Brave New World PR

When I first started to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, I was confused about what was happening. I thought that for sure we would never actually be reading a book like that, but we were. What really helped me understand the book was when we reflected on it in class and from their lots of my questions were answered. The book made me reflect on our world and the similarities and differences between them. Although sometimes I was surprised to see what I was reading, I am still happy to have read this book and had a chance to look at another world, the main similarities that I found were firstly addiction in the book you can see that when anyone felt pain or just wanted to have fun they would take a drug called soma similar to this world, when people want to get rid of sadness or pain, and also just want to have fun they take drugs such as Alcohol. Another thing that is similar is social isolation, social isolation is when people feel loneliness and isolation and it happens a lot in our world. Just like in our world people feel lonely even though they have social media and technology in the book for example john, in the book you can see that he is hoping to find a connection with a real human and not with people that are programmed he also struggled lots to fit in with the society because he was different. In conclusion, I was glad to have read this book and I am glad that I was able to reflect on it.

Brave New World

The book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley introduced me to the concept of utopia or dystopia. Despite my expectations, I found the book to be enjoyable. I was initially apprehensive about it since the plot was futuristic and dealt with stuff similar to the Hunger Games, so i thought it might be mind-bending. In some cases, I found it manageable to read. Occasionally, I had difficulty following the plot, but most of the time, I was able to do so. It was an uncomfortable and psychedelic experience for me as a reader to sometimes comprehend this book. It was evident that some aspects of Huxley’s writing were too familiar with the way people are acting today in terms of their behaviour. This was the most impressive part of the experience for me. The explanation was a little dramatic in nature, even though it was a simple one. There was a sense of realism in the book and, therefore, the book was creepier because of it. Additionally, i was irritated by the mindlessness and repetition of phrases that are only attributed to civilized people, as well as the constant repetition of their own phrases. It is, however, something we do as well, and we do it in a similar manner. People are always repeating the same things over and over again. It is the combination of what you have learned, heard, or have been taught that forms all of it. In the present, we live. It is the way the world works today and we are used to living in a world like that. It is possible that civilization is not at all bad in the long run. I dont think they had any reason to question the validity of your explanation if you weren’t too smart. We are also not subjected to any questions regarding the knowledge, schools, or parents that we have. This is not to say that we are bad people. It is just a matter of how we see the world in which they live in compared with the modern civilization described in the book from our perspective.

Brave New World

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a very fascinating book about categories in humanity by genetics and making everybody in levels and you could never been the highest level and not because you aren’t good enough but because you were just in that category and there was  nothing you could do about it. The books left me with a lot of questions and doubts  like in a future this could be my world in some ways this Is like the world im living in now and is really scary because if you think about it 50 years ago divorce or cheating wasn’t acceptable but now 60% of marriage end in divorce and at lest in Mexico I don’t know if here but im Mexico we do have categories id different like with money or you’re families last name but still and that when you know the world is changing a lot scince 1932.

I think a lot of  people now more than before fell more like Bernard  because he doesn’t  fit and I think all of us sometimes don’t fit at all and feel a little like Bernard and more if you see other people fitting in.

Something I really didn’t like was the ending it wasted that understandable  and you need some guidance in all the book for me there were a lot of words  that I didn’t understand and had to ask for them.

After all I would totally recommend this book because it makes you think about you’re like and how you can wat you’re time in so little time we have and Aldo about the future how is it going to change we don’t know.

Personal response brave new world

While I was reading the book Brave New World I felt that it connected to our society and that It really shows the path that things can go down by showing us how a futuristic society is like. In this society thye mass produce humans in labs and they make them play sex games. All this is a sort of reflection of our own society because people just take drugs when they feel sad. The plot of this book is how Bernard feels different in this society and how he feels sometimes left out because of his different way of thinking and because of his height. This really connects to our own world because some people are left in th emargin because of some reasons such as race or something similar. As stated before the drugs are a big part of this futuristic society but in our society it isnt all that different. When somme people are in the margin of society they feel abandoned by this society and they start hating this society that left them out. When all this energy is concentrated it results in characters such as Bernard or John the Savage. In this society they have castes which is basically the equivalent of social classes and it defines what your job is or what you can or can not do.

PW#6 What I did on March 15

Today I didn’t do much, I would call it a typical day for me. I woke up did my stuff, quickly rushed to print of my biology notes because I had a test at fourth block. Ate some oatmeal which is an amazing breakfest that is full of nutrition, got driven to school and was late as usual which is my fault. Had a normal day at school, got driven home by a brookes student, ate at home, started watching a show, realized I should be doing something way more productive so I closed it and did some English and now I am writing this blog post. Just finished writing something about Brave New World. Brave New World, is a dystopian novel by Huxley, it is about how in the future people are going to be brain washed when they are born through sleep. There are four categories of people in this book. The first is the smart ones that didn’t get any alchohol poured on them to make them the smartest but they would probably be the same IQ as a human in our world then it goes down the list. The more alchohol you get poured on yourself when your in the tiniest version of yourself the dummer you become.

Brave New World Questions

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, is told in a third person view. The characters in the novel never talk to us but to eachother and the narrator explains details of the characters and what they are doing. We also learn that most of the characters are sex. Most of the characters introduced into the story are high on a drug called soma, and since most of them are addicted to it they are always happy and sex-driven. All the characters that were made in the labratory are programmed like robots to act a certain way. So, when asked what personalities the characters have, the best way to describe them is by their categories of, Alpha, Beta, Gammies and Delta’s because this is how they were programmed. In the Dystopia, all languages have been rid of in the main society expect one (English), because all other languages are considered dead languages and are not used. Though all the characters are human its easy to agree that they are brain washed in a similar way that we are. Society in our world indulge ourselves in entertainment and yummy foods while the Brave New World’s version of this is to indulge themselves in soma.

PR BRW

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, was my first book about Utopia/Dystopia. And to my surprise, I enjoyed the book. At first, I thought it would be confusing with all the scientific descriptions and futuristic stuff, but it was relatively easy to read and if I dare say, manageable to understand. It was not always easy to follow, but yes, most of the time. The book itself made me feel uncomfortable and strange. Some things Huxley wrote about were too close to how people are acting nowadays. Just a little more dramatically described. It made the book feel more natural and, therefore more spooky. I also felt irritated over the civilized people’s actions, mindlessness, and always-repeating phrases. But that is also something we do as well. People are repeating the same things all the time. The things you were taught, the things you learned, things you heard. Who can tell what is right and what is wrong? We live now. We are used to the world working this way as it is now. Maybe there is nothing wrong with civilization. There was no reason for them to question it (well, if you weren’t too bright). We also don’t question schools, parents, and our knowledge. I’m not saying there is something wrong with us. It is just the perspective we have on the Modern civilization in the book and them on their world.

ECUAD Musings

Art students. You can pick them out easy as pie. Converging towards Emily Carr University, it’s the pink/purple/green/blue hair that is the biggest giveaway. REALLY big pants. Shoes that look like candy. Extremely introverted looking kids, dressed in extremely extroverted looking clothes. Kind of an endearing juxtaposition. Like they would die if someone noticed them, but are screaming to be seen.

A car drives by, rolls down the window, “It’s not Halloween girls!”. A girl in a BlackPink t-shirt under a neon corsette looks mortified. Her friend (muted in a monochromatic unicorn onesie, including hood and feet) flips the bird at the driver. They laugh. All the weirdos gravitate towards the school. Once within a 100 metre radius of campus, they are in the safety of the clan.

First session, architecture. What architecture is memorable to you? I think of the skinny houses on Lombard Street in SF, the steps outside the Gerkin in London, that museum in Paris where all the things that are supposed to be on the inside are on the outside, my grandmother’s house. We talk about scale, we learn about different types of architectural drawings. We have homework. We are going to build models.

Next class. Jordi asks, “What is design?”. Um. Design is creating a plan to make something. Thinking about how that thing looks, how it feels, how it works. We explore Frank Ghery, Zaha Hadid, we look at Bauhaus. Ew Bauhaus. If someone were to ask me, what is ‘Bauhaus’?, I would reply, it is German for ‘uncomfortable chair’. Hm! We are going to design chairs!

BNW Personal Response

The novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley was easily one of the most thought-provoking activities I ever had, and honestly, it has left me quite angry at its world. This is likely because Brave New World is not like any dystopian novel I have ever read. In many dystopian novels, the people living in those worlds have their rights and freedoms taken away from them. What makes Brave New World different is that nothing is taken from them, it is traded. They have traded their identity and freedom for unwavering happiness. I find this infuriating. The happiness the citizens of the Brave New World have acquired is completely worthless. Real happiness is not something that can be gained, it must be earned. The easier something is to get, the less it is worth. That is why the happiness of the people in Brave New World is not worth anything.

