The fictional world Aldous Huxley invents in Brave New World seems less like a story written in 1932 and much more like the musings of a modern SciFi Channel writer. This beautifully-written novel chronicles the new world after the world wars.
After the wars, a new society is formed. This society’s goal is happiness, and the novel tells the story of what is sacrificed for this ‘happiness’. In this world, babies are not born, and there is no such thing as a family, mothers, or fathers. Everyone is born into a caste system, and they are identified as an Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. Alpha’s are the smart, good looking people, while the Epsilon’s are the exact opposite. A process called hypnopaedia and Neo-Pavlonian conditioning trains people to like certain aspects of life and be drawn toward them. This causes them to be happy in their line of work and happy with themselves, no matter what caste to which they belong.
In Brave New World, anytime a negative feeling erupts, the people simply take Soma, a drug that relaxes them and sends them on a “holiday.” Sayings like “everyone belongs to everyone else” explain the society’s way of thinking. They believe in sharing everyone and having relationships with as many people as they desire, without any need for commitment.
Brave New World shows us a world in which real feelings are forbidden, where forced happiness is the goal of life, and where responsibility seems more like leisure than work because of government required drugs. This is a frightening concept, and the novel does a wonderful job of bringing those fears to the reader. In the end, you will be grateful to live in a society that does not brainwash you and force sedatives into your body in order to create the perfect world in which nothing goes wrong, and there is no standing up against the powerful.
Mr. Sherwood's English class 