Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Pre-Reading Guide

1. Brave New Worldby Aldous HuxleyPre-Reading Guide

2. “O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beautious mankind is!O brave new worldThat has such people in’t!”-- Miranda in Shakespeare’s, The Tempest (V, i)Upon first seeing other men, Miranda, who has been raised on a deserted island away from society and therefore has no interaction or experience with humans except for her father and the subhuman Caliban, exclaims these now well-known lines.

3. Aldous Huxley • 1894-1963 • Family had many notable members, including great uncle, poet Matthew Arnold • Plagued with vision problems throughout his life • Attended Oxford University, became a teacher • Published Brave New World in 1932 • Lived in the US in later life, died while living in L.A. • His “novels of ideas” have sometimes been criticized as being “too intellectual”

4. Historical Context • The Russian Revolution of 1917 and challenges to the British Empire abroad raised the possibility of change on a world scale. At home, the expansion of transportation and communication—the cars, telephones, and radios made affordable through mass production—also brought revolutionary changes to daily life. With the new technology, distances grew suddenly shorter and true privacy rarer. While people in industrialized societies welcomed these advances, they also worried about losing a familiar way of life, and perhaps even themselves, in the process. The nightmare vision of the fast-paced but meaningless routine of Brave New World reflects this widespread concern about the world of the 1920s and 1930s.

5. Historical Context • The period also brought a new questioning of traditional morality, especially regarding sex. Dress, language, and especially fiction expressed a greater openness for both women and men in their sexual lives. Some hailed this change as the beginning of true individual freedom, while others condemned it as the end of civilization itself. Huxley, with typical wit, uses the issue for irony, creating an image of the young Lenina being scolded for her lack of promiscuity. Sexual rules may change, Huxley tells his readers, but the power of convention remains the same.

6. Historical Context • At a period of great change, Huxley creates a world in which all the present worrying trends have produced terrible consequences. Movement toward socialism in the 1920s, for example, becomes, in Huxley’s future, the totalitarian World State. Questioning of religious beliefs and the growth of materialism, likewise, transforms into a religion of consumerism with Henry Ford as its god. And if Model T’s roll off the assembly line in the present, in a stream of identical cars, then in the future, human beings will be mass-produced, too. Huxley’s future vision, by turns witty and disturbing, imagines the end of a familiar, traditional life and the triumph of all that is new and strange in the modern world.

7. What is the Brave New World ? A dystopian tale about a possible future world where human faith in scientific progress, freedom, dignity, and individuality are all called into question. Set in two locations in the 26th century: London and a New Mexico Indian reservation • Utopia • perfect society • Dystopia • dreadful, dysfunctional society • Satire • a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn

8. What is the Brave New World ? • Religion of the World State based on the life and philosophies of Henry Ford. • American car manufacturer, inventor of the assembly line • Invented the Model T car – designed to be affordable to everyone; only available in black • Mass production & mass consumption • Assembly line = improved efficiency • Vertical structure = self sufficient “Our Ford”

9. What is the Brave New World ? Caste System: • Alphas (Α)– highest, grey • Betas (Β)- mulberry, bottle green • Gammas (Γ)- leaf green • Deltas (Δ)- khaki • Epsilons (Ε)– lowest, black • There are also plusses and minuses, so one can be an Alpha Plus or a Gamma Minus. • Differentiation achieved through oxygen deprivation

10. What is the Brave New World ? Some individuals are created using the Bokanovsky Process • Fertilization process used to create Deltas & Epsilons • Divide fertilized eggs to produce identical twins • Produces up to 96 embryos, but 72 is the average • Primary instrument of social stability

11. What is the Brave New World ? • 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. • Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have their own children.

12. What is the Brave New World ? Government organization “conditions” the lower caste children using Hypnopaedia “The greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time”(28). • Sleep teaching • Moral education • Class conditioning “The child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind” (28-29).

13. Are you living in a Brave New World? Do you agree that… • History is worthless? • Everyone belongs to everyone else? • Throwing something away is better than fixing it? • No one really needs a mother? • The elderly are worthless members of society? • Cleanliness is next to godliness? • You should never put off until tomorrow the fun you can have today?

14. Brave New World Community Identity Stability

15. Works Cited Edmondson, Elizabeth. “Brave New World Powerpoint.”Gilmour Academy. 8 May 2007. PDF file. Web. 19 Apr 2010. A Guide to Brave New World. Austin, Texas: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 2003. Print. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Collins, 1998. Wood, Lisha. “Brave New World Intro.”Sprayberry High School. Typepad. 6 Sept 2006. Web. 19 Apr 2010.