Brave New World :: essays research papers

- Brave New World - By Aldous Huxley Author Aldous Huxley was born in 1894, and died in 1963. He first went to Eton, andthen to Oxford. He was a brilliant man, and became a succesful writer of short stories inthe twenties and thirties. He also wrote essays and novels, like Brave New World. Thefirst novels he wrote were comments on the newborn generation, with no goal whatsoever,that lived after WW I. Before he became the writer as we know him, he worked as ajournalist and a critic of drama. In his books, especially the later ones, he sometimespresents himself as a teacher or a philosopher, to literate us as readers. Next to novels,essays and short stories he also wrote poems, biographies, plays, political/sci-fi books,travel books and even a record of his experiments with drugs. Brave New World wasfirst published in 1932, and has been reprinted many times after that.Main Characters Bernard Marx Lenina Crowne tail Savage (Son of Tomakin, Bernardsboss) Helmholtz WatsonHuxley tries t o make a statement with this book, he tries to make something clear to thereader. To do this he uses characters, but theyre insignificant to what his real intentionsare, he merely uses them to conduct his ideas, therefor their characteristics and ideas arenot important in the whole picture. There is hardly any charaterisation in the book toillustrate the individuals.Theme In the prolusion Huxley states "The theme of Brave New World is not theadvancement of science as such it is the advancement of science as it affects humanindividuals." The picture of the world given in the book describes the condition of thehuman individual in a western civilization in a near future. The society has turned into awell oil machine, in which everything is controlled, even the future profession of theindividual is determined before birth. Its a society in which the human being only servesa sociological and scientifical purpose, the individual thought is overruled by one bigtotalitarian state, likewise emotion and initiative are ruled out. Giving birth is forbidden,sex is the nigh normal thing on earth, and even drugs is taken with the routine andamount of normal meals. Only a small group of the real man exists, be its far outside thecivilized world. John Savage is one of them, representitive of individual freedom andthought, torn between two societies. Huxley warns for material and technicaldependence, that will eventually contribute destruction upon mankind. Characteristics Thestory is set in our world, in the future (some 600 years from now).