Book Review Brave New World

A book review: BRAVE NEW WORLD
Brave New World was written by Aldous Huxley in 1931, almost 90 years ago, but its
plot feels strangely familiar and relevant for the present day. The core idea is the critic of the
capitalist society, which was blooming in the first half of the 20th century, but is at its peak today.
This is why the book is not only a must-read classic of the dystopian literary genre, but the novel
containing patterns which a modern reader can identify in today’s society. Having read the
book, I was so struck by the dystopian society Huxley describes that it made me feel a bit
worried. I’ll try and analyze the reasons this book may have such an impact on the reader.
Namely, Huxley describes the society in which people are manufactured in factories like
products. They are divided into caste groups - Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons,
according to the level of their intelligence and the societal role they are going to assume. Since
the earliest childhood, babies are subjected to experiments that cause them to develop instilled
feelings adequate to their assigned role in the community, e.g. the lower caste babies are exposed
to electric shocks when they come near books and flowers, which makes them never experience
the need for knowledge or nature and makes them perfectly satisfied with their lives, performing
tedious manual work in waste industrial areas. Each caste is exposed to different slogans
repeated hundreds of times during their sleep for years, so they automatically begin to reference
those slogans in real life. These slogans are a form of hypnosis and they instill certain ideas in
the minds of people and serve as a tool for mass manipulation. For example, a hypnopaedic
proverb says “One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments” (Huxley, 1946, p.60). Brave
New Worlders all live in an illusion of happiness and if at any moment they happen to feel
something other than complete satisfaction they take Soma, a drug that instantly makes them feel
satisfied again. In this absurd society, people live in polygamy and words such as ‘mother’,
‘father’, ‘home’ or ‘love’ are considered to be shameful. They are devoid of God and any sense
of moral values. There is no freedom of thought, all for the sake of peace, stability and perfectly
organized society.
As for the characters, Huxley closely introduces us with several inhabitants of the brave
new world – Bernard, Lenina, Helmholtz, and John. Bernard is an Alpha who feels as if he
doesn’t belong to the society he lives in and struggles to understand his “unorthodox” urges, such
as wanting to be in a love relationship with Lenina, who also belongs to a higher caste, but is
completely respective of her duties and unable to form a bond other than solely physical.
Helmholtz is another respectable Alpha, but experiences strange urges, similar to those of
Bernard, such as the need to express in writing something that he feels deep inside his soul, but
cannot ascertain what it is. The two characters find support in each other, both feeling trapped in
this society and they want to unleash. John is the character that grew up in the place outside of
the World State called the Savage Reservation. John serves as a contrast to all previously-
mentioned characters, being the man who shaped his world-view upon Shakespeare’s works and
grew up free of the society’s binding chains. Thus, seems very fragile in comparison with
society-shaped characters and when brought to civilization struggles to fit in.
Whether the characters will manage to find their way and purpose in this seemingly
perfectly functional society, but devoid of everything humanly, is left for the reader to find out.
Will their hearts manage to break free? What is freedom and is it more worth than happiness? Or
can there even be happiness if there’s no freedom? These are just some of the questions you’ll
come to ask yourself while reading Brave New World. Maybe the most prominent idea you will
consider is the possibility of society distorting itself to such a degree. While reading the book, I
couldn’t but think of the way modern society has shaped our way of thinking. Today’s modern
technology has become so advanced that the idea of genetically engineered babies may not seem
too far-fetched. People have become so dependent of their gadgets and social media that, in a
way, e.g. Instagram can be viewed as today’s Soma – a happiness boost. We too are exposed to
hypnosis-like slogans all around us. Are we indeed free and is something similar to Huxley’s
world too far from science-fiction?
In conclusion, Brave New World contains more than few shocking scenes, but it is for the
purpose of satire and criticism. Huxley brings some ideas to the point of exaggeration, but I think
it’s all for the sake of conveying the powerful message. The reader may be left feeling scared,
because the world we live in might not be far from Huxley’s and it feels almost prophetic, which
makes it even scarier. The novel is a quick read and will certainly leave an impression, especially
because of the connections that can be drawn to our own society. However, the reader will be left
with a lot of questions to contemplate about. Moreover, there is a possibility that the reader will
experience the lack of a clear explanation, as if something is left unsaid or unfinished and could
have been explored more thoroughly. Nevertheless, I found the moral of the book to be in the
following citation “I’d rather be myself. Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly”
(Huxley, 1946, p.60).
References:
 Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros.
Available at: http://www.idph.com.br/conteudos/ebooks/BraveNewWorld.pdf
Isidora Djekic 2015/0572

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A book review: BRAVE NEW WORLD

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