A New Brave New World Essay, Research Paper
Before one could start talking about the two alternatives that were presented to John, what he chose and the reason he chose it, one should first of all get to know who John was. Not only that, but we have also to get aquainted with the special circumstances in which he grew up. John was born in the savage reservations. His mother is Linda and his father is Thomas His name was Tomakin. (Huxley, 106), the director of hatchery and conditioning. From this small piece of information one should realize that he grew up in an environment which is completely different from the one in which everyone else in the story grew. He is different from everyone because not only he was born in the savage reservations, but also his mother was wrongfully pregnant in him and the Indians in the reservation did not like her. He belonged neither to the civilization nor to the savage reservation. When he was young, everyone secluded him because he was not Indian like the other savages. His mother was looked upon by the savage reservation as being a hore because she used to see a lot of men at the same time. The reason for that was that she was born and grew up in the civilization, to her this was very much normal. John had very strong religious beliefs and although she talked to him a lot about the civilization, he was not ready for what he was going to face. These circumstances in which John was born have greatly effected his personality and his way of thinking and reasoning. Now we could start presenting the encounter that John had with the civilization. When John arrived first at the World State he was treated as an object of experimentation. He never felt safe and secure despite the fact that he was a friend of Bernard. They talked a lot, but Bernard was the one who benefited from this friendship because he became a popular figure and was finally treated like a beta. In his new life in the civilization, John faced a great deal of things that were very much strange to him. He was astonished from the way Lenina used to try to come on to him. He was in love with her but he refused the way she was acting, it was almost disgusting to him. Her actions with him reminded him of what he hated about his mother. He was also furious with the idea that soma leads people to run away from their problems. Lenina once said: A gram is better than a damn. (Huxley, 104). As perfect pleasure-drugs go, soma underwhelms. It’s not really a utopian wonderdrug at all. It does makes you high. Yet it’s more akin to a hangoverless tranquilizer or an opiate – or a psychic anaesthetizing than a truly life-transforming elixir. To him this was very wrong because people should face their problems and not escape from them. He also found that it was strange for him to be sad because of his mother s death. He only started to realize what was going on when he talked with Mustafa Mond and explained everything to him, he said The world s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can t get. They re well off; they re safe; they re never ill; they re not afraid of death (Huxley, 200). John then realized what the civilization was all about and how everything in it was functioning.At this point it is clearly obvious that the two alternatives that Huxley has presented to John were to either live in the savage reservations or to live in the so-called civilization. John s choice was very much clear. He decided to escape, he said I shall go away tomorrow too (Huxley, 221). He wanted to join Bernard and Helmholtz but they wanted to keep him for experimentation. Finally, he fled to a remote lighthouse. He begged for forgiveness from God. He was not able to live with the civilized people anymore, he had already left the savage reservations. He was between two choices and he hated each of them more than he hated the other. He did not know where to go, what to do, who to speak to, so he decided to live alone. He tried to purify himself from his sins by torturing himself. He was caught between two fires. He was starting to enjoy himself when a man called Bonaparte had an exclusive coverage of him whipping himself for his sins. This man released his tape in the civilization and every one became crazy about John. They came to his house, asked him to repeat the whipping stunt We – want the whip (Huxley, 234), he started whipping Lenina who had just arrived and everyone had a party where they sang, dance, hit and had sex. The next day he killed himself. I think that the civilization killed him. They first took him from the savage reservation and then tormented him, and when he left them, they could not leave him alone but they came after him. He was never happy with his life and he was the victim at the end. They wanted him to live in a conditioned society when he was not conditioned. He could not even live with the savages because they considered him as an outcast, he was not at all like them. He never had an option and his life ended in a very sad way. Brave New World is an unsettling, loveless and even sinister place. This is because Huxley deliberately endows his ideal society with features likely to alienate his audience. Worse, it is suggested that the price of universal happiness will be the sacrifice of the most hallowed shibboleths of our culture: “motherhood”, “home”, “family”, “freedom”, even “love”. To cap it all, in Brave New World life-long emotional well being is not genetically pre-programmed as part of everyday mental health. It isn’t even assured from birth by drugs. For example, newborn children are traumatized with electric shocks as part of the conditioning process in childhood. Toddlers from the lower orders are terrorized with loud noises. This conditions them against liking books. We are told the inhabitants of Brave New World are happy. Yet they periodically experience unpleasant thoughts, feelings and emotions. They just banish them with soma: “One cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiments”. Even then, none of the utopians of any caste come across as very happy. They are mostly docile and contented. Yet their emotions have been deliberately blunted and repressed. Life is nice – but somehow a bit flat. Brave New World, then, is centered on control and manipulation. As ever, the fate of an individual depends on the interplay of nature and nurture, heredity and environment: and the utopian state apparatus controls both.
Personally, I think that there could have been another alternative for John, something in between the two extremes that Huxley has presented to him. There should have been a third alternative which a sort of some of this and some of that. There should be a place where people count and depend on the technology, but not in the extreme way that was presented in the World Society. A place where people are still in a way savage because this savageness is part of the human nature, one of its main drives. In this society, the true meaning of freedom and individualism could be achieved through individualism and democracy but within certain boundaries and laws. Technology should be governing but human nature has to be respected. In other words, technology has to be used to the benefit of human nature. It should not be employed to diminish its role. Most important of all, it should not be used to manipulate the way a child would become, this is something that God takes care of. This brings us to a very important aspect of this society, it is religion. It has to be a religious society, not in the sense of being extremist. But everyone of this society has to at least believe in God. I believe that if John had found such society, he would have preferred to live there than to kill himself. May be it would not have satisfied all his needs, but he would have found himself over there. This is not of course the perfect society but at least it is not like the two extremes that were presented by Huxley. But the author, who is obviously a great writer, wanted to deliver a certain message. Personally, I think that one of Huxley s points is a very clear comparison between two great nations at that time, the United States (World State) and the Soviet Union (Savage Reservations). He was trying to show the negative aspects that both of these worlds have and how a human being can suffer by living in either of them.