Brooke Wheelwright Media & Mass 2/28/13

Response Essay: Brave New World The book Brave New World goes to extreme lengths to control the economic and social stability of the society in London. The underlying theory to this society is the need for constant consumption which leads to nearly universal employment, so the constant consumption demands can be met. In the novel Brave New World, natural reproduction does not exist, people are created and raised in hatcheries and condition centers, and they are basically created on an assembly line. They are divided into five castes which are their predetermined positions in society with Alpha being then highest followed by Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. The top members of society are unique while the lower classes specifically the Epsilons are all very similar they have limited physical and mental abilities making them easier to control. Furthermore this society has taken away all the feelings of life, there are no relationships and since people are essentially created in a factory there are no families and people feel no sense of attachment toward for people. Which as George Orwells novel 1984 illustrates it is easy to control people, when they do not have a sense of feeling or affection for the people around them, because no one cares if someone else is being tortured. It forces them to only care about themselves and the only way to defend ones self is to obey the laws. Sex is treated as a recreational activity instead of an act of love and form of reproduction. The people in this society are not afraid of death, almost everyone dies at the age of 60 after living a good, healthy life. Since there are essentially no relationships or families people are not sad when someone dies, there is no mourning The conditioning everyone goes through in the developmental centers teaches the people in this society that being alone and being an individual is awful and undesirable. The thought of thinking for oneself is absurd, people are taught to consume above everything else. It is not customary to fixe stuff when it is broken or uses slightly worn out items if an item is not like new they are conditioned to go

Brooke Wheelwright Media & Mass 2/28/13

out a new one. There is also no sense of competitiveness among the society as everyone was created to do their job and that is it. No one desires a position in a higher caste as they are not bread to desire a higher position. Among the caste there is no desire to move up as every person in each caste receives the same amount of food, housing and soma rationing as everyone else in their caste. Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne are two of the main characters from London, go on vacation to a Savage Reservation where they meet Linda. Linda has lived on the reservation since she came there on a trip during which she got separated from her group. During her trip she ended up getting pregnant, later in the book Bernard discovers his boss, Thomas is Lindas husband and father of her child, John. Linda has been on the reservation for a very long time now as John is 18 years old. She never went back to London because she knew that being pregnant would not have been acceptable there. John and Linda explain to Bernard and Lenina that their life on the reservation has been difficult as they are still being treated as outsiders even though they have been therefore almost 20 years. Linda admits that she misses her old life and taking the soma. John explains that he has always been curious as to what this world, his mother has told him so much about, is all about. Bernard arranges to take them back with them. This ends up being extremely beneficial for Bernard personally because Thomas plans to deport Bernard to Iceland when he gets back for not conforming to the ways of society and he knows bringing Thomass wife and son back with him will turn the tables. Which it does, Thomas resigns from his job due to embarrassment. Bernard and John soon become the talk of the town and receive a ton of attention especially from the women. The more time John spends in this society he realizes he does not like it. He starts to refuse to go to the parties, and without John by his side Bernard is no longer welcome there. Bernard goes back to being the outcast he was at the beginning of the book. Shortly after this John learns his mother is ill, she ends up dying in the hospital and John is irate at the hospital system and how little they react to the

Brooke Wheelwright Media & Mass 2/28/13

death of his mother, which is another effect of the lack of relationships and caring in this society. Stemming from his disapproval of society John ends up having an argument with one of the officials in the society, Mond. Mond claims that constant economic stability and happiness are more important than the humanization of the individuals in the society. He claims that to have this stability concepts such as art, science and religion need to be sacrificed. John on the other hand claims that life is not worth living without these concepts. The novel ends with John isolating himself in a lighthouse he partaking in a ritual he learned from the reservation which included beating himself. The members of the community all gathered to watch him do so. The very next day John wakes up with extreme sadness and anger of what this world and his life have come to. When the crowd gathers around the next day to see what performance John will perform, they find that he has hung himself. Throughout the book the concept and importance of relationships continued to arise. This is not something that most people directly correlate with the overtaking of a society. However, in both Brave New World and 1984 the individuals doing the controlling try to take away the feelings people feel towards each other. By taking away the concept of families and love it disables people to unite and overthrow the stronger force. When individuals are procreated like in Brave New World there is no such thing as family, each person is an individual they do not depend on anyone else and no one else depends on them, therefore they do not have a sense of obligation to protect other people. John in this novel realizes the importance of relationships, as he has experienced their value, and explains that life is not worth living without them. While it is a far-fetched thought is it possible that all the technology and science that is available in todays society is disconnecting us from the people around us and causing relationships to dissolve and eventually disappear. Think about it, how many relationships are formed on continued solely though technology? Some people even develop relationships though virtual games with people they

Brooke Wheelwright Media & Mass 2/28/13

have never met, the same thing goes for business interactions. Think of how much control science has over the human race, there are countless genetic alterations that can be made to make a person completely different than they were when they were born. The point here is that all of this advanced science and technology can replace almost anything; however relationships, connections with other people and love are NOT among those things. The relationships formed throughout life provide people with the obligation to prevent those people from being harmed, however if that is taken away and no one feels a sense obligation to protect anyone else, taking over a society wouldnt be all that difficult.