English
Essay #2 : Is Brave New World a Dystopia or Utopia ?
Aldous Huxley introduces a plethora of cases and incidences that illustrate the dystopia in his science fiction novel, Brave New World. Huxley portrays a “perfect dystopia” where scientists “breed people to order” in specific classes. They condition human beings to accept the fact that they are born as a specific group. Higher authorities believe the elimination of human emotions is useful to stabilize what they think to be a utopian society. Emotions, memories and the use of soma support the idea that the Brave New World is a dystopia.
One of the first signs of the World State being a dystopia is introduced with a twist of irony. In chapter 6, Bernard Marx went to the Director of Hatchery to ask permission to go to the Savage Reservation. While waiting to get his permit, the Director begins speaking of the past and how he had once been in the Savage Reservation with his girlfriend. As high authority, the Director is not supposed to have such emotions where he draws on memories. The Director surely showed a part of the dystopian world these people live in. Even as an authority, he was not able to fight back his emotions and souvenirs. Huxley used the Director to make the point that it is impossible to live in a world where emotions are to be trapped inside of a person.
Another display of dystopia in the novel is that the citizens turn to a drug named soma to create an illusion of happiness. For example, when Linda returned to the New World she was shunned for having a son. As a result, she went into a soma holiday, over-dosing and ending up in a coma state. The use of the legal drug was to make her forget her emotions and her pain as opposed to dealing with them without the use of drugs. It was to hide the fact that even with the conditioning that every new world citizen received, they were not capable of true happiness, hence utopia. Aldous cleverly worked into his novel that the citizens could not be machines as they had been so conditioned with no characteristics of emotions.
The Research paper on Dystopia that is found in the world
The word dystopia comes from the Greek word cacotopia. Dystopia is usually used when visualizing a society that is completely the opposite of the utopian world. The conditions of the dystopia world are not that good, as they lead to demoralization of the human being. Life in the dystopia world is characterized by poverty, human suffering or misery, oppression of the people, all kinds of diseases, ...
In conclusion, Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World clearly illustrates a dystopic world. The first evidence of dystopia is presented when the Director of Hatcheries loses himself in his thoughts of the past. People such as Bernard are not able to express how they feel or how they think. And soma is used by people to as a means of dealing with their unhappiness in an artificial yet societally-acceptable manner. These aspects are proof that dystopia is the reality of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
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