Adding to that, it disturbs me even more how dedicated the government of that world is to maintaining this fake happiness. Babies are manufactured like machines. People are dependent on drugs when facing adversity. Things like monogamy, individuality, and solitude are basically outlawed. This society can not be seen as human. People in this world have been reduced to numbers on spreadsheets, without any need or purpose other than those given to them by the World Government. All of this made me angry, but by the last few chapters of the novel, the feeling of anger I felt eventually turned into pity.

I could not help but feel sad for the people in that world. People were brought into the world without affection or any type of connection. Parents are the most important things in a person’s life, they are the ones who should always accept you for who you are. To have parents degraded to being vulgar concepts is nothing short of despicable. I can only feel sad for people of the Brave New World, who have never felt the loving embrace of a parent.

While the book was very thought-provoking, the anger and sorrow I felt while reading is what truly overwhelmed me. Maybe it was Huxley’s intention to make readers feel like this in order to avoid that future. Reading this book was truly a unique experience, and I am glad to have felt all these emotions Huxley experienced while writing.

Brave New world

In a nutshell, Brave New World is a book…a book people might call horrifying or magnificent, but in reality, it is more than a book. It is an experience. Despite my best efforts, I will never be able to fully understand this experience. A book that I hated so much has never connected with me so deeply. It’s strange to feel so many emotions at once, but that’s what brave new world provides a rollercoaster of emotions.

  As much as I felt so many different emotions while reading this book, I felt hatred the most. I hated the fact that the book made me recognize something I have been ignoring for a long time. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that our society is just as horrible as the brave new world society. As a society, we treat our women as though they are objects and have never reached the true equality we hoped for. As a result, we exclude the people who act differently, speak differently, or look different from us. In order to relieve our pain, we drug ourselves.

In spite of that, we judge this novel as if this society is incapable. The idea of a society filled with sex and drugs is grotesque. However, is this not the way our society is now? Despite the fact that this may not have been my favorite book, I do appreciate what it taught me and I hope that one day we can be the kind of society that grows and learns and develops as we go along.

Personal Response to Brave New World

Brave New World is a dystopian novel written in 1932 by Aldous Huxley, a British writer and philosopher.
This story takes place in 632 AF (After Ford), throughout the novel there is a lot of reflection. As a main theme he often uses the future, but also about Huxley’s society in the 32s. Almost all things have evolved over time, from our society today to that of 1932. It is for this and other aspects that I think this novel is a good example of comparison of how the future was seen before and how it is now.

As for the novel, it got a little boring for me after a certain point. But one of the things that brought it back to life was the entrance of a character named John. This kid was what we would call “normal”, but to them this kid was an indomitable and a savage. Another character that stands out a lot and I quite like is Bernard himself, this character was also different from the others because he had his own thoughts and views on the world and didn’t just follow the hypnopedia that everyone else followed in an infinite loop. However, these two perosnages were not the same, as on the one hand John would take Soma as soon as one thing overtook him. Slow novels bore me, and luckily the speed at which events unfolded was a very good pace. The plot itself I also liked as far as I could tell.

One of the things that strikes me the most is to see the way people perceive all the things that in this supposed “perfect society” are normalized. Things such as the sexual freedom that everyone has, including small children, as well as the fact of creating human beings at will and likeness in laboratories. Because really, nowadays there are similar things in the world we live in.

After reading this novel I have started to ask myself a lot of questions about things in our society today. The reasons why we do such things in such a way, etc…. It has changed my perspective on the differences between dystopia and utopia as I progressed through the book “The Brave New World”.

Personal Response “Brave New World”

This book “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley made me change my opinion about the definition of utopia. My own definition of utopia was the world that everyone was satisfied with. However, though everyone in this book is happy and they believe the brave new world is the way as utopia because they don’t even know another world that has families, religions, arts, and so on, I cannot say that the brave new world is how utopia is supposed to be. “One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for” (p.201). These words meant to a lot me. In the brave new world, they sacrificed families, religions, and so on. They don’t know the importance of being loved, and respected as a unique person. We probably must pay something or give something up to get happiness. We cannot have everything we want at the same time. However, I assume it should be our own decision what we give up and what we get instead. They shouldn’t also be taught to prioritize pleasure, consumption, and instant gratification over deeper human values such as love, family, and creativity. They should consider their own value individually. Their opinions should be respected with fairness. The people in the brave new world never had an opportunity to realize the danger of sacrificing individuality and authentic human connections in pursuit of efficiency, pleasure, and control until John (the savage) came. What if they knew what it’s like to have a family?. There’s something that you can find after you know about the other aspect. I could be aware of some good points about the world we live in by understanding the brave new world, which is a bleak and oppressive vision of society. We never know until we start to doubt the present situation. It starts with finding mistakes. And keep chasing what we truly want.

Journaling the Armenian Entrance- PW #6

Over the weekend, my aunt, great aunt, and cousin arrived from Toronto. They attempted a surprise after their flights got canceled a few weeks ago. They informed my father of their arrival, who relayed the information to my sister, who told me. The only people who did not know was my sister and my mother (who matter the most).

When I found out, I scrambled to clean the house, and to make sure there was a sufficient amount of food in the fridge (there wasn’t). One of the main issues was to keep my mother awake, but unknowing. Their arrival was set to be around eleven o’clock at night. When they arrived at eleven thirty, the doorbell rang throughout the house. My mother did not let me open the door as she believed it was an intruder. When I managed to pry open the door, an exclamation of laughs left her and her sister.

Whenever they visit, Armenian food that is unattainable here is brought through packed luggage and grocery bags. As they unloaded the lavash and cured meats, as the good immigrant daughter I am, I started the kettle. We sat and drank tea and caught up for nearly two hours, before anyone nearly thought of going to bed.

Discomfort- Brave New World PR

Brave New World left me severely uncomfortable.

Huxley’s methods of instilling discomfort within his readers left me astonished, and frankly not wanting to continue.  Since its release, the book was under constant controversy for its apparent use of drugs and the shameless sexual promiscuity. Although nearly one hundred years have passed since the book’s initial release in 1932, there are numerous instances where I felt dumbstruck at the book and its contents.

The story is centered around a seemingly utopic society, where citizens are encouraged to take recreational anti-depressants, to remain in a constant state of polygamy, and go through heavy brain “conditioning” since birth. Citizens no longer have family, emotion, imagination, religion, or any sort of individuality. Why would they? They already have soma- induced “happiness”, constant sex and orgies, and Sunday Solidarity Service!

As a teenage girl, the instances throughout the book involving the degradation, and sometimes violence against women, incited some uneasiness. I found irony in the fact that in this “Brave New World” with a supposed better quality of life, the normalization of the objectification and sexualization of women still stands. The encouragement of these things is also worth noting. For example, in Chapter III, one of the main characters, Lenina, comments on how her current sexual partner Henry Foster, patted her behind. One of her few female friends Fanny, responds triumphantly, “That shows what he stands for. The strictest conventionality.” (pg. 35). I do no believe Huxley did this with the intention of commenting on women’s rights, more so alluding towards the casual polygamy and sex throughout the story.

The story becomes all the more disturbing when some horrible details are realized within our society.

I found ways to enjoy the book and its sterile language, and political implications. Moreover, there were multiple instances while reading where I questioned: Why do I need to read this? I’m just a fifteen year old girl! Why am I reading about fake drugs and sex for a tenth grade novel study? I am still questioning some of these, but I learned that I do not always have to enjoy what I am reading. I find myself wanting to live in a sort of ignorant bliss. I have also learned to become grateful for the things that Lenina and John came close to, but do not have. These being emotion, free will, and the ability to choose the colour of my clothes.

 

 

PR Brave new world.

Brave new world by alders Huxley. This book was a lot better to read that all quiet in the western front. The first chapters I didn’t understand that much about it, but as I read through I enjoyed the book. What I understood about thins book is that they tried to make a perfect society in which everyone is happy. They use science to create people and to do whatever they want but they take away freedom, so the hole book stated a question . Is it better to be happy or to be free. Everyone has a role in this futurist society. Mustafa is a top controller of the world and he told them how it was before when women gave birth. everyone was very disgusted by this idea. The major characters in this book is Lenina and Bernard. Bernard is a psychologist and even though he is high in society he feels like an outsider because he doesn’t t fit in and he has a different perspective of society, Bernard likes Lenina but it bothers to him that she is like everyone else. Soma is a very important drug in this society because it makes you fell happy and to forget their problems. I think in our world we all have our soma but in this world is alcohol or drugs.

