to connect the literature to today’s culture:
Ch. 1 Characters
DHC – Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Henry Foster – works at hatcheryStatistician,
efficiency engineer
Ch. 1 “Control of the Human
Product”
Social hierarchy: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon
Bokanovsky Process: causes an egg to divide, “bud”
Podsnap’s Technique – quickened the “ripening” of the embryos
“Decanting” Humans are grown in bottles meant to emulate Uteri
Technology Survey
1. Complete Technology Survey and reflect on the data.
2. Talk with your neighbors and compare what you have to say about that.
Recommended
