BRAVE NEW WORLD (ALDOUS HUXLEY) REVIEW

Brave New World: Aldous Huxley
Genre:Science fiction
Sub-genre:Dystopia.

              The writer, Aldous Huxley, presents a future scenario of the world. He explores the much hyped concept of Fordism, the conveyer belt method of mass production, combines it with state of the art scientific techniques in this thrilling novel, Brave New World. The scene is set in a global society where babies are produced in an assembly line using the method of external fertilization. They are split into pre-determined classes: alpha, beta, gamma, delta and epsilon; alpha being the highest class occupying top positions and epsilons being the lowest, doing manual work. Alphas and betas are the product of a unique fertilized egg. Identical members of the other lower castes are produced using a process called Bokanovsky process which makes multiple fetuses out of a single egg. They are physically shaped in accordance with their class by regulating oxygen and nutrients to the fetus. Their ideals and beliefs are similarly externally shaped based on their class using the method of hypnopaedia i.e. sleep conditioning; their mind by excessive repetition is made to believe that it is happy and content. When they grow into people they are so satisfied with themselves that they do not derive pleasure in the ways we do: love, relationships, sex, family, books, poems; all these lose their meaning and become obsolete since they are not a logical necessity for survival. All businesses are owned by the government. Every member of a given class does the same amount of work and is paid the same amount of wages thus eliminating competition. No one is unique; they just have a collective class identity. There is only one religion and only one God. A person can have sex with any other person of the community. Everyone belong to the state and everyone belongs to everyone else. Now since the causes of emotion are wiped out most of the emotions like love, hatred, jealousy, and anger are not experienced and those which cannot be suppressed like hunger are immediately fulfilled. Fear, depression and longing are battled using a drug called 'soma'. These measures ensure that everyone remains happy and has gives them no reason to think otherwise, hence there are no wars; only a state of eternal peace. The people who did not subject to this social order were driven into forests and isolated using electrified fences. These people were termed savages. They live according to the third world human culture and values interspersed with some seemingly barbaric religious and initiation (rite of passage) rituals.

              The protagonist is a savage born to a beta female in the forest when she gets separated from her sex partner and is taken for dead. The writer traces out the subtleties of the new world order by narrating an episode of the protagonist's life when he is taken into the civilized society as a part of a scientific experiment. His internal moral struggle as he strives to understand the new values, adapt to the new society is explored. He develops a close friendship with his mentor and his mentor’s friend, falls in love with a girl who doesn't understand the concept of love. People regard him as an animal on display; his relation with his mother is considered obscene; his habit of reading books is considered a waste of time. His initial enthusiasm to visit the 'brave new world' gradually wanes and the death of his mother further gets him thinking about the deeper questions of life and death and the happily ignorant people around him, who are unaware of the power of their mind; whose minds are leashed and conditioned from the moment they are born. In a moment of sudden inspiration he strongly feels the need for urgent action and tries to teach the people the meaning of true freedom and induce a rebellion. This unprepared plan of his fails and he and his friends are arrested. His idea of changing the ignorant, mentally imprisoned society to a free thinking one is crushed .the mentor and his friend are deported and the savage opts for a solitary life, tries to get rid of worldly desires, punishing himself by self inflicting pain when he fails. This self infliction of pain becomes a source of amusement for the
people and the savage is constantly nagged by the media and the tourists .all these push the savage to the brink his sanity and he finally tips over when the girl he loves comes to visit him. He flogs himself to suppress his feelings for the girl and ultimately dies. Neither his death nor any of the other events described have a significant impact on the society and life goes on for eternity happy and ignorant.

(Comparison with 1984)
                George Orwell's 1984, another novel about the future of humanity also involves a dystopian society, a powerful governance and savages who have retained their culture. Love has no meaning; marriage has lost its value; old books have become obsolete and are destroyed; the state controls the press and uses it to change history; people have no freedom of expression. It differs from the Brave New World in the sense that in Brave New World the people think that they are happy, they are preprogrammed to think that way, they think that the government does everything for their good, their thoughts are limited by the facts fed into their brain, they are in a sense imprisoned in their own mind. In 1984 the government uses hidden cameras and microphones to monitor the people and listen to their conversations, secret thought police to arrest people plotting against the government. It destroys history to give the illusion of being in power since eternity so that doesn't even the question of an alternate form of government doesn't arise. People are loyal to the government because of fear of torture and not because they want to. The most striking similarity in both these dystopian societies is the concept of eternity; how time has lost all meaning; people do not remember a time before the government; no written records exist as they are destroyed. The same things are done day after day, year after year, an infinite repetition of events.

(Comparison with The Time Machine)
             The Time Machine by H.G.Wells is another novel that explores the future of the human race. It tells the adventures of a time traveler when he travels to the future much like the savage’s journey to the new society. It stands in strong contrast with the Brave New World as it shows the degradation of the human race, the complete absence of a social order and the non existence of science and technology. The humans evolve into two species: the Morlocks and the Eloi which have a predator prey relationship with the nocturnal Morlocks killing the Eloi in their sleep for food. This sub human evolution, the author argues, takes place due to class struggle in the capitalist society. He theorizes that the laborers evolve into Morlocks and prey on the descendants of the elite ownership group, the Eloi for food showing a reversal of the existent order. This is in complete disagreement with the Brave New World, which shows the future as being abundant in science and technology and the application of artificial selection to create various classes within the society as opposed to natural election creating the species of sub humans. The glorious peace loving eternal society of Brave New World stands as a strong contradiction to the ghastly, savage sub-human world of survival of the fittest.

            Being one of the major works in this genre, this thrilling novel is a must read for science fiction fans and others alike. It is a well written narrative and is scientifically sound. The scientific concepts used in the novel are way ahead of their time. The author's concept of external fertilization is now a reality! The author provides reasonable explanations for the various scientific phenomenon used in the novel. Theories like Bokanovsky's process and hypnopaedia can neither be proved nor refuted based on our present scientific knowledge. These seemingly plausible theories coming in a time where we are yet to uncover the many marvels of child birth and understand the intricacies of the brain shows us the scope of knowledge and the possible areas of scientific research and development.

             Science aside, it is a deeply philosophical novel asking intriguing questions about the direction our modern day technological advancement is taking us; the direction our future is headed :towards a global state with people so much alike that there is no individual identity; people are viewed as machines that is in terms of food consumed and work done; non emotional beings whose sole reason for survival is to act as consumers and producers to ensure the continuity of the long term social order; leading purposeless meaningless lives happily in ignorance.

             It is written in a simple language, is easy to understand and follow. It is laid out properly into chapters written in logical order, there are not many twists and turns and it is very engrossing. The author describes the scenario almost flawlessly and then swoops in to deliver an exciting story. The story manages to maintain its brilliant pace almost till three fourths of the novel, till the savage's arrest. From that point onward the pace sometimes quickens and sometimes tarries. The plot is brilliant but it lacks proper execution, this being the reason the story almost degenerates towards the end. The plot starts with the description of the mentor's life and ends describing the savage's death. This disjoint overview is disappointing. However the excellent initial half of the story makes up for the rather tardy second half and makes sure that the story holds the readers' interest till the end. It is one of the very few novels which makes us think deeply, appreciate our freedom of mind and has the ability to change our life.