Brave New World

A detailed Summary of Brave New World

As man has progressed through the ages, there has been, essentially, one purpose. That purpose is to arrive at a utopian society, where everyone is happy, disease is nonexistent, and strife, anger, or sadness are unheard of. Only happiness exists. But when confronted with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we come to realize that this is not, in fact, what the human soul really craves. In fact, Utopian societies are much worse than those of today. In a utopian society, the individual, who among others composes the society, is lost in the melting pot of semblance and world of uninterest. In the science fiction book Brave New World, we are confronted with a man, Bernard Marx. Bernard is inadequate to his collegues. So he resorts to entertaining himself most evenings, without the company of a woman. This encourages his individual thought, and he realizes that independent thought is rewarding, and that he must strive to become a real individual. Although this is true to a certain extent, Bernard does not realize that he would much rather attain social recognition. At least, not until the opportunity presents itself. Thus, through a series of events, Bernard uses the curiosity of the society to his advantage

, fulfilling his subconscious wish of becoming someone important; a recognized name in the jumble of society. This ends when the curiosity of others ends, and as a supreme result of his arrogant behaviour, he is exiled. The instigator of this curiosity as well as the author of Bernard's fame (and folly), is an outsider know as the Savage. The Savage is brought in from outside of the utopian society by Bernard as an experiment. He faces "civilized society" with a bright outlook, but eventually comes to hate it bitterly. Lenina, the supporting role of the novel, is the most pronounced example of the ideal citizen. She adheres to the principles of the society without so much as a second thought. In the utopian society that Huxley presents, everyone is happy. There are no differences. Everyone is brought up to be happy, and most do not even know what sadness or anger is. All is cured artificially through surrogates or drugs. Even happiness alone is not unique to the individual. Soma, the hallucinatory drug, the 'perfect drug' that is used by all, even induces the same kind of happiness. The only variant is to what extent this happiness overwhelms the user (one or two half-gramme tablets?). "Everybody belongs to everyone else" (127) is the basic psychology of the society. This suggests that an individual owes everything to society, but society in turn owes everything to him or her. This applies to all. No one capitalises on the efforts of others and no one performs excessive manual labour for minimum wage. Everyone i

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Approximate Word count = 1030
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous