Brave New World

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Brave New World

• By Aldous Huxley

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Plot Synopsis

• A satire on a utopian society based
  on assembly lines.
• Everybody in the world is happy because they have
  soma.
• The main part of the book is about a
  savage, John, who is alienated by the
  utopia.

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Characters

• Protagonist Bernard Marx
• I am I, and I wish I werent.(Huxley 35)
• Antagonist Lenina Crowne
• How can you talk about not wanting to be
  part of the social body?We cant do without
  anyone! (Huxley 91)
• Protagonist John (The Savage)
• O brave new world with such people
  int! It was a challenge, a command. (Huxley
  216)
• I want God, I want poetry, I want real
  danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want
  sinIm claiming the right to be unhappy.
  (Huxley 246)
• Antagonist Mustapha Mond
• But thats the price of stability. Youve
  got to choose between happiness and high art.
  (Huxley 226)
• Sometimes, I rather regret the
  science-happiness is a hard master. (Huxley 233)

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Characters In Detail

• Mustapha Mond    The World Controller,
  intellectually and politically powerful. He
  offers a historical view of the brave new world
  at the beginning of the novel and later debates
  John and Helmholtz on societys values. Mond
  sentences Bernard and Helmholtz to be banished to
  the Falkland Islands and determines that John
  must stay in London.
• The D.H.C.    The Director of Hatcheries and
  Conditioning, called Tomakin by Linda. He
  occupies an important position in the brave new
  world but loses it when Linda announces that he
  is the father of their son, John.
• Henry Foster    An Alpha who is seeing Lenina
  Crowne. He is a typically conventional Londoner.
• Fanny Crowne    Leninas friend. Fanny represents
  the conventional views of the brave new world.
  She encourages Lenina to pursue John sexually if
  he will not take the lead.

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Characters - continued

• Bernard Marx    An Alpha-Plus psychologist,
  rumored to have received alcohol in his blood
  surrogate, a circumstance that would explain his
  shortness. Identifying himself as a true
  individual, Bernard bristles at the social
  pressures for conformity and longs for the
  intense, heroic feelings but lacks the ability to
  be a rebel. He brings John the Savage and Linda
  back from the Savage Reservation and so makes
  possible the conflict that informs the last third
  of the novel.
• Lenina Crowne    A technician, attracted by
  Bernard, in love with John. A conventional young
  woman who is drawn unconsciously toward danger,
  she represents ideal beauty for John.
• Helmholtz Watson    Bernards friend, later a
  friend of John. An Emotional Engineer, he longs
  to become a poet. He represents a more courageous
  and intellectual character than Bernard.

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Characters - continued

• John the Savage    The son born of parents from
  the brave new world but raised in the Savage
  Reservation, John represents a challenge to the
  dystopia. He is the character closest to being
  the hero of the novel.
• Linda    Johns mother. An upper-caste Londoner,
  she commits the ultimate social sin by bearing a
  child. She is deeply ashamed and longs for
  escape, finding it in peyote, mescal, sex, and
  soma.
• Popé    Lindas lover in Malpais. Popés
  involvement with Linda inspires Johns deep
  revulsion for sex.
• Mitsima    An old Indian man in Malpais who
  begins to teach John to mold clay and presides in
  the marriage ceremony John witnesses. He
  represents the beginning and end of Johns
  involvement in the traditional life of Malpais.

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• Mustapha Mond, Resident Controller of Western
  Europe, governs a society where all aspects of an
  individual's life are determined by the state,
  beginning with conception and conveyor-belt
  reproduction.
• A government bureau, the Predestinators, decides
  all roles in the hierarchy.
• Children are raised and conditioned by the state
  bureaucracy, not brought up by natural families.

• There are only 10,000 surnames.
• Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have
  their own kids.

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• Brave New World is centered around both control
  and manipulation

• He instills the fear that a future world state
  may rob us of the right to be unhappy.

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Vocabulary

• Feelies - motion picture shows which offer the
  audience not only visual and auditory images but
  also tactual sensations. The audience takes hold
  of two knobs on the seat and feels the action
  taking place on the screen.
• Phosphorous Recovery - The cremation factories
  are able to recover 99 of the phosphorous
  contained in each body. This is then used as a
  raw material or in fertilizer returned to enrich
  the soil.
• Podsnap's Technique - A method for speeding up
  the ripening of mature eggs. The process makes
  possible the production of many identical human
  beings at roughly the same time..
• Savage Reservation - One of the only places left
  on earth where people remain in a state of
  nature. The Savages were not considered worth
  civilizing and were therefore placed in fenced
  off areas which contained some of the worst land.
  John was born here. His mother, Linda, is a
  former resident of the Brave New World.

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Conflicts

• Individual versus society
• John (Savage) versus the utopia
• O brave new world with such people int! It
  was a challenge, a command. (Huxley 216)
• Individual versus self
• Bernard Marx versus his conditioning
• But wouldnt you like to be free in some other
  wayin your own way not in everybody elses
  way? (Huxley 91)

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Themes

• Happiness is the best thing
• It comes at the price of truth.
• We should not be so materialistic
• We need to be happy with who we are.
• The individual is more important than the state.