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6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Community, Identity and Stability', October 28, 2000
Aldous Huxley's `Brave New World' takes place in Europe, in 625 after Ford (people started a new era in 1908, the year in which the American industrialist Henry Ford produced his first Model-T car). There is a New World society. People are no longer born the natural way, but the state creates and conditions them. Humans are being mass produced and preconditioned to become members of one of the social classes, ranging from Alpha plus to Epsilon minus. People are going to work and get their soma. They get their education at their level and they get sleep teaching. It's a totally arranged life.Aldous Huxley was born at Godalming in 1894, into a prominent family of scientists. The nearly blind man was educated at Eton and Oxford and writer of many novels, short stories, essays, drama and verse, but `Brave New World' has proved to be his most lastingly popular work. The title was taken from Shakespeare's `The Tempest', in which Miranda, when seeing the first glimpse of the world outside the island on which she grew up, speaks the words: "O brave new world that has such people in it." In this novel-of-ideas and dystopia, or in other words, a savage criticism of the scientific future, the motto is Community, Identity and Stability. There is no love, no individualism and people do not have emotions. Everybody belongs to one big group. No one is alone, because everybody is the same. The motto is, off course, an ironic contrast with the battlecry of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. It's obvious that Huxley wants to point out the dangerous aspects of the advancement of science. People will abuse the results of investigations, which will make the individual disappear. The link of the motto with the battlecry of the French Revolution is not the only one. Many of the character's names are composed by use of the names of historical heroes. For example Benito Hoover, is made of Benito Mussolini and Herbert Hoover. This way the writer is parodying all the time. The story starts at the London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where the Director explains some students how humans are being made by the Bokanovski-process. Eggs divide again and again (sometimes even 96 humans are beings hatch from one egg). When the Director asks a student whether he knows what a parent is, he answers: `"Human beings used to be." he hesitated; the blood rushed to his cheeks. "Well, they used to be viviparous."' Bernard Marx is different from others. Something went wrong when he was in his bottle. He turned out to be, although he is, too small for an Alpha. He doesn't look like and has more emotions than other Alphas, which makes him not belonging to the big group. He and his colleague Lenina, a very pretty girl, who is very popular among the Alphas, go to New Mexico, to the Savages. Here the people haven't been scientifically produced. They meet John and his mother and take them to their world, which John really likes. He would love to see the New World. John hasn't been manipulated, so he's still able to have strong feelings.... A real pessimist can only think of a world like this. Therefore I think it's amazing how Huxley made up this story. It's been a great pleasure reading it, and it makes you start thinking about what the world will be in the future. Next to that, there's another, an educational aspect in the book. People have to be aware of abusers of knowledge. Huxley sure makes clear what he wants to say. It's a perfect novel.
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