Boekverslag: Brave New World
Facts
Writer: Aldous Huxley
Year of publication: 1996
Pages: 220 (afterword included)
Publisher: Wolters-Noordhoff
Main characters
Bernard Marx is the most important character in the first part of this book. He's a very small person (he looks like a gamma person) for being an alpha and he even says he hates Ford, so he wasn't conditioned well. Lenina asks him for a date, which is very strange in Brave New World. Bernard is isolated, because of his small body. The powerfully built Helmholtz Watson is his friend, but when they're together only Watson talks. Bernard is tearfully, which also indicates he isn't conditioned well. Lenina thinks Bernard is an odd and eccentric person, he likes for example to be alone (as John the Savager, who wasn't been conditioned at all) and nature (to look at the sea in peace). When Bernard comes back from the trip he would be transferred to Iceland, because he had "proved himself an enemy of Society", but then Bernard shows the son of the director. Now this director immediately resignes. This is the end of his isolation, a lot of women want him now.
Lenina Crowne works in the Conditioning Centre, where babies are made. She is quite pretty, but not a normal person in this Brave New World, because she wants to go out more than once with Henry Foster. She got him 4 months long without having another man. She spends her holiday together with Henry to the Reservation later. When she's back and also John joins them, she falls in love with him. But John isn't used to make love so soon (which is normal in Brave New World), so this relation doesn't last long.
Genre
Novel of dystopia or, in other words, a savage criticism of the scientific future.* In this genre there's an imaginary situation in which everything is as bad as possible. This work is also said to be a novel-of-ideas, because the ideas of dystopia are more important than the development of the characters.
Story-outline
See "main characters" and "other relevant information".
Narrative technique
The story is told by an omniscient narrator. In the first part a lot is told about Bernard Marx and in another part a lot is told about John the Savager. There are 18 Chapters. Remarkable are the slogans, for example 'a gramme is better than a damn'. The writer is also good in parodying, for instance Benito Hoover = Benito Mussolini + Presedent Herbert Hoover and Darwin Bonaparte = Erasmus Darwin + Napoleon Bonaparte.
Theme
Most important is the fact that scientific development will lead to a perfect world, in which there isn't freedom. Furthermore, the habitants in Brave New World lost the right to be unhappy. The sleep-teaching shows that brainwashing is bad. Aldous Huxley: "The advancement of science as it affects human individuals".
Explanation of the title
When John is asked to go to London, he said: "Oh brave new world, that has such people in it". He remembered these words from the William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", which once was found in the reservation where John lived. He was really enthusiastic. But when he is in London, it disappoints him (as in The Tempest).
My opinion
I've never realized some people are really afraid human beings will be produced in factories and will be conditioned. I think after reading this novel you must think about the use of technique, such as gene-splicing.
Other relevant information
information on Pavlov, who discovered his pavlovian method of conditioning:
PAVLOV, Ivan (1849-1936). Although he was a brilliant physiologist and a skillful surgeon, Ivan Pavlov will be remembered primarily for his development of the concept of conditioned reflex. In a well-known experiment he trained a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. The bell had previously become associated by the dog with the sight of food. Pavlov's work laid a foundation for the scientific analysis of human behavior. In 1904 he was awarded the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine for his work on digestive secretions.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born in Ryazan', Russia, on Sept. 26, 1849. He attended a church school and later a theological seminary. In 1870 he abandoned his religious studies to go to the University of St. Petersburg to study chemistry and physiology. He received his doctorate in medicine from the Imperial Medical Academy in 1879 and pursued further schooling in Germany at Leipzig and Breslau. From 1888 to 1890 Pavlov investigated the structure of the human heart and the regulation of blood pressure. In 1890 he became professor of physiology at the Imperial Medical Academy. He remained at the academy until 1924.
The years from 1890 to 1900 were spent analyzing the secretory activity of digestion in animals. Through his observations Pavlov was able to formulate the laws of conditioned reflex (see Reflexes). This subject occupied much of his time until 1930. After 1930 he began to apply his laws to the study of the human mental illnesses called neuroses and psychoses.
He was able to continue his work after the Russian Revolution of 1917 in spite of his persistent opposition to Communism. Even under Joseph Stalin's rule he was not hindered in his experiments. During the last two years of his life he gradually stopped his criticisms, perhaps because of increased government support for his experimental projects. Pavlov died in Leningrad on Feb. 27, 1936.*
A major influence in turning American psychology to behaviorism came from the work of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov discovered what he called the conditioned reflex. Pavlov observed that when he paired a neutral (conditioned) stimulus, such as a buzzer, with a natural (unconditioned) stimulus, such as food, the reflex response to the food salivation eventually came to be elicited by the buzzer. Pavlov called the response to the conditioned stimulus a conditioned reflex.
Pavlov's research on the conditioned reflex became the model for a great deal of research in American psychology, which regarded learning and conditioning as the major concerns. This model was extended to all subdisciplines within psychology. Early studies in child psychology, for example, were modeled after studies of animal learning and had children learning in mazes not unlike those used in animal investigations. Although psychologists are still concerned with learning, it no longer holds the central place in psychology that it once did.*
Important words:
A.F. 632: A.D. 2540. Later it will become clear that the new era begins in 1908, the year in which the American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1943) produced his first Model-T car.
Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons: They the five main classes, or castes, of human beings that are produced in the hatchery. The Alphas are the most intelligent, whereas the Epsiolons are almost brainless workers.
Community, Identity, Stability: Motto of the Brave New World. It emphasizes sameness and monotony. It is in ironic contrast with the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Lupus: Disease causing redness of the skin.
Decanting: Removal from the bottle, the equivalent of birth in our society.
Freemartin: Sexually imperfect female, in this case, sterile.
Neo-Pavlovian: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian physiologist (1849-1936) who discovered the princeples of conditioning and behaviourism. The conditioning of the babies by noises and electric shocks is based on principles of acqcuired reflexes discovered by Pavlov.
Bokanovsky Group: A batch of children all born from the same fertilized egg, in other words, a very large set of identical twins.
Our Ford: Our Lord.
viviparous: Producing living young. The use of such a scientific term indicates the embarrassment felt by the students at the ideas of birgh and parentage, which they have been conditioned to regard as obscene.
Cras and cras, wink and snigger: These words replace the obscene words "father" and "mother".
Feorge Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): British socialist author and critic. Bumblepuppy, or nineholes: This is a simple game in which balls or marbles are rolled into holes. Here it has been developed into a new game which requires an expensive piece of machinery.
Feelies: These picture shows which offer the audience not only visual and auditory images but also tactual sensations (affecting the sense of touch).
Pregnancy Substitute: It has been found that women are healthier if they have been pregnant. Since pregnancy no longer occurs in the Brave New World, its effects are imitated with drugs.
Corpus luteum: Hormone substance produced by the ovary of pregnant women. This syrup and the other drugs mentioned here are part of Fanny's "pregnancy substitute".
Freud: Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939, was an Austrian psychiatrist and the founder of psychoanalysis. He wrote about the bad effects of sexual frustration and maintained that "the family" was responsible for a great deal of human unhappiness.
Ford's in his flivver: All's right with the world: A parody of Robert Browning's poem called "Pippa's Song", which ends with the lines: "god's in his heaven; All's right with the world". A flivver is a slang word for a small car.
Pneumatic: Originally meant "air-filled"; in the Brave New World it is used to describe a woman who has a good figure.
Ectogenesis: Development of an embryo outside the body of the mother.
Phosgene, etc.: chemicals used in warfare.
Anthrax: An infectious, usually fatal disease characterized by painful boils. Apparently the German and French governments (Kurf?rstendamm and Eighth Arrondissement) were wiped out by bombs spreading this disease. The chemical formula is for TNT. Anthrax is an acute, infectious, often fatal disease affecting all warm-blooded animals. In pigs the symptoms include swelling of the throat, weakness, and high temperature. Anthrax can be largely prevented by immunization.*
Malthusian belt: The belt holding a supply of contraceptives is named after Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), one of the earliest political economists to be concerned about population growth and strongly advocate birth control. Soma: This is an intoxicating plant juice of ancient India, used as an offering to the gods. Its name has appropriately been given to the drug that makes a person feel happy and carefree.
Suffer little children: The words of the Controller are a parody of the words of Christ in the Bible: "Suffer (=allow) the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Mark 10:14)
Charing T: Charing Cross, an important station and junction in London.
I'm glad I'm not a gamma: Lenina (although she wears green and white) is a Beta.
Stoke Poges: Village in Buckinghamshire. Its churchyard is the famous setting of Gray's Elegy. 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard', poem by Thomas Gray; sad musing on unknown and unhonored dead buried in Stoke Poges churchyard near Eton, England.*
Fleet Street: The street where most London newspapers have their offices.
Aphroditeum: Club name modelled on The "Athenaeum", a literary and scientific club that Husley belonged to. Aphrodite is the Greek goddes of love.
Community Singery: Huxley locates it on the site of St Paul's Cathedral. Its clock, Big Henry, after Henry Ford, is named on analogy of Beg Ben.
Bradlaugh, Diesel, Engels, Deterding: Most of the surnames in the Brave New World are the names of well-known thinkers and scientists.
Atonement: Literally "at-one-ment"; twelve people becoming one.
Orgy-porgy: A parody of an old nursery rhyme about "Georgie Porgy", a naughty boy who "kissed the girls and made them cry". An "orgy" is an occasion of wild merry-making and love-making.
Octoroon: Person with one negro and seven white grandparents.
Pueblo: Indian village in the southwestern U.S., consisting of clay houses arranged in terraces. Pueblo, Colo., city on Arkansas River, 105 mi (170 km) s.e. of Denver; important center of industry, business, and agriculture; metal products, lumber, insulating materials, meat products; state hospital; University of Southern Colorado; Army ordnance depot; incorporated as town 1870, as city 1873; pop. 98,640*
Taos, Tesuque, etc.: Towns in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico.
Malpeis: As described here, is similar to real Indina pueblos in New Mexico such as Acoma and Laguna, built on the top of mesas: large rocks rising above the flat lands of the desert.
A most unhappy gentleman ... damned spot: These and many other phrases used by John are lines from Shakespeare, learned by his reading from an old copy of the plays, as will appear later.
Mescal: Alcoholic drink made from the juice of the agave, a desert plant. A usually colorless liquor distilled from the leaves of an agave.*
Kiva: Underground temple.
Nay, but to live: The quotation is from Hamlet; the prince is expressing his disgust at the fact that his mother has been making love to her new husband, Hamlet's uncle.
Y.W.F.A.: Young Women's Fordian Association, corresponding to the Young Women's Christian Association.
Information on Thomas Malthus (Malthusian belt):
MALTHUS, Thomas Robert (1766-1834). The reputation of the English economist Thomas Robert Malthus endured because of his work 'An Essay on the Principle of Population', published in 1798. In it he sought to show that increases in population will eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself. He based this conclusion on the thesis that populations expand in such a way as to overtake the possibility of adding enough land for crops. While some of Malthus' assertions have been discounted by many economists, 20th-century concerns over population growth brought him back into favor. The 1798 pamphlet was expanded into a book in 1803. The sixth and last edition of the work came out in 1826.
Malthus was born in Rookery, Surrey, England, in February 1766. He attended Cambridge University, earning a master's degree in 1791. In 1793 he was elected a fellow of Jesus College. He became professor of history and political economy in 1805 at the East India Company's college in Haileybury, Hertfordshire, and remained there the rest of his life. He died on Dec. 23, 1834.
Malthus was a pessimist who viewed the popular notion of human perfectibility as foolishness. As he continued studying economics, he became concerned with problems of supply and demand, gluts of goods, and recessions. He saw saving as a threat to production because it diminishes purchasing power. Many of his ideas anticipated the thinking of John Maynard Keynes a century later (see Keynes).*
book review by Jeroen Burgers:
Author :Aldous Huxley
Pseudonym :-
Publisher :Harper & Row
Title :Brave new world
Date of first publication: 1932
Give a summary of the plot:
In A.F. 632 there is a World Society. People are made in bottles and conditioned to do predestinated work. People have no family, marriage doesn't exist. People are taught to serve the production, to reach the state's motto: "Community, Inden- tity and Stability"
People also are made in different grades of intelligency. Bernard is quite intelligent, but by an error in the Predesti- nation Centre he stayed small and weak. Because of that he's an outcast, and is also often alone. Bernard has a own vision of life. He will be displaced to Iceland. But before he's officially replaced he meets a pretty girl called Lenina. He takes her to a Savage Reservation. There, they meet John and his mother. They take them back to the "brave new world". John falls in love with Lenina. She wants to make love to him very soon, it is normal in her society. But John isn't used to that, he hits her and calls her a stumpet. John's mother dies of too much soma. John is furious with the "brave new world", he tries to make a riot. John and a friend are brought to Island. John isolates himself from the society, and starts a living on his own, he wants to depend on nothing and noone. The press discovers and they chase him. John commits suicide.
In what period is the story set:
The story is set in A.F. (After Ford) 632, this is 632 years after Ford has released the first T-ford (Grandma Duck-car) this is in about A.D. 2535.
Quote a passage from the text, which you think is important:
(p 163)
"But I like the inconveniences." "We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin".
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm clai- ming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impo- tent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be torturded by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence."
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.
Explain the title:
"Brave New World" is how John calls the new modern world in which nobody is unhappy.
Give a description of the main character:
The first part of the book is about Bernard:
He is made smart, but he is small, which is not usual. Caused by this fact, he is often alone, and he got a own vision of the society.
The second part is about John, the Savage:
He was born in the savage reservation. He is pesteres by the other children, he can't take part in the religion ceremonies, he's an outcast like Bernard. He wants to go to the modern world, but when he's there it dissapoints him.
Most important characters:
Bernard Marx
John
Lenina Crowne
Helmholtz Watson
Linda
D.H.C.
Mustapha Mond (=Controller)
Information about the author/Important biographical facts:
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was born in an intellectual English family. He was a brilliant social satirist. He also wrote critics, poems, essays. He wrote about architecture, science, music, philosophy, history and religion.
Information on Aldous Huxley, the writer of this book:
Huxley, Aldous Leonard (1894-1963), British writer, born in Godalming, England; grandson of Thomas H., brother of Julian, nephew of Mrs. Humphry Ward, grandnephew of Matthew Arnold; earlier works brilliantly satirical, later ones show mystical trend; wrote novels ('Antic Hay'; 'Point Counter Point'; 'Brave New World'; 'Eyeless in Gaza'; 'Time Must Have a Stop'; 'Brave New World Revisited'); essays ('On the Margin'; 'Jesting Pilate'; 'Themes and Variations'); and poems ('Leda'); 'Literature and Science'.*
Other writers have created what is called an antiscience fiction in novels that are very pessimistic about human nature or the future. Examples are Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World', Arthur Clarke's 'Childhood's End', C.S. Lewis' 'Out of the Silent Planet', and George Orwell's '1984'.*
The English novelist and essayist Aldous Leonard Huxley, b. July 26, 1894, d. Nov. 22, 1963, a member of a distinguishedscientific and literary family, intended to study medicine, but was prevented by an eye ailment that almost blinded him at the ageof 16. He then turned to literature, publishing two volumes of poetry while still a student at Oxford. His reputation was firmlyestablished by his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), a witty satire on the intellectual pretensions of his time.Huxley's early comic novels, which include Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), and Point Counter Point(1928), demonstrate his ability to dramatize intellectual debate in fiction; he discussed philosophical and social topics in avolume of essays, Proper Studies (1927). In both fiction and nonfiction Huxley became increasingly critical of Westerncivilization in the 1930s. Brave New World (1932), his most celebrated work, is a bitterly satiric account of an inhumanesociety controlled by technology, in which art and religion have been abolished and human beings reproduce by artificialfertilization. Huxley's distress at what he regarded as the spiritual bankruptcy of the modern world led him toward mysticismand the use of hallucinatory drugs. The novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) portrays its central character's conversion from selfishisolation to transcendental mysticism; and in The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) he describes theuse of mescaline to induce visionary states of mind.
Huxley, who moved to southern California in 1947, was primarily a moral philosopher who used fiction during his early careeras a vehicle for ideas; in his later writing, which consists largely of essays, he adopts an overtly didactic tone. Like hiscontemporaries D. H. Lawrence and George Orwell, Huxley abhorred conformity and denounced the orthodox attitudes of his time. The enormous range of his intellect and the pungency of his writing make him one of the most significant voices of theearly 20th century.
Bibliography: Atkins, John, Aldous Huxley: A Literary Study (1967); Bedford, Sybille, Aldous Huxley (1985); Birnbaum,Milton, Aldous Huxley's Quest for Values (1971); Bowering, Peter, Aldous Huxley: A Study of the Major Novels (1968);Dunaway, David King, Huxley in Hollywood (1989); Ferns, C.S., Aldous Huxley (1980); Firchow, Peter, Aldous Huxley:Satirist and Novelist (1972) and The End of Utopia (1984); Kuehn, Robert, ed., Aldous Huxley: A Collection of CriticalEssays (1974); May, Keith M., Aldous Huxley (1972); Watts, Harold H., Aldous Huxley (1969); Wyatt, Donald, AldousHuxley (1985).?
From the magazine "Time":
It is reasonable to ask whether there will be a familyat all. Given the propensity for divorce, the growing number ofadults who choose to remain single, the declining popularity ofhaving children and the evaporation of the time families spendtogether, another way may eventually evolve. It may be quickerand more efficient to dispense with family-based reproduction.Society could then produce its future generations ininstitutions that might resemble the state-sponsored babyhatcheries in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. People of anyage or marital status could submit their genetic material, paya fee, perhaps apply for a permit and then produce offspring."Embryos could be brought to fetal and infant stage all in thelaboratory, outside the womb," says Cornish. "Once ready, thechildren could be fed by nurses or even automated machinery."