In this society sex is also very common, everyone has sex with everyone and that seems normal to them. Having a close relationship isn’t normal and that is what Bernard wants with Lenina. You can learn about the characters by how they act, what they say and how they speak. He uses a lot of irony through the book. His main points is the big government, labor movements, meterialism etc. In brave new world there are different society: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilons. I think with this he wants to show that in our world there are also different societies that differences us. In conclusion I enjoyed this book because I think it shows problems that the have in our world but we don’t see them or put more attention and responding the question of being happy or being free I prefer being free because when you live happy but you don’t have freedom you don’t have to opportunity to make your choices and when you go out of this happiness you realize that you have lived a fraud and yes everyone is happy there is no deaths it seems perfect so what is it dystopia or utopia.

Personal Response – Brave New World

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a book based on an ideal society, where the social normality’s are based on the ideology of science instead of normal human relationships, creation, and behaviors. At first I didn’t understand nor like this book, I thought it was weird and a bit disturbing, but as I kept reading I realized that there are a lot of similarities between this Brave New World and the world we live in now. A similarity in the book that stood out profoundly was the usage of the drug soma. Soma presumably makes everyone in the society diminish the pain in their life, ultimately making them happy, this reminds me of present day where people take prescription drugs such as anti-depressants to get the same affects and result as soma.

And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And 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. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears – that’s what soma is.” (pp. 209-210)

I like this passage because it explains that once you take soma you go into some sort of a trance called a “soma-holiday” which means it takes you away from the real world and into a world without sadness, much like what common drugs can do to you in our society. In the end, I found this book to be very interesting although I still think some parts were confusing and gory, I believe that is what makes it such an intriguing book to read especially because there are specific aspects that we can relate to our world.

Brave New World- Personal Response

 

In the book Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley conjures a world in which society is controlled through technology and science promoting order and stability while forfeiting liberty. After reading this book it fills sadness because of the similarities it shares with our world. The world we live in grows increasingly similar with new technology and social changes. Huxley’s fictional society has several differences than our own, but similarities can be portrayed.

A major feature in Huxley’s society is the technology used to control freedom and induce happiness. This is similar to our worlds technology constantly showering us with unreliable propaganda leading to expanded consumerism and desire. I can relate to this through social media. It takes my time away from being productive and motivates me to keep up with trends that do not benefit my well being. However, in Huxley’s world these traits are taught at birth through conditioning. For example, hypnopaedia and soma are designed to create contentment for the people.

Huxley’s world also shares similar values to ours by promoting economic growth and productivity over the well being of most of society. In our world, countries want people to work extra long hours for low wages, furthering their economy. Careers are prioritized over personal lives. My parents experienced this when I was younger. Living in Vancouver my parents worked until 7pm every night while I would be stuck in day care without them. Once we moved to Victoria they were able to find different jobs resulting in a more balanced and happy life. Instead of individuals working this hard for so little, without enjoying it, in Huxley’s society each person is designed to fill their role and value conventionality and stability naturally.

To conclude, our world shares some similarities to the one described by Huxley, although society is not as advanced and controlled. Technology is speeding up at a rapid pace, to the point that we could be controlled by it further. In the future we need to be careful and not let technology take away from our freedom.

 

PW#6

Last week i went to basketball provincials in Langley with the grade 11s and 12s we played very well but ended up in 7th place at the end the very first game was a blow out and we ended up winning by 20 points, the next day was the second game and we played well its just that we couldn’t get our offense right and kept getting turnovers which ended with us loosing, the day after that was the third game and as we got on the bus ready to leave the bus wouldn’t start and everyone was going crazy luckly we were able to get a taxi to pick us up but it was just not the same, all our hype and all the energy was not there, we ened up losing the game by 3 points and it was a very sad game considering that we could have easily won.We walked in the gym for our very last game and it was very emotional for the grade 12s because it was there very last game,they all walked on the court and tryed there hardest getting us the win by 30 on the team that was ranked 5th place, and that was the end to our trip and our season on the basketball team after 4 long hard months of training.

pw#6 Why I think mr Macknight should be president.

 

Having known Mr Macknight for 7 months of my life, I have to recommend him for the position of president. He is a very smart and good person, and I think it would be great for him to be president because he would make the whole country very intellectual and he would definitely cite Shakespeare in every sentence he uses so we would have a better understanding of literature, as well as improving the reading habits of people because he would make a law that everyone reads on Wednesdays so we could be educated about literature. The other thing I would like to point out is that Mr Macknight is a very straightforward person and he will make sure everything is fair and he won’t let anyone get away with anything. Moreover I see Mr Macknight teaching us how to play the music that he likes to listen so that we can enjoy it and have better taste in music. Finally, I would like to state that Mr Macknight has a very nice vibe and if he were to run for president I would certainly vote for him if he stood for the job. I would like to nominate Mr. Macknight for president of Canada.

PR: Brave New World

While reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley my view and opinion of the book changed quite a lot throughout it. The first chapter or two I was rather confused on what was happening. With children being mass produced in labs and by how the characters behaved, I honestly found the book to be quite disturbing at points even. Throughout the course of the book, I began to make some connections between this made-up world and our own. As the book progressed even further, I didn’t find this book so disturbing as before. Or at least not in the same way as before. At first it was simply because of all the weird things, like manufacturing humans in mass, or the fact that everyone belonged to everyone. But now after reading it and reflecting on it I think I am more disturbed by the connections between this world and our own and how the bad side of emotions are basically gone. I can honestly say that by reading this novel, it wasn’t only an eye-opening experience, but also quite a swarm of different emotions.

When reading this novel, I noticed how all the aspects of negative emotions were erased. or at least taken away by soma. By doing this, they erased the contrast effect. The effect that bad emotions have on good ones. If someone never experiences something like loss, then how can they really understand the feeling of gaining something? If no one ever feels sadness, how can they really know what happiness is? Going through the book, i learned that to them, stability is happiness. But if stability is happiness, then there would, as I said before, be no contrast effect which would mean that the people of this world, though they may belive they are happy, they are only getting to experience a muted sense of happiness. Going back to the soma, and I will use Lenina as an example, every time she felt sad, she simply took a couple grammies of soma and poof! Just like that she was feeling happy! But if she never allowed those emotions to surface, never experienced anger, or sadness then how could she be sure that the world she was in was actually “happy world.”

Related to this, everyone has a role in society, they work, and they don’t complain about it. But with no problems if everything bad has been taken away then why are people working? It also leads to monotony – every day is the same. For example, in this world you do your job, take some soma, “have” whoever you want and then repeat. When you think of it, our world is slowly progressing to be like this. Not exactly, but for example in school we wake up early five days a week, go to school, learn, eat, learn some more, maybe do some activities or sports and then go home. Obviously, this isn’t complete the same but, in a way, it is sort of similar and I wonder if one day our world will follow some form of cycle. We wake up, go about our day, and then go to bed only to repeat ourselves, or do something similar the next day.

Finally, in this brave new world, anything that somone could desire has been made so they could have it. If they wanted somone, they could have them. Diseases have been eradicated as well. With everyone not having any needs, society will not progress. Inventions are borne out of solving problems people face but if people don’t face problems, then how can they create any solutions. One might argue that in this story there are no problems, so no solutions are needed but sometimes solutions for one issue create benefits in other areas.

 

 

Brave New World Response

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, is a dystopian novel that paints a society where science and technology plays a major role in human life, while religions, families, and sadness are eliminated. One key technology that sets Brave New World apart from other dystopian novels is hypnopaedia, a form of conditioning. Hypnopaedia plays an important role in this society as it conditions young children to society’s ideas as truths in their sleep. Hypnopaedia, as seen earlier in the novel, is used to establish prejudice formed for each caste of the World. This raises the question: how different is hypnopaedia from ways we learn ideas from our parents and school?

In the real world, the knowledge and beliefs we gain is through personal experience, education, and interaction with others. We learn that our actions have consequences not because we are fed this information in our sleep, but from first-hand experiences. Such as breaking your mother’s vase by accident, or not studying for an exam only to get poor marks. Additionally, education offers perspective for our beliefs through studying the past, present, and theoretical ideas from fiction and non-fiction works. Moreover, human interaction teaches us about morals: what to do, and what not to do in certain situations. Through these experiences, we are able to learn about how the world works. 

In contrast, learning in Brave New World is controlled. The government selects what children can learn about and how the information is given, “The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!….Suggestions from the State” (p. 23-24). The suggestions, however, are taught to be perceived as truths. Furthermore, what children learn is directly affected by their caste and what the State believes is necessary for them to know for the sake of social stability. As seen in the second chapter, a group of Beta children are in their Elementary Class Consciousness, a sleep teaching class.

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m 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. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able… (p. 22-23) .

