A Brave New World By Aldus Huxley Essays - Utopian Novels

A Brave New World By Aldus Huxley The novel Brave New World is like no other in fantasy and satire. It predicts a future overpowered by technology where the people have no religion. Has Huxley written about a degrading way of life or has he discovered the key to a perfect world that should be called Utopia? This essay will show that upon close analysis the way of life in the novel is justifiable and all the precautions that are taken are needed to preserve their lifestyle. This essay will also show that however different and easily looked upon, as horrible as their lives seem to be, in actuality it is better than ours. The first argument that would contradict the fact that Brave New World is a Utopia is the government overpowering the world, causing the loss of freedom and liberty in the people. Before judging their lives the reader must ask himself one simple question: Is it really that bad? Obviously no it's not. In the novel, the people don't have to worry about having a job. One must remember that being born and raised in Utopia, one does not know what freedom is and therefore does not know what is missing. Freedom leads to happiness, and if one already possesses happiness, then there is no need for freedom, especially if your government is making sure that all your needs are satisfied. Religion plays an important role in people's lives. It represents our principles and values. Religion guides us, gives us something to believe in and a set of rules to live by. However, who is to say that one hundred years from now people will still believe and practice religion? Mustapha Mond when referring to the Holy Bible says that they're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God Now (Huxley, p.237). Mustapha Mond is saying that with the evolution of time the need for religion has disappeared and has been replaced by the worship of another God who is Ford. They basically live a fulfilled life and then they die. Also thanks to their conditioning they do not fear death but accept it as a way of life. That alone is a task that our world still has not been able to accomplish. In our world we must go through the ritual of the funeral. After one has died, his family must go through an enormous task of planning, organizing and dealing with the death of their now gone loved one. In utopian civilization, the people are isolated from one another, divided into five different classes. The classes range from the Alphas, the Betas, the Gammas, the Deltas and finally, the Epsilons. The members of each class are ranked according to their mental capacity and physical appearance. During the D.H.C.'s lecture to his students he tells them how by depriving certain embryos of oxygen will affect their stature. The lower the cast, the shorter the oxygen. (Huxley, p.13) It seems unfair that even before you are born, your future is already written out for you. However upon further study, one will realize that this sort of precaution is necessary. In our world, one has to face racism and stereotypes because people feel threatened by what is different. This conditioning is how the utopian society eliminated the problem. First of all, each class is conditioned to love their ranking and to realize that everyone is important and is indispensable to the society. The i! mportant thing here is that the lower classes are not jealous of the superior classes but even believe that their work is too tiring for them. The mental inferiority is very important for the survival of the utopian society. If the lower classes got too smart they would want to move up in life and that would ruin the stability of the society. Another precaution taken to prevent chaos to the society is the restraint of history, culture and art to the utopian civilization. According to our views, these things are unquestionably important and we would go as far as saying that we could not live without them. But for these people, they are insignificant. Education to us leads to knowledge and for us knowledge is power