Someone from the U.K. wrote this:
Following the recent successful genetic duplication of sheep in the UK, there's a new wave of interest in Brave New World, now that genetic duplication of humans is a solid possibility.
Short book review:
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World presents a portrait of a society which is superficially a perfect world. At first inspection, it seems perfect in many ways: it is carefree, problem free and depression free. All aspects of the population are controlled: number, social class, and intellectual ability are all carefully regulated. Even history is controlled and rewritten to meet the needs of the party. Stability must be maintained at all costs.
In the new world which Huxley creates, if there is even a hint of anger, the wonder drug Soma is prescribed to remedy the problem. A colleague, noticing your depression, would chime in with the chant, "one cubic centimetre of soma cures ten gloomy." This slogan is taught to everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. Unhappiness, intellectual curiosity, disagreement, suffering - none of these feelings is allowed in the world which Huxley creates. At the first sign of unhappiness, Soma is prescribed. Emotions of all types are strictly controlled to provide stability and predictability within the population.
Another of the panaceas for social ills is the belief that everyone would enjoy his or her work because he or she was "made" or trained for it when young. Consequently, from birth, everyone in Brave New World is slotted to belong to a specific social and intellectual strata. In conjunction with this idea, all births are completely planned and monitored. There are different classes of people with different intelligence and different "career plans." The social order was divided into the most highly educated, the Alpha+, and then in descending intelligence, the following divisions: Alpha, Beta, Beta -, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, which is the last group comprised of those citizens of the lowest intelligence who are necessary to perform society's most menial jobs.
Another of the problems with the society which Huxley depicts is that the people do not have individuality. They are all conditioned by subliminal messages and artificial stimuli to respond the same way. Although all people are meant to respond identically without thinking, a few are made 'imperfectly' and, as a result, do have personalities. These people violate the principles of technology and artificial personalities and consequently have to be sent away so as not to "contaminate" others. To maintain order in Brave New World, the Resident Controller must have complete authority over more than just the present; he must also have influence over the past. In order to be able to achieve this, he must be able to rewrite history. This gives rise to one of the most famous quotation from Brave New World, "All history is bunk." The ability to rewrite or "edit" history is not so far distant from our current technological society. A simple stroke of the computer keyboard can make a global change in information disseminated on a network or to thousands of electronic bulletin board subscribers. Being able to distinguish the true from the false is becoming increasingly difficult. Brave New World focuses constantly on the question of whether technology requires a sacrifice of human individuality. In this novel the reader is keenly aware of the dangers that homogeneity poses to the quality of life. People may enjoy life with technological advances, but if they are required to forfeit individual personalities or interpretations about life, Huxley makes us see that life will become meaningless.
In comparison to 1984, Brave New World makes the technology less obvious to the members of the society themselves. The characters in Brave New World participate willingly in their manipulation by the government. They happily take the wonder drug Soma, "the wonder drug." In contrast, in 1984 the people seem to sense they are being controlled by Big Brother, but here the domination is imposed on them by the government.?
Detailed summary, which contains all major events (not finished)
Building in London; three hundred Fertilizers; A.F. 632 (year)?; It's about eggs in the laboratory; egg --> embryo; Bokanosky's Process (--> celdeling?); Bokanosy's Process: "major instrument of social stability"; they can't indifinitely bokanovskify; Podsman's Technique had accelerated the process of ripening; They want to beat Singapore, by using e.g. the Delta Minus; There's an Embryo Store; Embryos can only stand red light; Decanting Room (geboortes); freemartins: sterile, beard!; less oxygen to embryo --> lower caste; Mr. Foster: host of walking tour in the factory; Mr Foster said a method of shortening teh period of maturation (Dutch: opgroeien) would be a triumph; Epsilons: no intelligence; secret of happiness and virtue: liking what you've got to do; Heat conditioning; X-rays and a horror of cold to predestine them to all kinds of works (everywhere); in the factory: Lenina --> pretty; date Mr Foster and Lenina; Mr Foster is NOT the Director: "charming"; constant rotation: improve the sense of balance; to the Decanting room of the intellectuals; Chapter 2; to Conditioning Rooms (Neo-Pavlovian); half a dozen of nurses; Delta-babies; babies love flowers and books and dislike explosions and electric shocks; after shocking the babies: dislike of books and flowers --> sage from books and botany all their lives; hatred of flowers, because landscapes are gratuitous; babies love country sports --> business for factories!; Only english is spoken in the world; State Conditioning Centres in Brave New World --> born of babies; sleep-teaching discovered by Reuben Rabinovitch, who learned as a boy a literal radio broadcast by heart in a different language; slee-teaching = hypopaedia; sign of the T on stomach (Dutch: kruisteken bij ons); Hypnopaedia first used in A.F. 214; "Nile is the longest river..." (Tommy) --> howl --> sleep-teaching didn't work; going to the Alpha's (--> Silence!); sleep-teaching did work in Brave New World using this technique in a right way; learning about castes; mind of the Alphas: The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of out (of the worldleaders') suggestions; Oh Ford! (Dutch: O jee); Chapter 3; 6 or 700 children were playing Bumble-puppy and sexual game; boy abnormal; Controller Mustapha Mond; erotic plays in "our world" believed to be immoral; Lenina Crown (her family name); Mustapha Mond: Resident Controller for Western Europe; ten World Controllers; inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk; Feelies: superfilm met geur, gevoel; Alhambra: bioscoop; Bernard Marx (compare to Karl Marx); in the Centre: Girls' Dressing-Room; Fanny: works in the bottling room; her surname: also Crowne; 2 thousand millions inhabitants on the planet; only 10 thousand names; home: a few small rooms, over-inhabitated, at Lenina's home; our world: insane obscene relationships between members of family group; Pregnancy Substitute: in Dutch: hormonen om vrouw lekker te laten voelen; Our Freud; Pregnancy Substitute will help for 3 or 4 years; Lenina will go out with Henry Foster again --> Strange in Brave New World; in Brave new World: everyone belongs to everyone else; Lenina: 4 months of Henry Foster without having another man!; In our world: "they were forced to feel strongly"; Henry Foster has somebody else from time to time; "no social stability without individual stability," said the Controller --> STABILITY; embryos are hungy --> blood surrogate pumps to feed them; pneumatic = handsome; Bernard Marx asked Lenina to visit a reservation, Alpha-Plus!; short time-intervals between desire and its fulfilment; our world: Religion --> women are forced to go on being viviparous (Dutch: kinderen krijgen); small persons: low caste; Bernard Marx is a small person; sleep-teaching: one hundred repetitions three nights a week; Nine Years' War: A.F. 141; Lenina wanted to visit a reservation; Nine Years' War --> World Control OR destruction; our world: "Government is an affair of sitting, nog hitting"; British Museum: centre of culture; British Museum Massacre --> neo Pavlovian conditioning was the only solution, force was no good; surrogate cartridge belt (Dutch: riem met voorbehoedmiddelen) - -> not a freemartin; belt: a Malthusian one; after 9 Years' War: suppression of books published before A.F. 150, closing of museums; Fanny also wanted such a belt; introduction Ford's first T-model: A.F. 0; Lenina got her belt from Henry Foster; Brave New World: World State; Religion --> Brave New World: Ford's Day celebrations, Community Sings, Solidarity Services; bernard Marx hated Ford!; Two-thousand pharmacologists and biochemists; Marx: strange person in Brave New World; soma: often used drug as tablets; hoity-toity (Dutch: trots, arrogant); in Brave New World: no old men; "characters remain constant throughout a whole lifetime"; gramme soma for a weekend, two for a trip, etc.; "Go away!" shouted the DHC --> ruzie in Brave New World????; Chapter 4; Lenina popular: had spent a night with lots of men (--> normal!); George Edzel's ears were big (too much parathyriod?); Benito Hoover: too hairy; in lift: Lenina asked Bernard for a date (strange in Brave New World); Charing T instead of Charing Cross; liftman listened to orders via the speakers; Marx and Lenina walked together; Benito Hoover said: "I should say she was pretty"; Benito: always sunny; story about the alcohol in the blood surrogate of Bernard; sex-hormone chewing gum; helicopter!; flying in a helicopter, together with: Henry Foster and Lenina only; Red Rocket: Atlantic aircraft service, 7 minutes behind