Brave New World Essay Example

Community, Identity, Stability? Is there such thing as a world in the future where sexual interaction is the closest aspect of a community? Is it true that the people in this society are unable to choose what they want, due to the fact that they are genetically controlled of who they are? Or to eliminate someone’s sadness by just taking one drop of a drug can automatically make them feel better? Welcome to Brave New World. The motto of Brave New World consists of three words; community, identity, stability.

These words create and conditions new human life in a civilized society that presents a dystopian view of the future. The word community is based on all the different castes of diverse people “working together” to become happier within each other.

Identity is based on how the people in this society are supposed to be with themselves. Lastly, stability is achieved. Or is it? The word community in the world state motto is used ironically.

This is due to the fact that community is not achieved, the people in this society think it is but compared to our world now it really isn’t. In this society the community is prioritized over the individual. The community starts to speak about the concept that each of them has of happiness.

The character John from the savage reservation thinks that the happiness of the citizens of Brave New World is not real happiness, it’s an artificial one. From John thinking this he is unable to fit into the world state society.

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The happiness of the community is based on the sexual interactions of one another. “The lift was crowded with men from the Alpha Changing Rooms, and Lenina’s entry was greeted by many friendly nods and smiles. She was a popular girl and, at one time or another, had spent a night with almost all of them”. The sexual activity between the people in this society is the closest thing they have leading towards a so called ‘’family’’. Also the director of this facility conditions the castes systems genetically, physically, and psychologically.

They are conditioned to believe that an individual’s feelings are a threat to the community’s stability. “When the individual feels the community reels. This slogan shows that if one person is affected then everyone else is too.Community is achieved in the eyes of the Directors view by organizing life so that each person is almost never alone. This is succeeded by making everyone feel like they are close so they won’t feel a sense of loneliness or sorrow. “Everyone works for everyone else. We can’t do without anyone. Even Epsilons.  It is all about the society they would not know what to do if they were left alone. Ironically, community does not care if an individual is to die as long as the community remains stable. John had to go through this terrible crisis. In the words of Keith Neilson, “John is called to attend the death of Linda, who took too much soma drug.

Maddened by the callousness of people conditioned toward death, he instigates a mutiny of workers as they are being given their soma ration” (Neilson). This was very hard for John, due to the way he was conditioned as a normal human to show love and sympathy towards death. But in this community Sympathy is despised, individuals do not matter. “Can’t you behave”. When John breaks down in tears as is expected in normal life, a group young boys who are receiving there death conditioning start to make fun of him for crying.

The society had a total lack of sympathy making John feel like him his feelings and mother are worth nothing at all. Identity is created a result of genetic engineering. According to Keith Neilson, “The entire process, from the fertilization of the egg to the birth of the baby, is carried out by trained workers and machines and instead of one human being resulting, there will be from eight to ninety-six identical humans”(Neilson). These trained workers separate all embryos into five groups before they are born to form the caste system. They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an instinctive hatred of books and flowers.

Identity ruling over the individual is a good example of the sleep teachings. The sleep teachings are hypnopaedic methods used to teach children the morals of the World State. In a room where older children are napping, a whispering voice is heard repeating what kind of things there type of caste likes and doesn’t like. Not all characters are happy with their identity. “Talking about her as though she were a bit of meat”.

The character Lenina is being used with her identity, by using “meat” as her body. She herself doesn’t seem to mind but the character Bernard on the other hand who says this quote is very offended, he holds unusual beliefs about sexual relationships which causes him to fail to fit in this society. In this society the directors try to make each person feel happy and proud of their “own” identity. The director acts like the good guy and informs everyone through a sleep teaching how much better their castes are from everyone else. Compared to this world now the director is like the candidates of an election telling their citizens what they have to offer that no other candidate has.

I’m awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki”. The society uses their identity as a sense of confidence, happiness, and control. John L. Grigsby writes, “It is set in a future society in which control over individuals is nearly absolute and in which there is virtually no possibility of maintaining a sane, balanced, and fully human existence. ” Drug use is a common habit in this society, as well as encouraged. This is based on the motto of stability. Almost everyone in this society takes a drug called soma that relieves your pain and gives you pleasant hallucinations.

John is very much against soma it is the leading cause that killed his mother, but everyone else needs it. “There’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training”. In this, the directors are successful in tricking them. The people in the society get a relief, and endure the fact that all the unhappiness is swept away. Also sex has become a recreational activity instead of means for reproduction. “Put your arms around me. Hug me till you drug me, honey. kiss me till I’m in a coma. Hug me honey”.

When Lenina takes soma she is very sexual with men because all her discomfort is gone she is feeling a sense of happiness which makes her now stable. Stability is really the sense of control over the society. “Stability,” said the Controller,” stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability”. The society was tricked in a way so that they would always have to take soma ever since they were born; this was to conceal and/or help create the stability. Also, the director’s superiors make the decisions on conditioning everyone to hate different things. We condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport.

Hence those electric shocks”. Also there condition to love always involves spending money. They are taught to believe that they should spend money on the things they are made to like for example buying clothes. When the society learns to hate these certain things this leads to the use of soma and makes the director gain that sense of control again. This also connects to the spending money because if they spend money it leads to a good economy which causes stability and back to the start of a sense of control for the directors.

“And that,” put in the Director sententiously, “that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you’ve got to do”. Mustapha Mond the world controller of Brave New World’s opinion is based on the life he lives in this world view of the future. Everyone else in this society is conditioned to do whatever the directors want them to do. They are taught to spend money and buy clothes, they are taught to take soma, and of course they are taught to love and show a sense of “community”. John could not take this sense of living and whips himself.

When Lenina visits him, he whips her to death. John then realizes how much he is in this mess and hangs himself to die. Is this picture in your head representing the world state motto? Is this a sense of stability? What are the directors going to do? Did they lose their sense of control? In Brave New World, the community is more important than that one individual. The society has no sense of sympathy or a sense of mourning. Identity is all the product of genetic engineering. These people in reality are not that happy, it is the way they are taught that makes them feel good about who they are. Lastly stability is everything. It is all the control over the society. “Community, identity, stability”, now think do these three words accurately reflect or represent this world?