However, in both the real world and Brave New World, prejudice is taught. In the real world, prejudice against people of other races, nationalities, or gender, etc. is “learned values and beliefs from their family, peers, teachers, the media, and others around them. In other words, children learn prejudice through socialisation.”(How We Learn Prejudice, 2023) One slight difference is that in the real world, prejudice is taught consciously, which leaves people to add their perspectives onto the beliefs, while in Brave New World, prejudice is subconsciously fed into children’s minds to reason their role and others in social stability.

My Personal Response to “Brave New World”

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World made me view our society in a different way, consisting of mass production, corporateness, and broken relationships. There are a lot of people in my class who had immediately jumped to conclusions upon reading the first chapter as it was pretty unsettling, not saying that All Quiet on The Western Front wasn’t, but this book was unsettling in a different way, a dark and disturbing way. The first chapter went over the influence of mass production in this ‘brave new world’ which has led to technological advances such as meeting the demand of customers at a faster rate by producing multiple products at a time, or in this case, the mass production of humans in a way that would force them to work endlessly to boost the economy. Upon reading the chapter, it took me a while to understand what I have just read here. Not only does it imply that people’s futures were already decided upon fertilization, but also the fact that they were happy about it? The first chapter introduces us to the social classes among humans, which were created to determine what type of jobs they would have, and whether they were going to have a successful life. The social classes ranged from the Greek letters of alpha to epsilon where alpha (the top) would receive the most benefits and the be provided with the highest level of education, and the lower classes (specifically gamma and below) would be limited in their amount of knowledge by being limited in what they were allowed to do. The reason behind this was to accustom the lower classes to the lower paying jobs that they would be working in their futures. The type of social class would also determine the amount of oxygen they would receive as embryos as a way to control their amount of intelligence, the type of education that they would receive, and whether they were going to undergo Bokanovsky’s process where the ovula would be multiplied hundreds of times using a series of X-Rays. This was all concluded at the end of the first chapter which was originally a lot of information to take in for myself and would make anyone feel more or less confused on how to make the connections with the information that we were provided with the actual events of the story, but I didn’t let that discourage me from seeing the whole picture, I knew that there was a certain degree of meaning behind this nonsense; what was Huxley trying to communicate to us, the audience? How would the society of a world like this look like? I decided to dig in deeper.

I knew that there was some sort of hidden message inside this book, perhaps something that Huxley wanted to warn us about, so once I dug deeper inside this book, it all started to come together. First of all, mass production: During Huxley’s era, mass production was starting to become a major aspect of American society as it did help companies meet the demand of their customers at a faster rate, where the goods made by smaller businesses would start to seem irrelevant. Secondly, the social classes: for many years, society has always had some sort of gap between social classes where people could be treated differently depending on how much they make. Although it is not as commonly seen today as it was back then, it is still an important issue that should be addressed so these differences wouldn’t restrict what people would be able to do in their daily lives, the unacceptance of contradicting or ‘controversial’ opinions as seen in the various chapters where Bernard Marx is seen as an outsider as he does not agree with the common belief and is outcast as a result, and the abuse of drugs which is viewed to be a suitable alternative to therapy by getting rid of all negative emotions. Once I have realized all these things, I have noticed that we are in fact heading towards that direction. Although our society hasn’t gotten to the point where Huxley imagined it to be, I do have reason to believe that we are heading towards that direction, or if not, already living in that society. Nowadays, we start to see cases of smaller businesses collapsing due to the expansion of major corporations, people being treated differently depending on where they live or how they live their life, people being neglected, ignored, bullied, or in more severe cases arrested because of how they think or believe in, and the legalization of certain drugs as a way to ‘boost’ the economy while placing our modern day youth in a position where drugs are easily accessible to them are prime examples of how we are already living in the ‘brave new world.’ As human beings, we tend to laugh when our enemies fall, involve ourselves into modern-day situations and dislike one another for thinking differently if it means following a different religion or having a different political view, and hold grudges against other people because they may have done something wrong to you as a result of something you did to them or something that happened to them, where have we gone wrong? Even though we strive to be open minded towards other people, even if it means accepting other views and opinions, we tend to resort back to our humanly nature of attacking other people. This is what I believe Bernard is a victim of, being different from the others for sticking to his own ideals, and for that, I do admire him despite his flaws. Overall, this book has made me reflect on the many things that have been going around the world in a different way now that I have seen the way our society could look like if we continue to live our lives in this certain way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A rose by any other name would be just as terrifying (Brave New World PR)

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a dystopian book, in which technology has progressed to the point that human beings are manufactured instead of raised, emotion is willingly suppressed with a drug, god is non-existent in culture, scientific progress is blocked by the current powers, and anyone outside of the norm is banished to islands with others like them. This was Huxley’s horrid prediction for the future. Even back in the 1930s Huxley saw unsettling trends towards dependency on things we don’t have an understanding of. These days, most of us couldn’t get by without our cellphones; we use them for everything from communication to schedules to games. However, if you walked up to the average person and asked them to describe how their phone works, they couldn’t tell you. I believe that one of Huxley’s true worries when writing Brave New World was that in the future humankind would lose their inquisitive nature, and submit to the forces above us.

I think that Huxley was right, and that we as a race are losing our sense of curiosity. Often when someone says something online no one fact checks it, and just accept it as fact. We don’t even have the base sense of “hey I wonder where that thing comes from” anymore, we just accept it. Obviously there are outliers to this, there are outliers to all things. So many people on earth just accept whatever they are told, and Brave New World just exasperates that fact. I think that is really sad, and if we continue with the same attitude as we have right now, and don’t keep pushing boundaries we will fall into a similar trap as Brave New World did; living in a homogenous society that has stagnated.

Personal Response

Reading the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was definitely not what I expected. There were so many things in this book that at first were disturbing but as you thought about, could find similarities to our world. I found this very interesting because it raised many questions for me about what a dystopia and utopia are and the requirements on what determines it. Brave New World is a known dystopia, so from the start I was expecting dystopian things. Now don’t get me wrong, there were many things in this book that I do not agree with at all and found very unsettling, but when I thought about them in relation to our world, I found many of these issues expressed in our world just to a lesser degree. Once you start to look deeper into the world Aldous Huxley created you start to understand the world in a different way. The things that seemed unimaginable suddenly had a reason behind them and you start to question what you really think of that world.

Everyone in Brave New World is happy. Anything that brings distress in our world doesn’t exist “preventing unhappiness”. People still have the ability to feel sadness, they are just conditioned to take soma to help them move on. If you were to look at Brave New World from the perspective of a person in that world, there would be nothing wrong. Obviously, there are characters in this book that don’t fit in and don’t enjoy the world they live in, but that is the same with our world. It is impossible to make everyone completely happy. Which made me think of these questions. What makes Brave New World a dystopia when everyone is happy and to what extent is it similar to our world?

This also got me thinking about why we consider what we consider as weird. Obviously, people in Brave New World don’t find their way of life weird. In fact, they would find our lives weird. I think what determines what is weird and what is normal, is the predetermined social norms humanity has created. If you look at this idea over the course of years, there are things that have changed from being acceptable in one time to unheard of in another time. People gradually learn to adapt to the society they live in which causes these changes and can lead to drastic changes over years.

After reading Brave New World it has made me question many things about our society and the reason behind why we do things the way we do. The criteria of a dystopia or utopia used to be clearer to me before reading this book but now I don’t even know what to think.

Personal Response Brave New World

Brave new world by Aldous Huxley. This book was much more enjoyable to read than all quiet on the western front because brave new world was more of a fiction book rather than all quiet on the western front which was based on actual events. One of the characters that made this book more interesting was bernard because he was showing strange ideas and opinions and that made the controllers of this perfect society mad and threatened to banish him to a remote place where he could not “disturb the peace.” Another character that I liked is John or the “savage” I like john because he was like a complete outcast and thought that the society that these people were living in was terrible and he was very unimpressed by it all these two characters definitely made the book more interesting because they weren’t following what the others thought they had their own ideas and their own opinions and were not scared to share them even if there were consequences. The plot of this story was very slow in the beginning I thought and honestly was a good thing because it made me want to keep reading the book and trying to figure out what was going to happen next. The imagery in this book was also excellent just like in all quiet on the western front except this one was a little more relatable. When I was reading this book it gave a very strong image in my head like when the babies were being made in the factory I sort of imagined it like that scene from the matrix when they are next to thousands of unborn people being conditioned to whatever the people wanted them to do. The setting that this book is in is quite similar to our society maybe not yet but possibly in the future, I think that in the near future, we will have a drug similar to soma, and most people will take it and get stuck into this constant loop of relying on this drug to support their life. I also believe that we will factory create babies and I don’t mean like create them I mean alter their DNA code to possibly cure diseases that this baby may possibly get. In the end, if you like reading fiction books I would honestly recommend this book.