time --> "Scandalously unpunctual", said Henry; looking outside the helicopter: world was bumble-bee; fly on the planes (Dutch: zweven); Riemann-surface tennis: game played by Beta-Minus; Looking down: maggoty (Dutch: wormachtig --> verrotting); Hounslow Feely Studio: 7.5 hectares (large); Gamma girls: leaf- green; revitrifying the surface of the road (Dutch: glazen weg!); Semi-Morons: black; playing Obstacle Golf at Stoke Poges; Bernard's body: Gamma (little) --> gossip: caused by too much alcohol; Fleet Street: Press; Gamma Gazette: only wordsof one syllable; Bernard Marx flies to Helmholtz Watson; Watson: powerfully built; Bernard: isolated, because he's small; Watson: too able, e.g. 640 girls in under 4 years (gossip); Helmholtz: in what am I interested in?; Helmholtz flew together with Bernard; Helmholtz not interested in the story of Lenina; Helmholtz tells he has been cutting all his committees and girls; Helmholtz is writer, is there something more important to say?; Bernard is tearfully, Helmholtz Watson wished Bernard would show more pride; Chapter 5; Stoke Poges Club House was closing, so Lenina and Henry had to stop playing; lower caste: ant-like! (Dutch: mieren!); Henry and Lenina flew away; majestic buildings of the Slough Crematorium; More than 1.5 kilo P2O5 is recovered after someone's cremation, making plants grow; all men are physico-chemically equal; Switchback (Dutch: achtbaan) as they flew over the crematorium, because of the hot gas; Henry: "Everybody is happy now"; Lenina had heard these words in het sleep teaching; Henry lived in Westminster; They ate soma with coffee; they went to the Westminster Abbey Cabaret; Lenina and Henry danced the five-step; Music: "That dear little bottle of mine"; Dancing round Westminster Abbey; lenina had also got the Malthusion drill (bisedes sleep-teaching) from 12 to 17; Lenina took the contraceptive precautions and said Fanny Crowne also wanted such a cartridge belt; Solidarity Service: instead of religion (Dutch: voor saamhorigheidsgevoel); Bernard went to the Fordson Community singery (St. Paul's); Big Henry = Big Benn; great auditorium for Community Sings (e.g. for Ford's Day) was at the bottom of the building; Above it were 7 thousand rooms used by Solidarity Groups for the fornightly services; 12 chairs round the table (in a room); Morgana Rothschild asked if Bernard has played Obstacle or Electro-magnetic; lose their 12 separate identities in a larger being; First Solidarity hymn; haunting melody, heard by the midriff (Dutch: maag); strawberry ice cream (in the loving cup) and soma tablets (Dutch: communie); Song of Orgy-porgy: Twelve-in-one; Morgana's two eyebrows was one long one; Chapter 6; Lenina: going with Bernard Marx to New Mexico or with Benito Hoover to the North Pole?; North Pole wasn't nice; New Mexico: America! and Savage Reservation; Benito: normal; Bernard: odd, eccentric; Once Bernard wanted to walk and talk with only Lenina --> strange; Bernard wanted to be alone --> strange; once they went to the Semi-Demi(Dutch: kwart)-Finals of Wrestling (Dutch: worstelen) in Amsterdam; when flying back Bernard wanted to look at the sea in peace --> strange; bernard didn't want to be a part of something else/ not just a cell in the social body; Bernard took some soma --> normal; Bernard wanted pashion, nog going together in bed the fist night; going to the director for a permit to visit the New Mexican Reservation; The director remebered his trip to that place, where he had lost his girl; director didn't like the reports of Bernard Marx of his behavour outside working hours --> Bernard got a warning; if Bernard did anything wrong again, he would be transferred to a Sub-Centre, preferablyt Iceland; Interview with the DHC: "go to the Bottomless Past!" (our world: go to hell!); Helmholtz Watson liked Bernard: he was the only man he could talk things he felt to be important; but Watson hated e.g. the boasting (bottomless past); Lenina and Bernard flew by Blue Pacific (??) Rocket to Santa F?; sleeping in a good hotel there; Epsilon-Plus Negro (racism?); they need a permission from the Warden of the Reservation, who was an alpha minus; "Children still were born in the Reservation", said the Warden, among a lot of other things; Christianity, totemism and ancestor (Dutch: voorouders) worship; infectious diseases, animals; Bernard phoned Helmholtz, who said the DHC had said, in public, he looked for a person to take the place of Bernard, who had to go to Iceland; "was and make me ill", Lenina; they flew together with a guide to the Reservation; they stepped out in the Malpeis (=badland); Lenina was save, because the savages had learned they would be punished by gas bombs; Chapter 7; they walked behind a savage guide; they saw a lot of Savages = Indians; Lenina didn't like it; they saw an old Indian; they saw a mother feeding her baby; Lenina liked the drums and songs; painted image of an eagle, and from a man nailed to a cross; 18-year-old boy was whipped several times; boy on the ground, everybody went away; a white Indian came; he wanted to be whipped, but he wasn't allowed to; he wanted to show he was a man; young man explained himself, his mother was Lnda; Linda and (her man was Tomakin) had fallen in the mountains and was found by the Indians; Linda was pregnant and this white Indian was born here; Tomakin must have flied away; Bernard and Lenina went to this home, where they met the old Lnda; Linda stank of alcohol (so it wasn't true about Bernard); Linda was glad to see the white Lenina; white Indian man: John; She hasn't had any soma; She only got a drink of mescal sometimes from Pop?; Linda was a Beta, once having a baby!; but she had done the Malthusian drill!; mending (Dutch: naaien) is antisocial; women in the savage: "mad, mad and cruel", Linda said; the women are having children all the time; Linda had conditioned John; Chaper 8; John and Bernard walked together outside; a man arrived and went to Linda and Lenina; Pop? had once brought some stuff, which looked like water, Linda got in a very deep sleep; this stuff was called (by Pop?) mescal; Linda thought it was soma, only it made you feel ill afterwards; John hated Pop? and everyone who came to see Linda; Once three women whipped (Dutch: slaan met een zweep) Linda and John; that night John asked Linda the reason for this; because of she had married men; Linda once told John about the Other Place; about boxes (television), everything clean, never lonely; sometimes a man told john about the great Transformer of the World (God), fight between Right hand an Left Hand (good - bad), wet and dry; other boys once threw stones to little John --> covered with blood; Linda learned John to read; John was bullied very often; John got (wen he was 12 years old) the book "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare"; Pop? brought it, he had found it in one of the chests of the antelope Kiva, seemed to be uncivilized; John hated Pop?; Pop? was a black person; after reading some lines of the book of Shakespeare, John attacked Pop? by using a knife; after he stopped, John cried and Pop? laughed and said "go"; when John was 15, old Mitsima (indian) teached him something; they made a moon, cup and some snakes; at last they got the waterpot of Malpeis; Ceremonies of marrying: Kothlu and Kiakim?; John was 16 and he loved Kiakim?, but now she was married; Linda = "she-dog"; John was always alone; like Bernard! "if one's different, one's bound to be lonely", said John; Once John had done as he was crucified (Dutch: gekruisigd); John showedthe wound he got after fainting and falling on his face --> Bernard: disgusting; Bernard asked John to come to London, Bernard had an idea of who John's fater was; John really wanted it (dream came true!); Miranda (The Tempest): O Brave New World (TITLE) that has such beautiful people in it; John asked if Bernard had married Linia; Chaper 9; John flew to Santa F? without Lenina; Bernard contacted Mustapha Mond for getting permission to bring John and Linda to London; in Malpeis the door was locked; John saw a suit-case of L. C. (Lenina Crowne); he opened the suit-case; Lenina laid in bed; John found het beautiful; when he should gave a long, strong pull of the zipper (Dutch: rits)...; Chapter 10; Bloomsbury Centre (centre of culture in London and conditioninbg centre); Henry Foster and the Director were talking about Bernard; Henry: he works well, director: he's corrupt; director said to the employers that security and stability of Society were in danger, because Bernard Marx proved himself an enemy of Society; Bernard got Linda, she recongnized Tomakin (= director) immidiately; Linda: "you made me have a baby"; John entered teh room and said "my father" -- > laughter broke out; chaper 11; director had immediately resigned; upper-caste London: Linda --> obscenity, John --> nice story!; Linda: soma holiday!; Dr Shaw: she takes too much soma, it'll finish her off in a month or two; Bernard was now an important person; he got a lot of women now; he told it to Helmholtz, but he was not interested; John the Savager got a tour in the Conditioning Centre; John refused soma; John got a tour in an Upper School, Class of Alpha-Double-Plus; 800 female pupils were unsterilized --> Malthusian Drill; Hypnopaedic Control Room; five bus-loads of children came from the Slough Crematorium for death conditioning; Lenina was asked by serveral famous people, because now she too was famous; Lenina liked John; Lenina and John went to the cinema, sensation on the lips of John; movie: Beta blonde was kidnapped by a negro, and rescued by 3 young Alpha (handsome); Lenina touched John's arm, but John didn't like the movie; At Lenina's home John didn't get out of the taxicopter; John read Othello at home.
