Claire's blog

Dear Mr. Waddington,

I recently finished reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In the latter half of the novel, Bernard and Lenina travel to America, where they visit a Savage reservation. While Bernard is fascinated by the lifestyle of the Savages, Lenina is horrified and begs to leave.  On the reservation, they meet Linda, a Beta lost from the civilized world and her son, John.  John is surprisingly literate in Shakespeare and dreams of seeing the world to which Bernard and Lenina belong.  The two take John and Linda with them when they return home, which the Controller deems an experiment.  Linda instantly becomes addicted to the popular drug soma, which is used to pacify the public, and slips into a deadly dream-state. Bernard instantly gains popularity as “the Savage’s” caretaker, and he who was once an outcast in a society that ridiculed and rejected him becomes a conformist the moment he feels accepted. John finds that he detests “civilized” life, and is horrified by the value system of this modern civilization. Lenina becomes infatuated with John and tries to seduce him, but he calls her a whore and rejects her. Bernard, in his newfound fame and glory, feels invincible and begins to make heretic arguments, as does Helmholtz Watson.  The two are exiled, and John, not allowed to return to the reservation for the sake of preserving the experiment, secludes himself in the wilderness. The Savage finds that even there, he cannot escape from civilization, and hangs himself to escape media harassment.

The civilization described in Brave New World is supposed to be far advanced, although the society of the Savages draws more parallels to the world we live in today.  In the “modern” civilization, natural reproduction is shameful, and the idea of parenting is just crude. The public pacifies itself by taking drugs that blur reality and incur a dreamlike state. Technology has replaced religion, and there is no sense of morality or conscience. The Savage society is in many ways more relatable to our own society: its members are inherently religious and polygamy is regarded as unacceptable. However, the futuristic society of Brave New World does show similarities with our world, especially in light of recent social and technological changes.  A real world in which children are manufactured is not an implausible idea, and the death of religion is certainly an issue in America as younger generations move further and further away from faith, and, as the novel argues, perhaps further away from morality.

Through Brave New World, Huxley argues that values such as morality, chastity, self-restraint, and even passion are all impossible without faith. In the Savage society, people have values because they still believe in gods and ethics, while the futuristic society is entirely godless and amoral. Especially in the final chapters of the novel, Huxley expresses a view that some sort of faith, not necessarily limited to Christianity, it necessary for any true feeling, virtue, or morality. The Controller and John discuss this as an issue on the societal rather than individual level, although it becomes a personal issue for Lenina, who struggles with a predisposition for monogamy throughout the novel.  It is apparent in Huxley’s argument that the masses cannot control their vices and sins without the help of faith, whereas although Lenina continually submits to the pressure of the society around her, she is a somewhat moral as well as faithless individual.

The fates of Linda and John illustrate the dangers of becoming caught up in society.  Overwhelmed by her return to the society she once knew, the unintelligent Linda drowns her confusion by submersing herself in a constantly dreamlike state of addiction, demonstrating the desperation that accompanies being overtaken by the pressures and expectations of civilization.  John fails to fit in initially; the people of the modern society call him “the Savage” and gawk at him and find his naïveté to be amusing.  John is mortified by the immoralities of civilization, and he hates the suppression of literacy and faith and all that is natural and aesthetic in the world. He finds himself caught up in it as well; he lusts after Lenina but when she attempts to seduce him he pushes her away and rejects her for her immorality. He tries to escape to the wilderness, but the media follows him even there and he is tormented by the press until he kills himself.  The Savage becomes a victim of the heartless cruelties of society.

I really enjoyed reading this novel. The plot did not develop in the way that I expected it to-in the way that so many dystopian novels do.  I was surprised that the title, Brave New World, is actually a Shakespearean quote, an exclamation on the nature of people in this place. The commentary on religion as being necessary to morality and virtuousness in society was interesting; I appreciated that Huxley did not limit “religion” to strictly “Christianity” but instead often referred to “gods” as being many ideas.  I found that the book held interesting commentary on the nature of futuristic societies that are not nearly as varied from our own modern society as they might be- or maybe should be.

Sincerely,

Claire Carr

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial, 1932. Print.

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Brave New World.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 23 Sept. 2011.

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