In the novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, civilized society lives in a world of
science and technology. Major changes have occurred during the future; Utopia now
revolves around a religion of drugs and sex. God and the cross have been replaced by
Ford and the symbol T . Instead of Sunday church, members now attend solidarity
services where morals and tradition are not learned, but rather faith is taught in the belief
of hallucinations produced by a substance known as soma . These are only a few
differences that can be found between Huxley s masterpiece and our society today.
Besides these differences, Brave New World deals with many issues and ideas that we
consider an essential part in our lives. Although there are similarities between the World
State in which Brave New World is set in and our modern society today, the differences
that exist between the two worlds are more evident and can be seen and described easily.
The main issues that will be discussed and contrasted in this essay include religion, human
life and death, and what we consider art .
Despite Huxley s prediction that there will be no true religion in the future, it can
be found in today s society because of man s need for answers to questions that cannot be
The Essay on The Superficial Reality of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
QUOTATION: As Linda, the civilized citizen turned savage, reenters the World State, she is characterized through the opinions of her fellow civilians. The narrator’s description shows how her social status is greatly degraded by her unusual appearance. “Finally – and this [is] by far the strongest reason for people’s not wanting to see poor Linda – there [is] her appearance…you simply ...
solved by science and technology. Unlike the Utopian society, religion plays an important
role in people’s lives today. It represents our principles and values and guides us through
our everyday lives. Religion also 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. 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saying that with the evolution of time the need for religion has disappeared and has been
replaced by the worship of another God who is Ford. I feel that this statement contradicts
the way we think in our present day society; we need religion and an almighty god to
believe in. Besides creating a god and teaching us the way we should live our lives,
religion also helps people deal with our stress and problems. Unlike modern society, Brave
New World deals with stress by the elimination of problems through the use of soma. One
gramme, she decided, would not be enough; hers had been more than a gramme affliction.
But if she took two grammes, she ran the risk of not waking up in time to-morrow
morning. She compromised and, into her cupped left palm, shook out three half-gramme
tablets. As shown in this quote and throughout the novel, the people have been addicted
to soma as to the point of rioting when their supply is threatened. This goes along with
one of the major themes in the novel, drug abuse. Religion is an absolute necessity in our
everday lives and without it, the reality of Brave New World may come true.
A precaution taken in Brave New World to prevent chaos to occur in the utopian
society was the restraint of history, literature and art. 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. This is not the fault of the
The Essay on The Life World of Alfred Schutz
Fourth, people experience the working self as the total self in the life-world. Fifth, the social life of the life-world is characterized by intersubjectivity. Sixth, the actor's flow of time intersects with the flow of time of society. The life world is an intersubjective world, one that existed before our birth; it was created by our predecessors and it was given to us to experience and ...
people though; they are conditioned to dislike art, books, and nature. They ll grow up
with what the psychologists used to call an instinctive hatred of books and flowers.
They ll be safe from books and botany all their lives. Basically, the ideas of art and
history are sacrificed so the people would not get any independent ideas and have a
conscience of their own. Instead they receive a so called happiness. Mustapha Mond said
it best when he stated: You ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to
call high art. We ve sacrificed the high art. Also, to survive in our present day society one
must have education. Education to us leads to knowledge and for us knowledge is power;
power runs the world. However, for them there is no need for education because they do
not need power. Power will not get them any farther in life then what is already written
out for them. Therefore the knowledge of history and literature are not needed for the
general public. Mustapha Mond sums up this fact in his well-known statement: History is
bunk. Another difference that can be seen between the two worlds is the fact that the
only kind of books in Brave New World accessible to the public are reference books.
Books with opinions and emotions are non-existing. This discretion is needed because
those types of books could challenge the conditioning already served to the people. The
last thing needed in the utopian society is the challenge of their conditioning, which can be
the main reason of the sacrifice of history, literature, and art.
Perhaps the most striking contrast between Huxley s Utopia and our modern
society deals with the issue of human life (procreation) and death. Today, babies are still
the result of intercourse between a man and a woman. In most cases, the birth of a child is
a memorable and joyous event for the woman. In Utopia, however, if a woman is caught
bearing offspring, she will be punished by exile. Offspring not produced the society s way
The Essay on Brave New World How Does Society Treat Death In Chapter 14
The Brave New World treated death much as they did birth, this was in contradiction to the way the savage felt death should be Death in the Brave New World is not important, it is simply something that happens to your body when it has got worn out. In chapter 14 the nurse thought that the savage was Undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning with this disgusting outcry as though death were ...
is a threat to the society s existence, in the eyes of the leaders. Also, in our modern society
we have fathers and mothers, but in Huxley s Utopian society those words are considered
to be obscene. Mother…these…are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then again most
historical facts are unpleasant. The passage in which this quote can be found not only
shows how the brain-washed people of the utopian society look down on giving birth and
having parents, but it also shows how history is restricted to the public. Finally, the last
contrast deals with the behaviors and attitudes towards death among the two societies. In
the Utopian society, people live in a robot-like manner and then they eventually die. It is
as simple as that. They never question what they have been conditioned to do and 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. In the chapter in which John is summoned to the
hospital to eventually deal with the death of his mother, the differences on how we deal
with death compared to the people of Huxley s society can be seen clearly. Should she
speak to him? remind him where he was…of what fatal mischief he might do to these poor
innocents…undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning with this disgusting outcry-as
though death were something terrible… Death is an event that we take with grief and
sorrow, but as one can see in this quote, the Utopians see it as not mattering at all.
In conclusion, one can clearly see the differences between our modern society and
the society that existed in Brave New World. However, now we have to ask ourselves
whether this Utopian society is actually bad at all. This is a world that one can not help but
be happy; a world that replaced, not destroyed religion; a world that even eliminated
racism and stereotypes. It is a world where you only possess knowledge you need, where
The Essay on Brave New World Society And Socio economic Class
ter> Discuss how the society in Brave New World works to ensure that people do not change their socio-economic class. Through Brave New World, Huxley depicts a new, industrialized world, which is financially stable and has prevented poverty and self-destruction. Dictatorial governments are there to ensure stability and maintain perfection of the world. Therefore, just like under any other ...
everyone has the same values and principals. Finally, here is a world with no war, no
disease and no old age. Is utopia actually that bad? I will leave you pondering this
question, but while you are doing this, think of John, the savage, and the hardships he
went through in the Brave New World. Also think of science and technology, and if they
are not closely monitored, we will find ourselves in the frightening reality of Brave New
World.