Writer: Aldous Huxley
Year of publication: 1996
Pages: 220 (afterword included)
Publisher: Wolters-Noordhoff
Main characters
Bernard Marx is the most important character in the first part of this book. He's a very small person (he looks like a gamma person) for being an alpha and he even says he hates Ford, so he wasn't conditioned well. Lenina asks him for a date, which is very strange in Brave New World. Bernard is isolated, because of his small body. The powerfully built Helmholtz Watson is his friend, but when they're together only Watson talks. Bernard is tearfully, which also indicates he isn't conditioned well. Lenina thinks Bernard is an odd and eccentric person, he likes for example to be alone (as John the Savager, who wasn't been conditioned at all) and nature (to look at the sea in peace). When Bernard comes back from the trip he would be transferred to Iceland, because he had "proved himself an enemy of Society", but then Bernard shows the son of the director. Now this director immediately resignes. This is the end of his isolation, a lot of women want him now.
Lenina Crowne works in the Conditioning Centre, where babies are made. She is quite pretty, but not a normal person in this Brave New World, because she wants to go out more than once with Henry Foster. She got him 4 months long without having another man. She spends her holiday together with Henry to the Reservation later. When she's back and also John joins them, she falls in love with him. But John isn't used to make love so soon (which is normal in Brave New World), so this relation doesn't last long.
Genre
Novel of dystopia or, in other words, a savage criticism of the scientific future.* In this genre there's an imaginary situation in which everything is as bad as possible. This work is also said to be a novel-of-ideas, because the ideas of dystopia are more important than the development of the characters.
Story-outline
See "main characters" and "other relevant information".
Narrative technique
The story is told by an omniscient narrator. In the first part a lot is told about Bernard Marx and in another part a lot is told about John the Savager. There are 18 Chapters. Remarkable are the slogans, for example 'a gramme is better than a damn'. The writer is also good in parodying, for instance Benito Hoover = Benito Mussolini + Presedent Herbert Hoover and Darwin Bonaparte = Erasmus Darwin + Napoleon Bonaparte.
Theme
Most important is the fact that scientific development will lead to a perfect world, in which there isn't freedom. Furthermore, the habitants in Brave New World lost the right to be unhappy. The sleep-teaching shows that brainwashing is bad. Aldous Huxley: "The advancement of science as it affects human individuals".
Explanation of the title
When John is asked to go to London, he said: "Oh brave new world, that has such people in it". He remembered these words from the William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", which once was found in the reservation where John lived. He was really enthusiastic. But when he is in London, it disappoints him (as in The Tempest).
My opinion
I've never realized some people are really afraid human beings will be produced in factories and will be conditioned. I think after reading this novel you must think about the use of technique, such as gene-splicing.
Other relevant information
information on Pavlov, who discovered his pavlovian method of conditioning:
PAVLOV, Ivan (1849-1936). Although he was a brilliant physiologist and a skillful surgeon, Ivan Pavlov will be remembered primarily for his development of the concept of conditioned reflex. In a well-known experiment he trained a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. The bell had previously become associated by the dog with the sight of food. Pavlov's work laid a foundation for the scientific analysis of human behavior. In 1904 he was awarded the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine for his work on digestive secretions.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born in Ryazan', Russia, on Sept. 26, 1849. He attended a church school and later a theological seminary. In 1870 he abandoned his religious studies to go to the University of St. Petersburg to study chemistry and physiology. He received his doctorate in medicine from the Imperial Medical Academy in 1879 and pursued further schooling in Germany at Leipzig and Breslau. From 1888 to 1890 Pavlov investigated the structure of the human heart and the regulation of blood pressure. In 1890 he became professor of physiology at the Imperial Medical Academy. He remained at the academy until 1924.
The years from 1890 to 1900 were spent analyzing the secretory activity of digestion in animals. Through his observations Pavlov was able to formulate the laws of conditioned reflex (see Reflexes). This subject occupied much of his time until 1930. After 1930 he began to apply his laws to the study of the human mental illnesses called neuroses and psychoses.
He was able to continue his work after the Russian Revolution of 1917 in spite of his persistent opposition to Communism. Even under Joseph Stalin's rule he was not hindered in his experiments. During the last two years of his life he gradually stopped his criticisms, perhaps because of increased government support for his experimental projects. Pavlov died in Leningrad on Feb. 27, 1936.*
A major influence in turning American psychology to behaviorism came from the work of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov discovered what he called the conditioned reflex. Pavlov observed that when he paired a neutral (conditioned) stimulus, such as a buzzer, with a natural (unconditioned) stimulus, such as food, the reflex response to the food salivation eventually came to be elicited by the buzzer. Pavlov called the response to the conditioned stimulus a conditioned reflex.
Pavlov's research on the conditioned reflex became the model for a great deal of research in American psychology, which regarded learning and conditioning as the major concerns. This model was extended to all subdisciplines within psychology. Early studies in child psychology, for example, were modeled after studies of animal learning and had children learning in mazes not unlike those used in animal investigations. Although psychologists are still concerned with learning, it no longer holds the central place in psychology that it once did.*
Important words:
A.F. 632: A.D. 2540. Later it will become clear that the new era begins in 1908, the year in which the American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1943) produced his first Model-T car.
Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons: They the five main classes, or castes, of human beings that are produced in the hatchery. The Alphas are the most intelligent, whereas the Epsiolons are almost brainless workers.
Community, Identity, Stability: Motto of the Brave New World. It emphasizes sameness and monotony. It is in ironic contrast with the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Lupus: Disease causing redness of the skin.
Decanting: Removal from the bottle, the equivalent of birth in our society.
Freemartin: Sexually imperfect female, in this case, sterile.
Neo-Pavlovian: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian physiologist (1849-1936) who discovered the princeples of conditioning and behaviourism. The conditioning of the babies by noises and electric shocks is based on principles of acqcuired reflexes discovered by Pavlov.
Bokanovsky Group: A batch of children all born from the same fertilized egg, in other words, a very large set of identical twins.
Our Ford: Our Lord.
viviparous: Producing living young. The use of such a scientific term indicates the embarrassment felt by the students at the ideas of birgh and parentage, which they have been conditioned to regard as obscene.
Cras and cras, wink and snigger: These words replace the obscene words "father" and "mother".
Feorge Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): British socialist author and critic. Bumblepuppy, or nineholes: This is a simple game in which balls or marbles are rolled into holes. Here it has been developed into a new game which requires an expensive piece of machinery.
Feelies: These picture shows which offer the audience not only visual and auditory images but also tactual sensations (affecting the sense of touch).
Pregnancy Substitute: It has been found that women are healthier if they have been pregnant. Since pregnancy no longer occurs in the Brave New World, its effects are imitated with drugs.
Corpus luteum: Hormone substance produced by the ovary of pregnant women. This syrup and the other drugs mentioned here are part of Fanny's "pregnancy substitute".
Freud: Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939, was an Austrian psychiatrist and the founder of psychoanalysis. He wrote about the bad effects of sexual frustration and maintained that "the family" was responsible for a great deal of human unhappiness.
Ford's in his flivver: All's right with the world: A parody of Robert Browning's poem called "Pippa's Song", which ends with the lines: "god's in his heaven; All's right with the world". A flivver is a slang word for a small car.
Pneumatic: Originally meant "air-filled"; in the Brave New World it is used to describe a woman who has a good figure.
Ectogenesis: Development of an embryo outside the body of the mother.
Phosgene, etc.: chemicals used in warfare.
Anthrax: An infectious, usually fatal disease characterized by painful boils. Apparently the German and French governments (Kurf?rstendamm and Eighth Arrondissement) were wiped out by bombs spreading this disease. The chemical formula is for TNT. Anthrax is an acute, infectious, often fatal disease affecting all warm-blooded animals. In pigs the symptoms include swelling of the throat, weakness, and high temperature. Anthrax can be largely prevented by immunization.*
Malthusian belt: The belt holding a supply of contraceptives is named after Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), one of the earliest political economists to be concerned about population growth and strongly advocate birth control. Soma: This is an intoxicating plant juice of ancient India, used as an offering to the gods. Its name has appropriately been given to the drug that makes a person feel happy and carefree.
Suffer little children: The words of the Controller are a parody of the words of Christ in the Bible: "Suffer (=allow) the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Mark 10:14)
Charing T: Charing Cross, an important station and junction in London.
I'm glad I'm not a gamma: Lenina (although she wears green and white) is a Beta.
Stoke Poges: Village in Buckinghamshire. Its churchyard is the famous setting of Gray's Elegy. 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard', poem by Thomas Gray; sad musing on unknown and unhonored dead buried in Stoke Poges churchyard near Eton, England.*
Fleet Street: The street where most London newspapers have their offices.
Aphroditeum: Club name modelled on The "Athenaeum", a literary and scientific club that Husley belonged to. Aphrodite is the Greek goddes of love.
Community Singery: Huxley locates it on the site of St Paul's Cathedral. Its clock, Big Henry, after Henry Ford, is named on analogy of Beg Ben.
Bradlaugh, Diesel, Engels, Deterding: Most of the surnames in the Brave New World are the names of well-known thinkers and scientists.
