Nature and Nurture

A Liberal And A Savage Stuck In A Brave New World

“O brave new world, O brave new world that has such people in it” (139), says an excited and naïve character as he enters the unknown perils and hardships of a different world on earth. Aldous Huxley plays into the ideas of creative change, science, tragedy in most of his novels, and these were not shy themes in his novel Brave New World. Aldous Huxley was one of the most creative writers of his time. He had a great talent in expanding the ordinary creativity of the reader’s mind by using both science and fresh ideas to his time. The book was written pre-World War II and it is rather amazing to think that he came up with such a futuristic book in the time period he did. Huxley was writing a book 100 years ago, about a world so futuristic that it hasn’t yet come to fruition. This book had an amazing plot, intertwined with fantastic characters and phenomenal ideas.

Brave New World is both the story of a revolutionist daring to go against the grain of society and of a “savage” in a world where nothing but perfection is desired and thought to be obtained. The main character goes by the name of Bernard Marx. He grows up in London England in the year 632 After Ford (time is measured after the first ford T-model). Marx works as a scientist at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. In this center, multiple humans are created using separated eggs and embryos. This is a world that is truly based on “normality.” Each egg is predestined for a certain class of society. Some eggs are “Alpha plus” who will no matter what be at the top of society, physically, mentally, and economically. Then again, some are “epsilons”, who are usually deformed, very idiotic people who will perform the lowest of jobs their entire lives. These classes (alpha, beta, delta, gamma, and epsilon) are designed so that even the epsilons are happy with their lives. This is a very sexually provocative society. Any Beta plus, may walk up to another “Beta plus” and begin to grope them, or ask if they’d like to sleep with them that night and it is completely acceptable. With birth control methods being so advanced in this time, pregnancies don’t occur. The idea of a “mother” and a “father” are so obsolete in this time and people laugh and occasionally cringe at the idea of them. People fly around on helicopters and are happy all day long. They can thank soma for this happiness. Soma is a drug that can put you on a mental holiday for a certain amount of time.

Bernard is quite an outcast among these ordinary people. For an Alpha plus he’s rather short and hunched over. He hates the idea of soma and other care free things. He thinks outside the box, unlike many other people in this world. He wonders why he is not “free” and it takes a rather big adventure for him to realize why. While visiting a “savage refuge,” where people of tribes and others are kept locked in a giant habitat, Bernard runs into a young Englishman. He was born in the refuge to a Beta-plus woman, and has lived there since. He has grown up with a unique Indian tribe and longs for the outside world his mother has told him about. Bernard gets permission to bring him from the refuge to the real-world as an experiment. The Savage is not dumb. He has read Shakespeare all his life from a book found in the refuge and soon realizes that neither Shakespearean love nor romance exist in his time. He falls in love with a girl who wants nothing more than to have sex with him on the first date, which angers him. He shares Bernard’s longing to be “free.” After his mother dies from an overdose of soma, he goes crazy in the hospital and causes a riot. After starting a major ruckus in England, the Directors of the region decide that both Bernard and his English reporter friend Helmholtz should be granted there own form of freedom while the “savage” must attempt to live out his life with this “perfect” society.