Brave New World – Personal Response

“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley is a dystopian novel that was written in 1932. As the story takes place in 632 AF, (After Ford), some parts of the novel reflect on not only the intended future but also Huxley’s society. (1932). As time has passed, and where we are heading towards the future, a lot of things have been altered in society from the one back in 1932. I believe this book can be a good reference point for comparing the intended future people nearly a hundred years ago predicted and the one we live in now. 

The story takes place in London, U.K. In this “Brave New World”, humans are rather artificially manufactured than done biologically through natural reproduction. People are born in a hatchery, where multiple gametes are put into one egg, creating multiple sets of identical twins. This process is called Bokanovsky’s Process, and the fewer times an egg is divided and multiplied, the higher social rank is given to the “offspring”. The society runs on a hierarchy, with the Alphas being at the top and the Epsilons at the other end. The Alphas are responsible for doing the important work, whereas the Epsilons are responsible for doing the unimportant, dirty work. The people in this society go through a process called hypnopedia, (aka. Sleep-learning), which teaches people about their social rankings and is commonly used as a method for brainwashing. The Alphas are taught prejudice; whereas the Epsilons are taught to be thankful for what they already have. This is closely related to our society we live in – as these topics – such as prejudice, are taught by parents and kids tend to be “brainwashed” by them. The following proves to the readers that Huxley has intended to criticize the problems in parenting.

As the story proceeds and more and more details are revealed, the true main character of the story, John “the savage” gets introduced, who is from the isolated society in what the brave new world calls the “savage reservation”. When he has been brought to the Brave New World, he is shocked by how the society functions; he eventually leaves the Society with despair and agony, by ending his own life. 

The novel Brave New World closely reflects and is related to the society we live in now – and criticizes the flaws in our world, such as parenting, drug abuse and social/racial prejudices. This novel was a good stop-point for me to step back and view the society I live in from a different perspective and aspect.

Personal Response to Brave New World

Brave new world by Aldous Huxley was written in 1931 and published in 1932. It presents a futuristic dystopian world, where pain and sadness have been eradicated but at the price of freedom. There is no real human connections. Marriage, family, and procreation have all been eliminated, babies are genetically engineered and grown in hatcheries, anything to avoid the probability of feeling unhappy. They condition each human for a particular caste, programmed to be productive and complaisant through a combination of biological manipulation and psychological conditioning. There was no other option for them, even lower castes who worked as garbage man and all those jobs no one really wants to do were programmed to enjoy their jobs as it was their only purpose. They use electroshock to condition children to hate flowers and books. It feels obvious for them, just mass produce and condition everyone to do a specific part to contribute to the whole sistem, if you were programmed to work just happily work and if you were from a higher cast just enjoy that. Everyone grows up like this, it almost feels like everyone is just a robot. Until you start seeing the human and real aspect of it all. Through the entirety of the book everyone is extremely judging, there is no individuality and anyone who is slightly different is excluded, seen as a joke. You have to dress the same, think the same, act the same but everyone is happy this way. Woman are seen as a prize and its all they have ever known since they were girls at the hatchery. With this and more aspects, I think you can notice how it isn’t that different from our reality today.

PW #6 – love for travelling

When I was about eleven years old, I made my first trip out of Mexico, which means it was my first time going on a plane, I was nervous at first, but then those nerves turned into the emotion of pure happiness and curiosity. Many people say that they love to travel. But, in my opinion, there are two types of “I love to travel” there are the people that like the idea of visiting many places around the world, but they hate the idea of the process of getting to places, like going on planes, ferries, or even on roads. And then there are the people who love travelling in general. I’m one of those, I love travelling a lot, but it doesn’t bother me the idea of being in airplanes or airports waiting or being on a seven-hour road trip. I enjoy it a lot. Making stops for gas in the middle of the way in different places, looking at all the beautiful landscapes on the road, or listening to music silently. Long trips will always be my favourite thing to do, and I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to travel quite a lot. I’m pretty sure my eleven-year-old self would be so surprised and proud of all the places I had travelled with just fifteen. Now I can’t wait to be sixteen to travel by myself even more.

Personal Response to Brave New World

When I first started reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, I thought that it was pretty interesting and was intrigued by the idea of people being manufactured in factories instead of being born out of their mothers. halfway through the book it got sort of boring and I enjoyed it less and less. When John was introduced, however, it got interesting again and I started to want to actually read it on my own. I liked John because he was “normal” to us, but to the other people in the book he was the savage. I also like Bernard because he had his own thoughts and views on the world and was not just following the hypnopaedia that everyone else was following in a blind trance. He also was not completely like John because he would take Soma if things got too much for him to handle which is more relatable than always takign Soma or never taking Soma. The plot of the book was good and I like the pacing of how fast the story progressed. It started with me thinking Bernard was the main character but ended with me thinking it was John. Maybe it was both I am still pondering that thought. The language used in the book was old-fashioned which made it seem weird because it was written in the 20th century and that was the kidn of language used while the story takes place in the future. The imagery in this novel was pretty easy to picture inside of my own imagination. I could imagine the reservation where John was born and raised and I could imagine the lighthouse that John died in. I could also picture the room in which John, Bernard and the writer guy talked with the Controller. The setting is very different from the one I live in, people have families, people are not created inside of factories, and people are not set to have certain levels of intelligence. The tone that Aldous Huxley seemed to have was that he was poking fun of how he saw the people around him act and how degenerate modern western society is starting to become. Overall it was a nice read and I would reccommend it to other people if they asked for a dystopian novel recommendation.

PR – Brave New World

“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, this book caught my attention in too many ways. Since the first chapter, a lot has been going on. The author shows us his idea of a perfect society in the future, but he doesn’t forget about the cost humanity has to pay. as you go reading, he leaves you with questions about the world we live in now. Reading this book made me realize many things about the world we live in now and all the development in technology and sciences. It made me realize that we are not that far away from that imaginary society he tells us about. It is interesting to look at how people react to all the things that are normalized in that so-called “perfect society,” like giving sexual liberty to small children or creating humans in laboratories. When there are somewhat similar things nowadays in our society. Because in a certain way is disturbing the way they live in that society. Still, at the same time, it is even more disturbing to look around the world right now and notice that that imaginary society is becoming a reality little by little. For example, we have “In vitro fertilization,” to mention one aspect that I noticed in my surroundings. This book left many questions in my head and made me more curious about the different ideas of utopias and dystopias people have. Because If we think about it, our society could have been someone’s dystopia turn reality.

Personal Writing #6

In May, me and my family are going on a trip. We have planned to go the Greece! Im super exited to go there and get to see all of the amazing cities and beaches. Me and my family haven’t really decided what we will do there aside from enjoying the beeches. We plan to stay in Greece for two weeks. After those two weeks me and my family are going to meet my cousins, grandparents, aunt and uncle! From there we plan to go to France and visit Nice! After we do that, we plan to go to Italy and then later on drive through the Swiss Alps. I don’t know what plans we have for when we are in these different places though I d know we are going to go on lots of hikes, see one or two monasteries! Over all I am super exited to get to be going on this trip with my family. I can’t wait to get to go on a plane again, and just be in a new place!

I Wonder – PW6

I wonder;

I wonder why I show up to this place every day,

I wonder why they say they are preparing me for life but within these four walls, all I do is suffer.

I wonder why I do this for my parents and for my teachers, but why they never think of me

I know one day I will get out of this place, but I was taught to take the suffering and pain, put my emotions in a box and lock them away.

I wonder if I can ever unlearn their ways.

Personal Response Brave New World

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley tells the story of a dystopian futuristic society and how many weird things that we dont have in our society like using drugs to be happy, reproductive technology, human cultives, and more, are completely normal things in their day to day lifes. At the start I was really confused, I didnt know what was going on or where it was going, but after a while I got the hang of it. Some thing that really got me thinking is how they outcast others just because of their different preferences, for example Bernard didnt like always having sex with anyone or taking soma at the start of the series, and people didnt like him, we do the same thing in todays society, even if we dont notice it, Brave New World is kinda similar to our own world in different ways. Overall this book really gets you thinking of where you are right now, living in the “perfect society” we are in today, isnt much that different from the one mentioned in the book.

GYM – PW #6

This story goes back to last week. I was at the gym (it was time for chest training), when I got to the point in my routine where I had to do an exercise called “dumbbell lunges”. Depending on the inclination of the bench this exercise works one or another part of the pectoral.
Anyways, in the exercise there is a moment where you have to bring the dumbbells together at the highest point. So I was doing the exercise and when I go up I usually make sure that the dumbbells collide with each other and not with my hands. But it didn’t always work out. So on the second to last set, I overdid it and the dumbbell smashed my pinky finger against the other dumbbell and shattered.

Currently my finger is purple and leaking blood into the nail.
As advice I can tell you, do not be afraid to put weight on the exercises, but be careful with the technique.

 

Go hit the gym guys!