Atonement: Literally "at-one-ment"; twelve people becoming one.
Orgy-porgy: A parody of an old nursery rhyme about "Georgie Porgy", a naughty boy who "kissed the girls and made them cry". An "orgy" is an occasion of wild merry-making and love-making.
Octoroon: Person with one negro and seven white grandparents.
Pueblo: Indian village in the southwestern U.S., consisting of clay houses arranged in terraces. Pueblo, Colo., city on Arkansas River, 105 mi (170 km) s.e. of Denver; important center of industry, business, and agriculture; metal products, lumber, insulating materials, meat products; state hospital; University of Southern Colorado; Army ordnance depot; incorporated as town 1870, as city 1873; pop. 98,640*
Taos, Tesuque, etc.: Towns in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico.
Malpeis: As described here, is similar to real Indina pueblos in New Mexico such as Acoma and Laguna, built on the top of mesas: large rocks rising above the flat lands of the desert.
A most unhappy gentleman ... damned spot: These and many other phrases used by John are lines from Shakespeare, learned by his reading from an old copy of the plays, as will appear later.
Mescal: Alcoholic drink made from the juice of the agave, a desert plant. A usually colorless liquor distilled from the leaves of an agave.*
Kiva: Underground temple.
Nay, but to live: The quotation is from Hamlet; the prince is expressing his disgust at the fact that his mother has been making love to her new husband, Hamlet's uncle.
Y.W.F.A.: Young Women's Fordian Association, corresponding to the Young Women's Christian Association.
Information on Thomas Malthus (Malthusian belt):
MALTHUS, Thomas Robert (1766-1834). The reputation of the English economist Thomas Robert Malthus endured because of his work 'An Essay on the Principle of Population', published in 1798. In it he sought to show that increases in population will eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself. He based this conclusion on the thesis that populations expand in such a way as to overtake the possibility of adding enough land for crops. While some of Malthus' assertions have been discounted by many economists, 20th-century concerns over population growth brought him back into favor. The 1798 pamphlet was expanded into a book in 1803. The sixth and last edition of the work came out in 1826.
Malthus was born in Rookery, Surrey, England, in February 1766. He attended Cambridge University, earning a master's degree in 1791. In 1793 he was elected a fellow of Jesus College. He became professor of history and political economy in 1805 at the East India Company's college in Haileybury, Hertfordshire, and remained there the rest of his life. He died on Dec. 23, 1834.
Malthus was a pessimist who viewed the popular notion of human perfectibility as foolishness. As he continued studying economics, he became concerned with problems of supply and demand, gluts of goods, and recessions. He saw saving as a threat to production because it diminishes purchasing power. Many of his ideas anticipated the thinking of John Maynard Keynes a century later (see Keynes).*
book review by Jeroen Burgers:
Author :Aldous Huxley
Pseudonym :-
Publisher :Harper & Row
Title :Brave new world
Date of first publication: 1932
Give a summary of the plot:
In A.F. 632 there is a World Society. People are made in bottles and conditioned to do predestinated work. People have no family, marriage doesn't exist. People are taught to serve the production, to reach the state's motto: "Community, Inden- tity and Stability"
People also are made in different grades of intelligency. Bernard is quite intelligent, but by an error in the Predesti- nation Centre he stayed small and weak. Because of that he's an outcast, and is also often alone. Bernard has a own vision of life. He will be displaced to Iceland. But before he's officially replaced he meets a pretty girl called Lenina. He takes her to a Savage Reservation. There, they meet John and his mother. They take them back to the "brave new world". John falls in love with Lenina. She wants to make love to him very soon, it is normal in her society. But John isn't used to that, he hits her and calls her a stumpet. John's mother dies of too much soma. John is furious with the "brave new world", he tries to make a riot. John and a friend are brought to Island. John isolates himself from the society, and starts a living on his own, he wants to depend on nothing and noone. The press discovers and they chase him. John commits suicide.
In what period is the story set:
The story is set in A.F. (After Ford) 632, this is 632 years after Ford has released the first T-ford (Grandma Duck-car) this is in about A.D. 2535.
Quote a passage from the text, which you think is important:
(p 163)
"But I like the inconveniences." "We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin".
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm clai- ming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impo- tent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be torturded by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence."
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.
Explain the title:
"Brave New World" is how John calls the new modern world in which nobody is unhappy.
Give a description of the main character:
The first part of the book is about Bernard:
He is made smart, but he is small, which is not usual. Caused by this fact, he is often alone, and he got a own vision of the society.
The second part is about John, the Savage:
He was born in the savage reservation. He is pesteres by the other children, he can't take part in the religion ceremonies, he's an outcast like Bernard. He wants to go to the modern world, but when he's there it dissapoints him.
Most important characters:
Bernard Marx
John
Lenina Crowne
Helmholtz Watson
Linda
D.H.C.
Mustapha Mond (=Controller)
Information about the author/Important biographical facts:
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was born in an intellectual English family. He was a brilliant social satirist. He also wrote critics, poems, essays. He wrote about architecture, science, music, philosophy, history and religion.
Information on Aldous Huxley, the writer of this book:
Huxley, Aldous Leonard (1894-1963), British writer, born in Godalming, England; grandson of Thomas H., brother of Julian, nephew of Mrs. Humphry Ward, grandnephew of Matthew Arnold; earlier works brilliantly satirical, later ones show mystical trend; wrote novels ('Antic Hay'; 'Point Counter Point'; 'Brave New World'; 'Eyeless in Gaza'; 'Time Must Have a Stop'; 'Brave New World Revisited'); essays ('On the Margin'; 'Jesting Pilate'; 'Themes and Variations'); and poems ('Leda'); 'Literature and Science'.*
Other writers have created what is called an antiscience fiction in novels that are very pessimistic about human nature or the future. Examples are Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World', Arthur Clarke's 'Childhood's End', C.S. Lewis' 'Out of the Silent Planet', and George Orwell's '1984'.*
The English novelist and essayist Aldous Leonard Huxley, b. July 26, 1894, d. Nov. 22, 1963, a member of a distinguishedscientific and literary family, intended to study medicine, but was prevented by an eye ailment that almost blinded him at the ageof 16. He then turned to literature, publishing two volumes of poetry while still a student at Oxford. His reputation was firmlyestablished by his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), a witty satire on the intellectual pretensions of his time.Huxley's early comic novels, which include Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), and Point Counter Point(1928), demonstrate his ability to dramatize intellectual debate in fiction; he discussed philosophical and social topics in avolume of essays, Proper Studies (1927). In both fiction and nonfiction Huxley became increasingly critical of Westerncivilization in the 1930s. Brave New World (1932), his most celebrated work, is a bitterly satiric account of an inhumanesociety controlled by technology, in which art and religion have been abolished and human beings reproduce by artificialfertilization. Huxley's distress at what he regarded as the spiritual bankruptcy of the modern world led him toward mysticismand the use of hallucinatory drugs. The novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) portrays its central character's conversion from selfishisolation to transcendental mysticism; and in The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) he describes theuse of mescaline to induce visionary states of mind.
Huxley, who moved to southern California in 1947, was primarily a moral philosopher who used fiction during his early careeras a vehicle for ideas; in his later writing, which consists largely of essays, he adopts an overtly didactic tone. Like hiscontemporaries D. H. Lawrence and George Orwell, Huxley abhorred conformity and denounced the orthodox attitudes of his time. The enormous range of his intellect and the pungency of his writing make him one of the most significant voices of theearly 20th century.
Bibliography: Atkins, John, Aldous Huxley: A Literary Study (1967); Bedford, Sybille, Aldous Huxley (1985); Birnbaum,Milton, Aldous Huxley's Quest for Values (1971); Bowering, Peter, Aldous Huxley: A Study of the Major Novels (1968);Dunaway, David King, Huxley in Hollywood (1989); Ferns, C.S., Aldous Huxley (1980); Firchow, Peter, Aldous Huxley:Satirist and Novelist (1972) and The End of Utopia (1984); Kuehn, Robert, ed., Aldous Huxley: A Collection of CriticalEssays (1974); May, Keith M., Aldous Huxley (1972); Watts, Harold H., Aldous Huxley (1969); Wyatt, Donald, AldousHuxley (1985).?
From the magazine "Time":
It is reasonable to ask whether there will be a familyat all. Given the propensity for divorce, the growing number ofadults who choose to remain single, the declining popularity ofhaving children and the evaporation of the time families spendtogether, another way may eventually evolve. It may be quickerand more efficient to dispense with family-based reproduction.Society could then produce its future generations ininstitutions that might resemble the state-sponsored babyhatcheries in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. People of anyage or marital status could submit their genetic material, paya fee, perhaps apply for a permit and then produce offspring."Embryos could be brought to fetal and infant stage all in thelaboratory, outside the womb," says Cornish. "Once ready, thechildren could be fed by nurses or even automated machinery."
