A Perfect Society . . .
The title for Brave New World comes from a Shakespeare play
called The Tempest. A character named Miranda has grown up on
an island with only her father (Prospero) and an ugly servant named Caliban.
When Prospero makes a storm to catch some people that betrayed him, he
also catches Ferdinand. Miranda falls in love with him and upon learning
that there are more people where he came from and that she can also go
to see them, she says,
O, wonder!Just as Miranda was exicited about the new world of people, so is John the Savage in the book.
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't.
A simple prose translation of this Shakespeare play can be found at http://www.lynchmultimedia.com/tempest.html.
An extensive Brave New World site is http://somaweb.org/.
Extra Credit Oppurtunity:
Find the Shakespeare quotes in Brave New World, write them out, and tell which play that it comes from, and what page it is found on in our book. Worth a lot if you get a lot of them.
What is Utopia?
According
to Wikipedia:
Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical
perfect society. It has also been used to describe actual communities
founded in attempts to create such a society. The adjective utopian is
often used to refer to good but (physically, socially, economically, or
politically) impossible proposals, or at least ones that are very difficult
to implement.
An utopia can be either idealistic or practical, but the term has acquired
a strong connotation of optimistic, idealistic, impossible perfection.
Origin of the term
The term Utopia was coined by Thomas More as the title of his Latin book
De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia (circa 1516),
known more commonly as Utopia. He created the word "utopia"
to suggest two Greek neologisms simultaneously: outopia (no place) and
eutopia (good place).
A dystopia is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a
future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation,
oppression, or terror. Science fiction, particularly post-apocalyptic
science fiction and cyberpunk, often feature dystopias.
In most dystopian fiction, a corrupt government creates or sustains the
poor quality of life, often conditioning the masses to believe the society
is proper and just, even perfect. Most dystopian fiction takes place in
the future but often purposely incorporates contemporary social trends
taken to extremes. Dystopias are frequently written as warnings, or as
satires, showing current trends extrapolated to a nightmarish conclusion.
To have an effect on the reader, dystopian fiction typically has one other
trait: familiarity. It is not enough to show people living in a society
that seems unpleasant. The society must have echoes of today, of the reader's
own experience. If the reader can identify the patterns or trends that
would lead to the dystopia, it becomes a more involving and effective
experience. Authors can use a dystopia effectively to highlight their
own concerns about societal trends.
The question is, is A Brave New World a utopian or dystopian society?
For more on dystopia, see our 1984 page.
So how far away are we from the Brave New World...?
Study Questions:
Chapter 1:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
* What is wrong with the little boy (he needs to be checked out by the
pyschologist)?
* What is a feelie?
* What is the pyschological name for Ford?
* With whom is Lenina going on a date?
* What bad thing is Lenina doing?
* Who wants to take Lenina to a savage reservation?
* Physically, what is wrong with this person?
* What is the perfect drug?
Chapter 4:
* What do they use to get around?
* What made Bernard embarrassed?
* Who does Bernard go to see?
* What criticism is there of the man that Bernard goes to see?
* What does Bernard thinks he hears?
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
* What does Bernard want to do with Lenina?
* What does Bernard take Lenina to see that horrifies her?
* What does Bernard wish had not happened at the end of their date?
* Who else went to the New Mexico reservation 20 years ago?
* What happened there 20 years ago?
* What is Bernard worried about when they reach the reservation?
* What is the DHC's plan for Bernard?
Chapter 7:
* What are the savages carrying when they meet Lenina and Bernard?
* What does the coyote man do to the 18 year old?
* Who is the civilized woman?
* Who does Bernard suspect John's father to be?
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter 10:
Chapter 11:
Chapter 12:
* Why is Bernard upset with John?
* What does Bernard do when everyone leaves?
* What is John reading?
* What decision does Mustapha Mond make about the paper?
* What are Bernard's two feelings about Helmholtz's forgiveness?
* What is Helmholtz's rhyme about?
* How does Helmholtz upset John?
Chapter 13:
Chapter 14:
* What is Park Lane Hospital for?
* Is there hope for Lenina?
* Does Linda recognize John at first?
* Who/What comes into the area where John and Linda are?
* What does John do that brings the Head Nurse in to yell at him?
* Who does Linda think John is after she wakes up?
* What does John think he did?
Chapter 15:
Chapter 16:
Chapter 17:
Chapter 18:
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), English novelist and critic, best known for his dystopian novel Brave New World(1931). Besides novels he published travel books, histories, poems, plays, and essays on philosophy, arts, sociology, religion and morals.
Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey on July 26, 1894, into a well-to-do upper-middle-class family. His father, Leonard Huxley, was a biographer, editor, and poet. He first studied at Eton College, Berkshire (1908-13). When Huxley was fourteen his mother died. At the age of 16 Huxley suffered an attack of keratitis punctata and became for a period of about 18 months totally blind. By using special glasses and one eye recovered sufficiently he was able to read and he also learned Braille. Despite a condition of near-blindness, Huxley continued his studies at Balliol College, Oxford (1913-15), receiving his B.A. in English in 1916. Unable to pursue his chosen career as a scientist - or fight in World War on the front - Huxley turned to writing. His first collection of poetry appeared in 1916 and two more volumes followed by 1920.
Huxley's first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), a witty criticism of society, appeared in 1921. Huxley's style, a combination of brilliant dialogue, cynicism, and social criticism, made him one of the most fashionable literary figures of the decade. In eight years he published a dozen books, among them Point Counter Point (1928) and Do What You Will (1929).
During the 1920s Huxley formed a close friendship with D.H. Lawrence with whom he traveled in Italy and France. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy. In the 1930s he moved to Sanary, near Toulon, where he wrote Brave New World, a dark vision of a highly technological society of the future. In the1930s Huxley was deeply concerned with the Peace Pledge Union. He moved in 1937 with the guru-figure Gerald Heard to the United States, believing that the Californian climate would help his eyesight, a constant burden. After this turning point in his life, Huxley abandoned pure fictional writing and chose the essay as the vehicle for expressing his ideas.
Brave New World Revised appeared in 1958. Huxley's other later works include The Devils Of Loudon (1952), depicting mass-hysteria and exorcism in the 17th-century France. Island (1962) was an utopian novel and a return to the territory of Brave New World, in which a journalist shipwrecks on Pala, the fabled island, and discovers there a kind and happy people. But the earthly paradise is not immune to the harsh realities of oil policy. In 1963 appeared Literature And Science, a collection of essays.
In 1954 Huxley published an influential study of
consciousness expansion through mescaline, The Doors Of Perception and
became later a guru among Californian hippies. He also started to use
LSD and showed interest in Hindu philosophy. In 1961 Huxley suffered a
severe loss when his house and his papers were totally destroyed in a
bush-fire. Huxley died in Los Angeles on November 22, 1963.
The above biography was taken from:
Some of Aldous Huxley's quotes:
Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.
Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
More Quotes can be found at: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Aldous_Huxley/