Personal response_Brave new World

The novel “Brave New World” from Aldous Huxley written in 1930 almost 100 years ago, shows a new and really messed up world. Brave New world tells a really strange story and interesting few on another world. I never read a book about a dystopia so I found the book very fascinating but complicated to read. For me it was also this kind of book that left me thinking for hours. Aldous Huxley made the book really interesting by showing us this new world and I really found myself in a completely different world because of all the new words and complicated words. Although in the beginning I had a few problems in understanding all the concept of this “Brave New World”, it was also a difficult English for me to read and I had to research and reread lot of parts in the book. But in the course of reading the book it all came together. It gave me a lot of scenes that left me thinking, especially the end left me really surprised and thinking for hours. I did not expected such a cruel end and still have lots of questions. For us this “Brave new World” Aldous Huxley describes sound awful and abnormal but for the people living in it, it was the normal world even a beautiful world that no one dared to question. The book also left me question about my “perfect world” and how I would see the future. By the end to say about the Book is that it was all over a really messed up story, it was very interesting to read and to imagine how Huxleys mind works. I did learn new things and enjoyed the Book when I found myself into this “Brave new world”.

Personal Writing #6

 

This week my team and I traveled to Vancouver for our provincial championship. This was a great experience which I will always remember. Tuesday morning, we loaded up the bus and left to catch our 1pm ferry. Upon arrival we embraced in our home for the next five days. It was an air BnB which we stayed in on an extremely good deal. The house was huge with four bathrooms, and seven bedrooms. Our schedule was hectic and packed, but we made it work. Everyone worked together to cook and clean. To start off the tournament we dressed up in suits and participated in the banquet. The tournament was held at the Langley Event Centre. This facility is amazing, and the tournament was very well organized.

We won our first game through grit and hard work in the second half, placing us eight or better. Unfortunately, we lost to the winners of the whole tournament in our second game because of our second quarter performance where they scored over twenty points. From there we couldn’t claw back. I injured my hip in the second game by diving on the floor for a loose ball. However, we still had a chance to come fifth in BC by winning our third and fourth game. Our team played hard, but they came out strong in the first quarter and our rebounding and putbacks were terrible. We lost by five points, being a new low for our team. At this point I felt that our hard work was a little wasted because we had the potential and skills to beat every team there. I couldn’t play in this game due to my injury. This made the loss even more difficult because I couldn’t help my teammates when they needed me. We finished strong on our last game winning by forty points and placing seventh in the tournament.

I couldn’t ask for better teammates or coaches and loved participating in the BC provincial championship. I will miss the grade twelves leaving our team and admire their hard work this season. I look forward to next year and hope to come back.

PR Brave New World

There are two most famous dystopian novels known. One is “Brave New World’, which we read in class, and the other is “1984” by George Orwell. Both books have main characters who disagree with the idea and policy of the dystopian government. They both are in society from the far future, where everything is different from now. However, how each writer thinks about what a dystopian society will look like and how people will react to it is different.

In “1984”, society suppresses people with fear and violence. The ones who tried to raise their voices against Big Brother-the leader of the society, ‘double-plus-good person’-are tortured and restricted. Citizens there are more likely to be aware of what is wrong with the current government. Also, through the context that’s about how the main character gets tortured and his complaints removed, Orwell directly shows the book is about dystopia. Readers can easily see the citizens suffering and they will be happier if they are free from Big Brother.

“Brave New World” by Huxley has a different approach to telling the audience this is about dystopia. It almost seems that Huxley is promoting the idea that Brave New World is good. In the class, many students were concerned that Huxley was trying to do that. Citizens in the New World are so happy. They are absolutely satisfied with their jobs. The economy is perfect. They are never concerned or depressed. Sentences they are taught during sleep teaching solve every problem. Furthermore, one gram of soma, a pill that magically works in your brain to make you feel absolute euphoria is there for everyone. Everyone belongs to everyone, so no one cries over lover problems, and children are guaranteed to be raised in trained nurses’ hands. This is somehow eutopia, and overall, this book is very confusing. The readers are not sure if they should criticize or defend the New World from Mr. Savage who is bullying poor gammas by taking their soma away.

The idea of Huxley about the future of society was very different from Orwell’s. Orwell thought violence and restriction were needed to control citizens. He believed that people will raise their voices and they will notice easily if something is taking their freedom away. Huxley thought lesser than that was needed to control citizens. That they will not even realize they lost their freedom as long as they are amused. That they are easily deceived if they get what they want and stay in the position where they seem superior to others.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

(A Quote from Amusing Ourselves to Death, n.d.)

The caste system, soma, and all the other entertainments block people to notice something is wrong with their lives. They are taught to be satisfied and feel superior to the lower castes. Soma and feelies, electronic golf, and promiscuous relationship replace Shakespeare. People don’t need “Othello.”

So what did Huxley try to say through this book? Should we follow the Controller and give up our freedom to take soma and be happy forever? For this question, Huxley clarifies that this book is criticizing the New World in the later chapters.

…Those human maggots swarming round Linda’s bed of death, the endlessly repeated face of his assailants.

…’But how useful!’

(l.195 of Brave New World)

The Controller, in fact, doesn’t care about the wellness of the citizens. He only cares about how “effectively” everything will go. The wellness of the citizens is only taken care of if it’s related to the entire economy. Babies are tortured to hate nature and books. They are happy with countryside sports, but this is not for their own kind, it is to force them to consume transportation. In fact, even this effectiveness is not perfect. Human beings naturally have something that doesn’t work with the Controller’s policy. There are a lot of “errors.” Bernard and Henry Foster are dissatisfied with their jobs. Lenina falls for John and gets obsessed with him, it almost seems like a committed relationship.

At the end of “1984,” the main character gives up the social movement as soon as he gets tortured and is brainwashed. Orwell seemed like he believes in human kinds and the fact they will raise their voices. But in the end, he makes sure that even those cannot survive the violence and will eventually surrender. On the other hand, Huxley’s belief even defends human beings.

John the Savage hangs himself at the very end. He disappears, yet doesn’t get brainwashed and follows the Controller. Some outcasts will be motivated and quote his voice. There still will be “errors,” and they will have an example of how the New World is not for everyone and forced someone to death. It will take a long time for the citizens in the New World to realize something, but John has left something for Lenina and Henry Foster. The movement in “1984” has ended, but the change in “Brave New World” has just started.

He confuses the readers the whole time throughout the book. But the message he is trying to tell us is that despite of how it looks like a eutopia, it can be a trick to deceive you. Just like what he did in the book. Huxley argues that even though we are easily deceived by amusement, there must be errors with the system and it will leave us with something that’s strange. Something strange enough to let us step out of the dystopia.

 

Personal Response to Brave New World

A couple pages into reading this book I knew it was going to be like something I have never read before. As strange things kept making their way into the chapters, I continued to wonder how these certain topics would make sense in on coming pages. It soon would make sense the more I read, but at the same time it is completely ridiculous. Topics jump back and forth, and things that you wouldn’t think are possible, are. Finishing this book it brought me to the idea on how different our society could really be and the different possibilities of dynamics.

To start, the setting Brave New World focuses on the idea of being a futuristic and idealistic society. As the author focused on the book being a dystopia, the setting had many twists that may or not be possible for the future. As the whole story setting is based off the idea of people being created in labs, with thousands of people looking the same, it carries and effects the whole setting of the book. Through chapters, it continues to mention how there are not to be mothers or fathers, and is frowned upon. Anyone who had become a mother or father on accident in the “normal world”, are sent to a small society fenced off from the world. These fenced off society’s, known as savage reservations, there are normal people, people like us today. People in these reservations get sent there due to punishment, or people grow up there and believe that is the proper way to live.

Lastly, criticism played a very strong role towards all characters throughout this book. There were musts, and if you do not participate in those, then you are off to a savage reservation because you would be counted as “different”. There was a continuous amount of drug usage to contain sexual behavior, as well as an every citizen not being able to choose their own life. It was normal to interact with people in sexual games at a very young age, infants are taught to not like certain things, like flowers for example, just because that is what you must do to keep society straight. There were such drugs known as soma, soma is what people would take to feel happy, and to a certain amount taken, they would have the feelies. Soma would have people ignore the society around them and not notice how terrible it really was, they would feel brainwashed in a way to continue living “happy”.

Overall, this novel has given me an idea how no matter what our society looks like, it is never going to be perfect, because it’s impossible. Nothing is perfect, not even humans, there is always going to be someone to be against any choice made. People are going to be doing other things like soma, to distract themselves to that they can’t pay attention to how awful the real world is.