Someone from the U.K. wrote this:
Following the recent successful genetic duplication of sheep in the UK, there's a new wave of interest in Brave New World, now that genetic duplication of humans is a solid possibility.
Short book review:
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World presents a portrait of a society which is superficially a perfect world. At first inspection, it seems perfect in many ways: it is carefree, problem free and depression free. All aspects of the population are controlled: number, social class, and intellectual ability are all carefully regulated. Even history is controlled and rewritten to meet the needs of the party. Stability must be maintained at all costs.
In the new world which Huxley creates, if there is even a hint of anger, the wonder drug Soma is prescribed to remedy the problem. A colleague, noticing your depression, would chime in with the chant, "one cubic centimetre of soma cures ten gloomy." This slogan is taught to everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. Unhappiness, intellectual curiosity, disagreement, suffering - none of these feelings is allowed in the world which Huxley creates. At the first sign of unhappiness, Soma is prescribed. Emotions of all types are strictly controlled to provide stability and predictability within the population.
Another of the panaceas for social ills is the belief that everyone would enjoy his or her work because he or she was "made" or trained for it when young. Consequently, from birth, everyone in Brave New World is slotted to belong to a specific social and intellectual strata. In conjunction with this idea, all births are completely planned and monitored. There are different classes of people with different intelligence and different "career plans." The social order was divided into the most highly educated, the Alpha+, and then in descending intelligence, the following divisions: Alpha, Beta, Beta -, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, which is the last group comprised of those citizens of the lowest intelligence who are necessary to perform society's most menial jobs.
Another of the problems with the society which Huxley depicts is that the people do not have individuality. They are all conditioned by subliminal messages and artificial stimuli to respond the same way. Although all people are meant to respond identically without thinking, a few are made 'imperfectly' and, as a result, do have personalities. These people violate the principles of technology and artificial personalities and consequently have to be sent away so as not to "contaminate" others. To maintain order in Brave New World, the Resident Controller must have complete authority over more than just the present; he must also have influence over the past. In order to be able to achieve this, he must be able to rewrite history. This gives rise to one of the most famous quotation from Brave New World, "All history is bunk." The ability to rewrite or "edit" history is not so far distant from our current technological society. A simple stroke of the computer keyboard can make a global change in information disseminated on a network or to thousands of electronic bulletin board subscribers. Being able to distinguish the true from the false is becoming increasingly difficult. Brave New World focuses constantly on the question of whether technology requires a sacrifice of human individuality. In this novel the reader is keenly aware of the dangers that homogeneity poses to the quality of life. People may enjoy life with technological advances, but if they are required to forfeit individual personalities or interpretations about life, Huxley makes us see that life will become meaningless.
In comparison to 1984, Brave New World makes the technology less obvious to the members of the society themselves. The characters in Brave New World participate willingly in their manipulation by the government. They happily take the wonder drug Soma, "the wonder drug." In contrast, in 1984 the people seem to sense they are being controlled by Big Brother, but here the domination is imposed on them by the government.?
Detailed summary, which contains all major events (not finished)
Building in London; three hundred Fertilizers; A.F. 632 (year)?; It's about eggs in the laboratory; egg --> embryo; Bokanosky's Process (--> celdeling?); Bokanosy's Process: "major instrument of social stability"; they can't indifinitely bokanovskify; Podsman's Technique had accelerated the process of ripening; They want to beat Singapore, by using e.g. the Delta Minus; There's an Embryo Store; Embryos can only stand red light; Decanting Room (geboortes); freemartins: sterile, beard!; less oxygen to embryo --> lower caste; Mr. Foster: host of walking tour in the factory; Mr Foster said a method of shortening teh period of maturation (Dutch: opgroeien) would be a triumph; Epsilons: no intelligence; secret of happiness and virtue: liking what you've got to do; Heat conditioning; X-rays and a horror of cold to predestine them to all kinds of works (everywhere); in the factory: Lenina --> pretty; date Mr Foster and Lenina; Mr Foster is NOT the Director: "charming"; constant rotation: improve the sense of balance; to the Decanting room of the intellectuals; Chapter 2; to Conditioning Rooms (Neo-Pavlovian); half a dozen of nurses; Delta-babies; babies love flowers and books and dislike explosions and electric shocks; after shocking the babies: dislike of books and flowers --> sage from books and botany all their lives; hatred of flowers, because landscapes are gratuitous; babies love country sports --> business for factories!; Only english is spoken in the world; State Conditioning Centres in Brave New World --> born of babies; sleep-teaching discovered by Reuben Rabinovitch, who learned as a boy a literal radio broadcast by heart in a different language; slee-teaching = hypopaedia; sign of the T on stomach (Dutch: kruisteken bij ons); Hypnopaedia first used in A.F. 214; "Nile is the longest river..." (Tommy) --> howl --> sleep-teaching didn't work; going to the Alpha's (--> Silence!); sleep-teaching did work in Brave New World using this technique in a right way; learning about castes; mind of the Alphas: The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of out (of the worldleaders') suggestions; Oh Ford! (Dutch: O jee); Chapter 3; 6 or 700 children were playing Bumble-puppy and sexual game; boy abnormal; Controller Mustapha Mond; erotic plays in "our world" believed to be immoral; Lenina Crown (her family name); Mustapha Mond: Resident Controller for Western Europe; ten World Controllers; inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk; Feelies: superfilm met geur, gevoel; Alhambra: bioscoop; Bernard Marx (compare to Karl Marx); in the Centre: Girls' Dressing-Room; Fanny: works in the bottling room; her surname: also Crowne; 2 thousand millions inhabitants on the planet; only 10 thousand names; home: a few small rooms, over-inhabitated, at Lenina's home; our world: insane obscene relationships between members of family group; Pregnancy Substitute: in Dutch: hormonen om vrouw lekker te laten voelen; Our Freud; Pregnancy Substitute will help for 3 or 4 years; Lenina will go out with Henry Foster again --> Strange in Brave New World; in Brave new World: everyone belongs to everyone else; Lenina: 4 months of Henry Foster without having another man!; In our world: "they were forced to feel strongly"; Henry Foster has somebody else from time to time; "no social stability without individual stability," said the Controller --> STABILITY; embryos are hungy --> blood surrogate pumps to feed them; pneumatic = handsome; Bernard Marx asked Lenina to visit a reservation, Alpha-Plus!; short time-intervals between desire and its fulfilment; our world: Religion --> women are forced to go on being viviparous (Dutch: kinderen krijgen); small persons: low caste; Bernard Marx is a small person; sleep-teaching: one hundred repetitions three nights a week; Nine Years' War: A.F. 141; Lenina wanted to visit a reservation; Nine Years' War --> World Control OR destruction; our world: "Government is an affair of sitting, nog hitting"; British Museum: centre of culture; British Museum Massacre --> neo Pavlovian conditioning was the only solution, force was no good; surrogate cartridge belt (Dutch: riem met voorbehoedmiddelen) - -> not a freemartin; belt: a Malthusian one; after 9 Years' War: suppression of books published before A.F. 150, closing of museums; Fanny also wanted such a belt; introduction Ford's first T-model: A.F. 0; Lenina got her belt from Henry Foster; Brave New World: World State; Religion --> Brave New World: Ford's Day celebrations, Community Sings, Solidarity Services; bernard Marx hated Ford!; Two-thousand pharmacologists and biochemists; Marx: strange person in Brave New World; soma: often used drug as tablets; hoity-toity (Dutch: trots, arrogant); in Brave New World: no old men; "characters remain constant throughout a whole lifetime"; gramme soma for a weekend, two for a trip, etc.; "Go away!" shouted the DHC --> ruzie in Brave New World????; Chapter 4; Lenina popular: had spent a night with lots of men (--> normal!); George Edzel's ears were big (too much parathyriod?); Benito Hoover: too hairy; in lift: Lenina asked Bernard for a date (strange in Brave New World); Charing T instead of Charing Cross; liftman listened to orders via the speakers; Marx and Lenina walked together; Benito Hoover said: "I should say she was pretty"; Benito: always sunny; story about the alcohol in the blood surrogate of Bernard; sex-hormone chewing gum; helicopter!; flying in a helicopter, together with: Henry Foster and Lenina only; Red Rocket: Atlantic aircraft service, 7 minutes behind time --> "Scandalously unpunctual", said Henry; looking outside the helicopter: world was bumble-bee; fly on the planes (Dutch: zweven); Riemann-surface tennis: game played by Beta-Minus; Looking down: maggoty (Dutch: wormachtig --> verrotting); Hounslow Feely Studio: 7.5 hectares (large); Gamma girls: leaf- green; revitrifying the surface of the road (Dutch: glazen weg!); Semi-Morons: black; playing Obstacle Golf at Stoke Poges; Bernard's body: Gamma (little) --> gossip: caused by too much alcohol; Fleet Street: Press; Gamma Gazette: only wordsof one syllable; Bernard Marx flies to Helmholtz Watson; Watson: powerfully built; Bernard: isolated, because he's small; Watson: too able, e.g. 640 girls in under 4 years (gossip); Helmholtz: in what am I interested in?; Helmholtz flew together with Bernard; Helmholtz not interested in the story of Lenina; Helmholtz tells he has been cutting all his committees and girls; Helmholtz is writer, is there something more important to say?; Bernard is tearfully, Helmholtz Watson wished Bernard would show more pride; Chapter 5; Stoke Poges Club House was closing, so Lenina and Henry had to stop playing; lower caste: ant-like! (Dutch: mieren!); Henry and Lenina flew away; majestic buildings of the Slough Crematorium; More than 1.5 kilo P2O5 is recovered after someone's cremation, making plants grow; all men are physico-chemically equal; Switchback (Dutch: achtbaan) as they flew over the crematorium, because of the hot gas; Henry: "Everybody is happy now"; Lenina had heard these words in het sleep teaching; Henry lived in Westminster; They ate soma with coffee; they went to the Westminster Abbey Cabaret; Lenina and Henry danced the five-step; Music: "That dear little bottle of mine"; Dancing round Westminster Abbey; lenina had also got the Malthusion drill (bisedes sleep-teaching) from 12 to 17; Lenina took the contraceptive precautions and said Fanny Crowne also wanted such a cartridge belt; Solidarity Service: instead of religion (Dutch: voor saamhorigheidsgevoel); Bernard went to the Fordson Community singery (St. Paul's); Big Henry = Big Benn; great auditorium for Community Sings (e.g. for Ford's Day) was at the bottom of the building; Above it were 7 thousand rooms used by Solidarity Groups for the fornightly services; 12 chairs round the table (in a room); Morgana Rothschild asked if Bernard has played Obstacle or Electro-magnetic; lose their 12 separate identities in a larger being; First Solidarity hymn; haunting melody, heard by the midriff (Dutch: maag); strawberry ice cream (in the loving cup) and soma tablets (Dutch: communie); Song of Orgy-porgy: Twelve-in-one; Morgana's two eyebrows was one long one; Chapter 6; Lenina: going with Bernard Marx to New Mexico or with Benito Hoover to the North Pole?; North Pole wasn't nice; New Mexico: America! and Savage Reservation; Benito: normal; Bernard: odd, eccentric; Once Bernard wanted to walk and talk with only Lenina --> strange; Bernard wanted to be alone --> strange; once they went to the Semi-Demi(Dutch: kwart)-Finals of Wrestling (Dutch: worstelen) in Amsterdam; when flying back Bernard wanted to look at the sea in peace --> strange; bernard didn't want to be a part of something else/ not just a cell in the social body; Bernard took some soma --> normal; Bernard wanted pashion, nog going together in bed the fist night; going to the director for a permit to visit the New Mexican Reservation; The director remebered his trip to that place, where he had lost his girl; director didn't like the reports of Bernard Marx of his behavour outside working hours --> Bernard got a warning; if Bernard did anything wrong again, he would be transferred to a Sub-Centre, preferablyt Iceland; Interview with the DHC: "go to the Bottomless Past!" (our world: go to hell!); Helmholtz Watson liked Bernard: he was the only man he could talk things he felt to be important; but Watson hated e.g. the boasting (bottomless past); Lenina and Bernard flew by Blue Pacific (??) Rocket to Santa F?; sleeping in a good hotel there; Epsilon-Plus Negro (racism?); they need a permission from the Warden of the Reservation, who was an alpha minus; "Children still were born in the Reservation", said the Warden, among a lot of other things; Christianity, totemism and ancestor (Dutch: voorouders) worship; infectious diseases, animals; Bernard phoned Helmholtz, who said the DHC had said, in public, he looked for a person to take the place of Bernard, who had to go to Iceland; "was and make me ill", Lenina; they flew together with a guide to the Reservation; they stepped out in the Malpeis (=badland); Lenina was save, because the savages had learned they would be punished by gas bombs; Chapter 7; they walked behind a savage guide; they saw a lot of Savages = Indians; Lenina didn't like it; they saw an old Indian; they saw a mother feeding her baby; Lenina liked the drums and songs; painted image of an eagle, and from a man nailed to a cross; 18-year-old boy was whipped several times; boy on the ground, everybody went away; a white Indian came; he wanted to be whipped, but he wasn't allowed to; he wanted to show he was a man; young man explained himself, his mother was Lnda; Linda and (her man was Tomakin) had fallen in the mountains and was found by the Indians; Linda was pregnant and this white Indian was born here; Tomakin must have flied away; Bernard and Lenina went to this home, where they met the old Lnda; Linda stank of alcohol (so it wasn't true about Bernard); Linda was glad to see the white Lenina; white Indian man: John; She hasn't had any soma; She only got a drink of mescal sometimes from Pop?; Linda was a Beta, once having a baby!; but she had done the Malthusian drill!; mending (Dutch: naaien) is antisocial; women in the savage: "mad, mad and cruel", Linda said; the women are having children all the time; Linda had conditioned John; Chaper 8; John and Bernard walked together outside; a man arrived and went to Linda and Lenina; Pop? had once brought some stuff, which looked like water, Linda got in a very deep sleep; this stuff was called (by Pop?) mescal; Linda thought it was soma, only it made you feel ill afterwards; John hated Pop? and everyone who came to see Linda; Once three women whipped (Dutch: slaan met een zweep) Linda and John; that night John asked Linda the reason for this; because of she had married men; Linda once told John about the Other Place; about boxes (television), everything clean, never lonely; sometimes a man told john about the great Transformer of the World (God), fight between Right hand an Left Hand (good - bad), wet and dry; other boys once threw stones to little John --> covered with blood; Linda learned John to read; John was bullied very often; John got (wen he was 12 years old) the book "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare"; Pop? brought it, he had found it in one of the chests of the antelope Kiva, seemed to be uncivilized; John hated Pop?; Pop? was a black person; after reading some lines of the book of Shakespeare, John attacked Pop? by using a knife; after he stopped, John cried and Pop? laughed and said "go"; when John was 15, old Mitsima (indian) teached him something; they made a moon, cup and some snakes; at last they got the waterpot of Malpeis; Ceremonies of marrying: Kothlu and Kiakim?; John was 16 and he loved Kiakim?, but now she was married; Linda = "she-dog"; John was always alone; like Bernard! "if one's different, one's bound to be lonely", said John; Once John had done as he was crucified (Dutch: gekruisigd); John showedthe wound he got after fainting and falling on his face --> Bernard: disgusting; Bernard asked John to come to London, Bernard had an idea of who John's fater was; John really wanted it (dream came true!); Miranda (The Tempest): O Brave New World (TITLE) that has such beautiful people in it; John asked if Bernard had married Linia; Chaper 9; John flew to Santa F? without Lenina; Bernard contacted Mustapha Mond for getting permission to bring John and Linda to London; in Malpeis the door was locked; John saw a suit-case of L. C. (Lenina Crowne); he opened the suit-case; Lenina laid in bed; John found het beautiful; when he should gave a long, strong pull of the zipper (Dutch: rits)...; Chapter 10; Bloomsbury Centre (centre of culture in London and conditioninbg centre); Henry Foster and the Director were talking about Bernard; Henry: he works well, director: he's corrupt; director said to the employers that security and stability of Society were in danger, because Bernard Marx proved himself an enemy of Society; Bernard got Linda, she recongnized Tomakin (= director) immidiately; Linda: "you made me have a baby"; John entered teh room and said "my father" -- > laughter broke out; chaper 11; director had immediately resigned; upper-caste London: Linda --> obscenity, John --> nice story!; Linda: soma holiday!; Dr Shaw: she takes too much soma, it'll finish her off in a month or two; Bernard was now an important person; he got a lot of women now; he told it to Helmholtz, but he was not interested; John the Savager got a tour in the Conditioning Centre; John refused soma; John got a tour in an Upper School, Class of Alpha-Double-Plus; 800 female pupils were unsterilized --> Malthusian Drill; Hypnopaedic Control Room; five bus-loads of children came from the Slough Crematorium for death conditioning; Lenina was asked by serveral famous people, because now she too was famous; Lenina liked John; Lenina and John went to the cinema, sensation on the lips of John; movie: Beta blonde was kidnapped by a negro, and rescued by 3 young Alpha (handsome); Lenina touched John's arm, but John didn't like the movie; At Lenina's home John didn't get out of the taxicopter; John read Othello at home.
Huxley werd geboren in een intellectueel gezin. Zijn eerste boek voltooide hij op zeventienjarige leeftijd, nadat hij op zestienjarige leeftijd bijna blind was geworden aan de gevolgen van een oogziekte (die hem ook uit de loopgraven hield). Als twintiger was hij reeds een actief schrijver. Huxley was een cultuurcriticus. In 1937 emigreerde hij naar de Verenigde Staten; hij vestigde zich in Hollywood, Californië.
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