Aldous Huxley utilizes many intelligent themes and symbols in this novel. It is no coincidence that Bernard Marx’s last name is Marx. If you’ll remember the revolutionist of England’s industrial times, Karl Marx. He was innovative and thought differently than what society accepted. He believed that the working class, or the proletariat, would eventually grow big enough to revolt for their rights. Bernard Marx believed in freedom, and thought that people should desire to be free. Here is a scene where Bernard finds it appropriate to share some of his Marxist ideas with a colleague: “What would it be like if I could, if I were free—not enslaved by my conditioning…. Everybody’s happy nowadays…. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not everybody else’s way” (91). Bernard wants someone else to understand his unique ideas. He wants someone to yearn for freedom from these social classes and their world’s standards, just as he does. Both Marx’s defied common ideas to support their thinking and both caused quite a commotion with their theories. The “savage” is similar to both the Marx’s in his ideas on romance. At one point he attempts to explain to Lenina, a previous love of his, his inner thoughts about the situation with her: “Admired Lenina, indeed the top of admiration, worth what’s dearest in the world. Oh you so perfect….That’s why I wanted to do something first. I mean, to show I was worthy of you” (189). Lenina doesn’t take too kindly to this, because she is so used to merely having sex with whomever she pleases. The “savage” wants more than just sex, and his romantic desire is what differentiates him from the picturesque person in this world. “Fitting in” is another big idea in this book. The “savage” is not accepted in his Indian tribe because he was white. He was taunted and looked at with disdain at times, but when he enters the real world, he realizes that he can’t possibly fit in there either. Instead of dealing with tragedy as he has read about in Shakespeare, people choose to just take two grams of soma and take a holiday in their minds. He wants romance, sadness, fear, and all the other emotions he has grown to believe in, but this very desire for these things sets him apart. He is initially looked at as a savage, studied and observed, but his personality is what allows him to never be accepted. These main ideas are why I titled my book “A Liberal And A Savage Stuck In A Brave New World”. Huxley gives readers two men that clearly don’t fit in to the “natural” vision of this world. They are most likely one in a billion to this society, but somehow they find each other. Through travails and hardships, they manage to almost team up against the ideas of “perfection” in an attempt to change the way people look at the world.

Brave New World is an amazing book. It challenges the readers mind in many ways. I found it extremely thought-provoking to try and imagine a world like this; where families did not exist and where classes separated everything. I tried to imagine what it would be like if I was an Alpha plus, and would look down on the other classes because they were not as perfect as I was. What if I was a “Delta minus?” How could I possibly be content working difficult hours for no benefits. How would I feel being deformed and not being able to speak out to someone in an upper class. I thought this world was creative in ways that sparked my imagination. Huxley’s characters are nothing short of brilliant. They all managed to fit together in a way that made their situation a great one to read about. Bernard Marx is a great character of revolution, while Lenina, an ordinary lover of many men, is the exact opposite; she could not accept and love this society any more than she already does. I wish I had something to disagree with in this novel but I just do not. I find Huxley’s mastery of the English language, and unique ideas in Brave New World to be rivaled by nothing I have read yet. The way everything seems to fit together ad me mesmerized, and his New World only added to that. It is a timeless novel that I believe everyone must read to better understand the ideas that can come from an amazing mind. I fully recommend this book to all readers and hope you all will enjoy it to the extent that I did.

Author’s Afterword:

My book review is represented by the cover page. I had trouble thinking of an idea for a visual, and then finding one on the internet. I chose to use two pictures that represented two main characters. I placed them outside of a picture of a futuristic world. This showed that they were the two characters in this book that didn’t fit in to the norm of this world. They were outcasts because their ideas were so unique. For Bernard’s character I used a picture of Karl Marx because he was a modern day Karl Marx in almost every way. For the “savage” I used a picture of Tarzan because my creativity failed me in finding a good symbol for him. The center picture is meant to represent the futuristic world. It looks a lot like what I imagined the DHC centers would look like; These are the factories the millions of kids are made.
Book reviews are much more difficult to write than I had presumed. I realized how difficult it is to summarize a book with just the right amount of information so your reader understands the plot but not overwhelm them with information. I learned how difficult it is to expand your criticism. I realized that there was not much to criticize in my book since I loved it so much, so I had to discuss symbolism for a paragraph. The introductory paragraph was difficult because I didn’t know much information about my author’s life and the information I found wasn’t very useful. I realized how this didn’t need to be written like an analytical paper which I liked. I just gave my opinion and summary in paragraph form and tried to make it flow.
I believe the strongest part of my paper is the paragraph on symbolism. I pointed out one major symbol that was not once mentioned in the book, and this was the Karl Marx symbol. I believe it fits perfectly and I am happy that I discovered it. This makes my criticism strong. I regret to say that I didn’t disagree with anything in this book. I wish I had because then I wouldn’t have to write a criticism from scratch. I learned a lot through this process and think my reviews will only get better with time.