Dystopian Science Fiction

1. Dystopian Science Fiction Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World

2. Whereas utopian texts use positive images of technology as signs of the triumph of rationality, harmony and order, dystopian texts offer dark, disturbing images of a future that extrapolates contemporary elements and trends to nightmarish extremes. • Science Fiction dystopias are usually linked to the negative consequences of unchecked or rampant technology and science. Scenarios are usually couched in strong prescient tones of warning that can be linked to atomic war, famine, overpopulation, electronic surveillance or situations where humanity has been supplanted by machines.

3. Typically set in futuristic and alienating urban environments, they highlight the inherent dangers of radical scientific or technological progress. • There often exists nightmarish political, social and economic tyranny. • Citizens in such environments find themselves disenfranchised and virtually enslaved due to dictatorially imposed values linked to such things as class, ethnicity or gender.

7. Dystopic Vision The theme and central focus of the novel is the interaction of scientific progress and humanity and, in particular, its impact on man in his natural world. Scientific facts, discoveries and theories are entwined within a menacing warning of the future.

8. The 1930s historical and political context impacted heavily on the novel’s themes. Huxley was a staunch critic of totalitarianism. The author uses satire to challenge utopian perceptions promulgated by the political doctrines of communism and fascism. Such regimes posed a serious threat to freedom and independence.

9. BNW denounces the fostering of false perceptions of the common good and the subservience of the individual to the party or the state. • Huxley satirically warns of the dangers of allowing science to be revered and used for political purposes and as a means of maintaining control. • He describes a society fashioned on blind acceptance of the status quo in the absence of literature, history and individual thought.

10. Huxley used personal experience to extrapolate progress already made in manufacturing, technology, science and medicine and taken to its most extreme form. This helped demonstrate how readily society could become exploited, subservient and dehumanised. • BNW foregrounds the dangers posed by unchecked scientific and economic progress.

11. BNW is set in AF ‘After Ford’, post-apocalyptic world following a period of biological warfare and anthrax bombs. • Sanitized London is juxtaposed to the Mexican Savage Reservation. • In the harsh, natural environment there still exists a link between man and the natural world. • Huxley’s cynical tone poses the question of whether the elimination of dirt, unhappiness, unemployment and loneliness has been worth the accompanying loss of personal freedom and independence.

12. Social values have fundamentally changed. Love, religion and the arts have been replaced by Science and technology, now revered and worshipped as an alternative religion. • God has been replaced by ‘Our Ford’. • Individuality and freedom have been replaced by conditioned uniformtity. • Humans are now ‘hatched’. Science has become omniscient, appropriating the ‘birth’ process which is now governed by state control. Parenthood and notions of family,monogamy and romance have become demonized.

13. Propagandist brainwashing has eradicated human diversity along with war and disease. • Mankind is being mass produced on mechanized assembly lines. Quality control processes ensure social equilibrium. • The synthetic replacement of what is natural has morally compromised humanity. • Mass dehumanisation and desensitisation • Freedom replaced by subservience, mankind’s main purpose reduced to the production and consumption of advertised goods. • Huxley uses the perspective to point out that this society is hideous and abhorrent. Mankind has been debased, made anonymous and mindless. • Drones never question or challenge the system.

14. Reference is made to historical figures to add to the texts veracity and credibility. • Use of real geographical locations, numerous literary and Biblical allusions. • Social complacency in the face of unchecked scientific invention can have serious negative consequences especially when it is centred on means of ensuring social control and manipulation. • Ironic parody, use of dictums and slogans give sinister glimpses of what the future might hold. • Satire highlights the destructive tendency to venerate science as well as the potential of technology to enslave rather than liberate humans. Once individuality is stripped away, a population is left as soulless drones unable or unwilling to question or challenge.

15. Standardisation has become the goal, the ‘norm’, and ethical benchmark of this society. So-called ‘progress’, however has come at an enormous cost, for individuality, freedom and love have been eradicated along with war and disease. Human interaction has become superficial and identity crushed under mind-numbing conditioning.