 

Personal Response To Brave New World

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is not like other books or stories. It shows us the history and the prediction of the future that is controlled by new technology and by the government. This book taught me so many things, made me ask myself new questions, and made me doubt if a dystopia as shown in the book would be the perfect place to live or the worst idea ever. It made me feel sometimes shocked about all the things that were happening, as well as intrigued, and at the same time also confused, most of the time I got confused but then I tried to understand I get it, as well sometimes it was easy to imagine the things and the event that were happening in my head.

I know that maybe for some people this society or world would be a great idea and would love to live in a place like this, but for me, it’s not the best idea. First of all, I don’t like the idea of the government controlling us, and telling us what to do, what emotions we can feel, how to act, everything. I’m like in between liking or not liking the idea of not having to worry about getting a job or food, literally you are just worried about being happy and taking soma. I did like all the points and important things the story tells, also how Huxley tells the story, in a way that everything is understood and well explained. The story leaves us with many things to think about, like if technology is good for society and to what point we as humans can go. In the end, we realized that this society is not so different from how we live today. Brave New World talks about some problems and these same problems we can see them in our modern society as well, such as the use of medicine and drugs, woman and gender equality, and the bigger problem in the book which is traditional marriage.

I didn’t think that the book would end that way, I thought about many ways but not this one. John felt that he has betrayed everything that he believes, all the good things that he thought were right are now wrong, he feels disgusted for acting as he acted, forgetting about his personal beliefs, taking soma, participating in bad activities, etc… he even got to the point of feeling disgusted for himself and maybe this is the reason he suicide, this is sad because this also happens in the real world, people end up with their lives for many reasons and some of there reason may include the same as John’s. As the book kept going we didn’t really see sad or depressing emotions, until the end of John’s situation, we could finally see all the emotions that the society had classified as human fragilities.

 

Personal Response to Brave New World

Often, features inside fictional dystopian worlds are criticisms on the conditions of the author’s surroundings. Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World was written in the 1930s, making it nearly a century old, and our world has changed vastly since then. When reading this novel, we meet a variety of characters within a society which seems not only intensely different from the one we live in today, but also irrational and unethical. Though when diving deeper into some of the details of Huxley’s fictional world, we notice that there are aspects that aren’t too different from the reality we live in today.

To begin, aspects of inequality and discrimination due to race, tradition/religion, appearance, opinions and gender are still very prominent in the story. Racism and shame towards other traditions and religions is seen when Lenina visits the Savage Reservation. She finds their customs and appearances to be unusual, which she voices in a negative emotion. Lower castes are also discriminated against, not only for their place in society, but also their height (which is mentioned several times throughout the novel). Bernard is a main example of someone being shoved away from society due to different values and opinions, one of them tying to another problem in this world of women being viewed as lesser than men as Bernard is disappointed that Lenina views herself as a “piece of meat”. Each of these criticisms are still seen very commonly in today’s world, and while they are not always displayed to the same extent as in Brave New World, they are issues we continue to face in our society today.

Next, possibly the largest criticism of the world Huxley was living in was the more flamboyant and uncivilized part of society. This includes the use of drugs and ostentatious sexual behaviors, as well as the consumer lifestyle. These aspects can be seen throughout the book, such as in the important role of soma, as well as attending the solidarity services and feelies. The encouragement of sexual activity in younger ages is also a major aspect that we find rather obscene, but the average age that someone is involved in sexual activity is significantly lower today than during Huxley’s years. And while it is not to the same extent described in Brave New World, it is following this critiqued trend created by Huxley. Another element to this is the normalization of seeing multiple people at once. In the 1930s, to even think of such thing was extremely unsophisticated and looked down upon, and while that is still mostly true today, it is far more accepted when compared to the opinions of that time. Lastly, the presence of high consumption is not directly censured, but nevertheless an aspect of this fictional society, Huxley’s society and ours today that he continues to criticize.

So while Brave New World may seem vastly different from the world we live in today, some of its major features that contribute to its dystopian appearance exist in the society that we claim to be immensely better than this fictional one.

Nyah Sharratt – 03/12

Brave New World Personal Response

Before we started reading this book my brother warned me it was a strange story. After finishing it I understand what he was telling me. This book had many things That were messed up in it. From the time when scientists were conditioning the children to hate flowers and books, to the time when John Savage started whipping himself and a woman. There were many times that this book made me question what I was reading and why I was reading it. Even though this book had many… strange events it also had some interesting things as well. My favourite part in this book was when the three men; Bernard, Helmholtz, and John the savage all were together talking to the controller Mustapha Mond. I liked this part in the book because after questioning why all of these rules were put in place in this society, we finally got some answers. One specific part in this book really stuck to me, when Mond was talking with John and Helmholtz about love stories. John and Helmholtz wanted stories and movies to be more passionate like Othello, but Mond persisted saying:

“Our world is not the same as Othello’s world. You can’t make flivvers without steel-and you can’t make tragedies without social instability; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; there safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they are blissfully, ignorant of passion and old age; there plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers, to feel strongly about; there so condition that they practically can’t help behaving as they are to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma.” (p. 193-194)

After reading this I realized why the world in this book was the way it was, Mond made me realize that even thought this sounds like a horrible place to us from the outside, from the inside it might be better than we think. Even though the citizens don’t get to experience things that give us pleasure like passion and love they do have something that we do not, they never have to worry about anything really, all of their problems have been solved, and they just live their life. After reading thing book, I am questioning what a perfect world would be like; a world with equip ups and downs or a world with no passion and choice.

 

Wheels vs. Windows PW#6

It is difficult to determine whether there are more wheels or windows in the world despite the fact that both are ubiquitous. They are found across cultures and sectors and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Every day, millions of wheels are used in vehicles, machinery, and equipment all over the world, and their number varies depending on factors like these. Likewise, how many buildings, homes, and vehicles there are around the world affects how many windows there are. As far as I know, there are more wheels in this world than windows. Considering the fact that the toy car manufacturer ‘Hot Wheels’ produces 500 million cars every year, I am inclined to believe this. That is approximately two billion wheels.

BNW Personal Response

When we first began reading the book Brave New World, I’m not going to lie, it was horrible. The book made absolutely zero sense to me. The whole “Brave new world” was just a really strange thought to me, and it sounded terrible. Then, as the book progressed, we were slowly introduced to new characters. Characters like Lenina (although she was really annoying in my opinion) and Helmholtz added more depth to the story, which increased my interest. However, the part where I feel I really started liking the book was when Bernard was focused upon. Bernard was one of the stranger characters. From his strange personality, to his huge ego, learning more and more about him made the book more enjoyable for me. After learning more about Bernard, him and Lenina take a trip to the savage reservation, where they meet John and Linda. This chapter was packed full of interesting things. For example, we got to see the upbringing of John. In a lot of ways, he was like Bernard. He was a loner. He enjoyed things like reading, which no one else liked. Similarly, Bernard also enjoys things no one else does. Knowing this, you’d think they would become friends, right? Well, they did at first, then John betrays Bernard by not showing up at a party that Bernard had planned for everyone to see him. A few short chapters later, John, Bernard and Helmholtz are all arrested and brought before Mustapha Mond, a World Controller, for John throwing Soma out a hospital window, and the other two being his friends. Here, the 4 engage in a long conversation, where Bernard makes a last-ditch effort to not get deported by throwing John and Helmholtz under the bus. it backfires, and the trio are all deported to separate islands. The last chapter is purely focused on John. He is living in complete isolation, trying to live his best life. This is made hard, however, as there is constantly reporters and people filming him everywhere. It gets to the point where John the Savage decides to hang himself, putting himself out of his misery

Huxley’s Brave New World was a rollercoaster of a ride to say the least. There were plots that I couldn’t have guessed in a million years, which made the book a lot more enjoyable. With all things considered, I truly did enjoy the novel.

PW#6

I don’t like it when unexpected things interrupt my plans. It’s kind of a stereotype. We don’t decide to go out or do something on that day, and we don’t usually cancel plans on that day suddenly, either, in Japan (maybe it depends on the person). Though it’s important to be flexible, I don’t want to waste the time that I planned and prepared. Me and my friend planned to go to eat Japanese food on Sunday a week ago. But he suddenly told me that he couldn’t go and suggested to go to the café instead on Saturday night. For me, it was a little late to change the plan. I wanted to know earlier. And also, the same thing happened to my best friend. We complained about it. It’s okay to change the plans, but I wanted him to tell me as soon as possible so that we could manage our plans. Lastly, I want to say that I’m (we’re) not mad at them, just in case they read this.

BNW Personal Response: “Blissfully Ignorant of Passion”

“People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about . . .”

                ~Mustapha Mond, Brave New World

One emotion. Happiness. At all costs. Would you forfeit your human rights, your free will, your creativity if you could feel happy all the time? How far would you go in the pursuit of constant happiness?

