People Of Huxley's Brave New World example essay topic

Man has long struggled for the perfect happiness. Some have tried to find their paradise through drugs, sexual promiscuity, and worldly possessions. In his novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley creates a paradise on earth through scientific technology. In this world, everyone is happy, employed, and satisfied with his or her place in life.

This Utopia, however, is achieved at the cost of humanity, which is defined by individuality, love, and free choice. Individuality becomes taboo. In order to create stability in the world, a process called The Bokanovsky Process is instituted to create the lower groups. In this process, one egg is taken from a female, and then it is forced to "bud". Each egg can "bud" up to ninety-six times, creating up to ninety-six identical twins. Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons are born this way.

The Bokanovsky groups "manned the benches of industry, where each process is carried out as far as possible by a single Bokanovsky group". After a fertilized egg is bottled, it is treated with alcohol surrogate and other poisons to ensure that the baby would be born with below average intelligence and physical stature. As a result of this procedure, "the population of the planet was fixed at two thousand million inhabitants with only ten thousand names between them". These people are nameless and have no identity in order to provide social stability.

Those who are not created by the Bokanovsky Process are the upper caste groups. The Alphas and Betas are created each from an individual egg and sperm. They are bottled and treated with proteins that will ensure that they will be decanted healthy and worthy of their place in life. They, however, are without individuality, also. They use a drug called soma. People in Brave New World resort to soma when they feel depressed or have intrusive negative thoughts.

This drug takes away any destructive emotional reflection. Love has also been abolished. By creating a world where everyone is happy, families have been eliminated. Babies are born out of bottles, and "mother" is a bad word. When John the Savage falls on his knees and greets the Director of Hatcheries and conditioning as 'my father', the director puts his hands over his ears, trying to block out the obscene word. The Controller illustrates the reason for the abolition of family life by saying, "Mother, monogamy, romance.

High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable.

Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy". Romantic love is also discouraged. May states that "it has become improper and unwholesome to wish to spend time alone, to fall in love". This shows that romantic love was considered wrong and those who would try to nurture relationships were considered outcasts and were ridiculed. "Brave new world ers are conditioned to be sexually promiscuous: Everyone belongs to everyone else". The people of Brave New World were given every self-indulgence.

Because they were denied nothing, they had no wants, and no reason to be unhappy. Free choice, the most definitive of all human qualities, has also been taken away from the people of Huxley's Brave New World. Because they are conditioned from birth, they lose the ability to decide their own fate. After birth infants were subjected to an intensive course of behaviorist and hypnopaedic conditioning, primarily designed to make their minds support the already predestined judgment of their bodies. As the Director of Hatcheries explained, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue -- liking what you " ve got to do". Even before they are born, and while they are growing up, children are conditioned to be happy with their place in life.

During incubation they are treated in various ways which determine their mental, physical, and social status throughout their future life. Moral instruction is given to children by means of machines under their pillows, which whisper to them while they sleep. This has a hypnotic effect. They are "conditioned" against a dislike of death by being taken into hospitals and given sweets while the patients die. The underground workers are taught to dislike the beauties of the open air by having flowers shown to them when they are babies and getting an electric shock whenever they touch them. The predestination of these people is thought of as necessary to ensure the happiness of everyone involved.

The children are taught to enjoy their place in life by listening to hypnopaedic tapes played while they are sleeping. They take lessons in "elementary class consciousness". The people have no free will, and no knowledge that it has been taken away from them. Even before they are born, it is decided who they are going to be, what they are going to do, and they are conditioned to be happy with this decision.

Therefore, in Huxley's Brave New World everyone is happy with who they are. They are spared from disease, aging, want, and depression. However, this comes at the cost of humanity. The people lose their individuality, their ability to love, and their right to choice.

The humanistic utopia, described by Huxley, is sure to prove the fall of humanity.