Brave New World Journal 3

Topic A

“'Well, does there?' questioned the Controller in his turn. 'You can indulge in any number of pleasant vices with a freemartin and run no risks of having your eyes put out by your son's mistress. The wheel has come full circle; I am here. But where would Edmund be nowadays? Sitting in a pneumatic chair, with his arm round a girl's waist, sucking away at his sex-hormone chewing -gum and looking at the feelies. The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men'” (Huxley 236).

This passage reveals one of the fundamental ideas in the novel, and it makes the novel take on major relevance as a warning to current society. The Controller references King Lear when he talks about Edmund sitting around enjoying himself, showing that society, not the spirit of mankind, shapes an individual. Even Edmund, a character from Shakespeare rich with suffering and pain and emotional depth, would be helpless to refuse the constant availability of happiness and emotional detachment. As a warning this is potent stuff, for if a Shakespeare character could be thus corrupted, how will current society be able to withstand the pull of happiness? The Controller believes that there may be a God, but that god adheres to the rules and desires and societal norms of mankind and society, and does not have his own agenda for the future of the soul. By this thinking, it is truly up to mankind to decide everything from laws to the difference between good and evil. When the Controller says “The wheel has come full circle,” he is using his current time frame to compare it with the beginning of mankind's history. The ape has come full circle, gaining morals, intelligence, and freedom, only to reject it in favor of constant pleasure.

Brave New World Journal 2

Topic C

Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, creates a society in which industrialization and manufactured or unreal happiness are exceedingly prevalent. This is shown through the author's use of the Hatchery, or the laboratory designed to create human beings out of test tubes, as well as the significant practice of mindless drugs and sex. Disturbingly, this novel seems worrisome even today, what with the overuse and possible legalization of certain drugs, and also the more relaxed sexual codes of current society. Huxley's vision of a truly industrialized society seems not far off, judging by the highly mechanized world we live in, and how machines are slowly taking over the jobs that were once held by humans. The alternative in Brave New World is the polar opposite of this type of society. Huxley writes of reservations for the “savages” or the humans who did not follow along with the rest of society. Bernard sees “the squalor of that little house on the outskirts of the pueblo...two famine-stricken dogs were nosing obscenely in the garbage at its door,” and simply cannot believe that anyone could live in such filth, and with such strange rituals (Huxley 118). This village is the exact opposite of the mechanized society that Bernard lives in, and would thus seem more favorable to actual human beings, yet Huxley seems to present it in an almost negative light as well. There are all the problems of current society, perhaps magnified by their poorer conditions, and these seem extremely tough on the individuals who are a part of this society. There is almost a desire for a middle ground, in which pleasure is allowed, but in moderation, and industrialization is allowed to provide for basic needs, but not be so overwhelming.

Brave New World Journal 1

Topic B

Throughout the first six chapters of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the protagonist, Bernard Marx, struggles with his desire for something his society regards as abnormal: emotional distress. As an alpha-plus psychologist, Bernard is highly aware of the conditioning methods that are at work in the nurseries and at school, and he seems highly frustrated by others who cannot or will not see how wrong this is. While flying a helicopter over a lake with Lenina, his “girlfriend”, he brings up some of these sensitive topics, and she responds by quoting the conditioned response phrase that “Everybody's happy nowadays”, and he responds that “We begin giving the children that at (age) five” (Huxley 91). Bernard cannot fight the system, because people are biologically and psychologically conditioned from the very beginning, and thus cannot even begin to contemplate what it is to rebel. By consistantly repeating the ages that the conditioning occurs, Huxley is allowing the reader to see Bernard's struggle with others' inborn attitudes, and how they are utterly resistant to any form of thought that is against their conditioning. At this point in the novel, Bernard seems to have one friend who shares similar views, but other than that, he is alone. Despite trying to converse with Lenina about his thoughts, he makes no progress in trying to impress upon her the gravity of the situation. This futility is then projected back onto Bernard, and he relents and decides to take some Soma, or narcotics, and end the night in a haze of drugs, sex, and emotional detachment.