What stuck me the most about Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, is the concept of a society whose main goal is maintaining happiness. They believe happiness equals stability. And the World State takes furious measures to stay happy. Growing babies in hatcheries? Sure! Mass state-sanctioned drug use and recreational sex? Why not! Constant brainwashing propaganda? Definitely! Anything to avoid feeling.

When my grandfather died, I had never felt such extreme sadness in my entire life. I felt it in my whole body. It was horrible. Absolute despair, and pain I thought would never go away. Yet, even in the worst moments of grief, there is no way I would trade any of it away, if it meant not having had that connection with my grandad.

In contrast, citizens in Huxley’s World State don’t know love. Or connection. Or art. They know soma. They know feelies. And they know hypnopaedia. They use tools to avoid grief, jealousy, and sorrow. While their society might be stable, it is dull and artificial.

One emotion. Only happiness. Like painting in only one colour, or composing a song using only one chord, forever. That is definitely not for me. To me, it is the range of highs and lows, of shadows and highlights, and of all the notes in between, that make up a human experience worth living. 

Responding to Huxley’s Brave New World, life in Mustapha Mond’s artificial society “blissfully ignorant of passion”, sounds to me like plodding through a monotonous desensitized existence in a beige version of hell.

Train to Nowhere: PW #6

The other groups are long gone. Shane’s group is stationary, sitting just where they were dropped off. Quinn and Frank have been bickering about the contents of their backpacks for what seem like hours. Georgie and Justin have been investigating the latch at the front gate, but nothing will budge it. They have tried throwing rocks at it, using their match to melt the metal, but the latch is invulnerable. While the girls are comforting each other of their devastating life path, Shane finally stands up and walks towards the ticketing office. The ticketing office is on a slightly different zone than where the teens have been left off. Though it looks much newer than the rest of the surroundings, the office does not welcome them with open arms. Georgie abandons the gate and catches up to Shane, along with Justin. The rest group mutually agrees to follow the boys to the office, though Sandra is hesitant at first.

“Guys, are you sure it’s safe to be wandering around like this?” She squeaks.

“No one’s coming to get us, Sandra. Sorry to burst your tiny spoiled little bubble,” Ben complains.

The walls of the entrance section of the station is painted in an odd green colour, one that hurts your eyes if you stare at it for too long. Posters illustrating new train lines, cabins, and even foods are faded. Passing the ticketing booths and various souvenir shops, the group reached a metal door with a small window panel that looks into the room. Authorized personnel only, the sign glows in red.

The door screeches as Justin opens the door, “Hello?” He only asks that to be polite, “I’m surprised the door’s unlocked, haha.” Anny beams her flashlight into the room. Scattered around are what student’s desks look like at school.

“Looks more like a classroom than an office, I’ll tell you that much,” Quinn utters. The students investigated the room only to find it trashed. Books are scatter all over the floor, the chalk board have not been cleaned, even the desks had slime covering it. Just in front of the chalkboard, a teacher’s desk. A vivid red doll stands atop the paperwork.

“I am the Daruma!” The doll exclaims. It turns around facing the students. Despite having spots for two eyes, only an eye stares at the group.

“What the hell is this!” Ben yells, “Why the hell is it talking!”

Georgie exclaims, “Must’ve been one of the many puzzles whoever made this whole trip set up. What do you want now, Daruma.” Suddenly the door behind them slam shut.

“Wow, Georgie! Aren’t you a cute little smarty-pants,” the Daruma roars, “Do tell me your amazing plans to escape this station! I’m sure everyone can count on you!” The Daruma hopped to face Quinn. “And you! Super-Quinn! Isn’t that what everyone calls you at school? Not so much of a well-rounded guy, huh? Always being the second place, next to Georgie, right? Isn’t it fun!?”

“What’s wrong with you!” Daniella yells. “Nothing’s wrong with being sec—”

“Aw hush-hush, you. Don’t you feel miserable having to take care of everyone, knowing no one’s there to take care of you? It’s like you’re wasting all of your precious energy with these scumbags you call friends,” the Daruma mocks, “And Justin! Why are you still friends with Frank if he brings your reputation down with his perverted jokes? It’s been 3 years! Just leave him! It doesn’t matter if your parents need the connection for their—”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!” Justin interrupts.

“Oh, and Abby! How does it feel to be pining on a girl you KNOW will never even take a second look at you?” The Daruma mocks, “Poor you. So hopeful that she’ll even acknowledge your efforts!” It bounces to face Shane, “Oh Shane~ you know, you always strike me as someone who thinks they have no flaws, but in reality, you don’t know what you’re doing at all! One day, you’d have to face your fears of acknowledging your weaknesses.”

“Oh, come on now! You don’t have to be mad at me! Or else you’ll just end up like Benny!” Shane replies.

“What’s that supposed to mean you bit—” Benjamin cried, only to be interrupted by the Daruma once again. “Hey, control your temper, man. Those times you spent at the principal’s office means nothing to you? Finally, Sandra. Your friends left you so you can be with a bunch of nobody’s, huh. Maybe they’re finally tired of your bratty attitude. Good for them.”

Sandra starts to sob again, Anny can only comfort her by wrapping her arms around Sandra.

“Anyway, my job here is done! Bye-bye!” The Daruma turns its back towards the group. Shame, anger, sadness fills the room. BOOM! An explosion just above the office is heard.

“RUN!” Georgie yells. Debris covers the group’s line of sight as they escape the office one by one. The ceiling falls, the walls crumble. The group rendezvous just outside the souvenir shops. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine… Where is Benjamin? In the remnants, the Daruma two eyes stare at the group before vanishing into thin air.

Personal Writing #6

In June, my family, cousins and grandparents have planed a family trip to Europe. We are going to France, Switzerland, and Italy. I am very excited for this trip! In France we are gong to Paris and Versailles. I am very excited to eat a baguette and croissant. We are going to drive through the alps in Switzerland and go to a place called Gruyere. I have looked at lots of photos and it seems very beautiful. We haven’t planed what we are going to do in Italy yet. On the way back we are going along the French riviera and Italian Riviera. I am really looking forward to swimming and the beaches. I am so excited for this trip with my family!

My personal response to Brave New World:

Reading the novel Brave New World by Aldus Huxley was… an experience. I didn’t know how to feel about it when I first started reading it, but by the end, I was grateful to have read this strange, confusing, and eye-opening novel. After finishing the last chapter, I reflected on the novel, and I became sad; I realized how similar this Brave New World is to our current world. You wouldn’t think our world has anything in common with this Brave New World, but unfortunately it does.

Keeping up with the latest trends is a huge part of our society. If you don’t have the coolest clothes, newest iPhone and know all the latest slang; it’s hard to be popular or connect with your peers. This was also something I noticed in Brave New World, how the scientists were so eager to mass produce children and move on from the “traditional” ways of reproducing. When I read how they “reproduce”, I was in shock and immediately thought of my opinion; it is unethical. They probably didn’t think of or care about how ethical it was, they were just so excited to use the new, “shiny” technology. Similarly, to how on our social media there are trends that are either unkind or even dangerous.

You would think that in a Brave New World, everyone would be treated equally, there would be gender equality, and equal opportunity for all. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Just like our society, they have social classes/castes. Women were talked about as if they were a prize, and even though the lower casts (Epsilons) were trained to enjoy their jobs such as a garbage man or toilet cleaner, they are still treated as less. I even connected it to how we’ve become almost immune to the fact that there are still people with no food, clean water, and no roof over their heads. It was eye opening and an unfortunate reminder of so.

Lastly, due to the fact that they were all twins and thought to think a certain way, there was no individuality. For example, Bernard, he was different, he was shorter and less attractive than other Alphas. He was made fun of for it too; people even made jokes about how he was poisoned with alcohol as a fetus. Following that passage, I made a connection to our society; due to social media, tv shows and movies, we are taught to act, dress and think a certain way, which also creates no individuality. If we are less attractive, too smart, or slightly overweight, we also get made fun of.

I was saddened by all the similarities our world had to the Brave New World. Of course, we haven’t started mass producing children in factories, who all act and look the same, but we don’t have to; social media is doing that for us. It was shocking to reflect on the similarities but I’m glad I’ve read this novel. It gave me a chance to reflect on what part I play in our society and how I want to change it, for the better.

IRJE #5

In the mind opening novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, the un-named Narrator meets the gorilla Ishmael after seeing an ad in the newspaper asking for somebody who wants to save the world. He goes to the place where Ishmael is and they discuss how life came to be. Many different ideas and stories. The main one is the story of the “Takers” and the story of the “Leavers”. The Narrator tells his own story after heaing Ishmael’s stories and then comes to a realization that he had said pretty much the same story that Ishmael told.

“Something occurs to me.” I said.

“Yes?”

“It occurs to me that the story I just told is in fact the story the leavers have been enacting here for three million years. The Taker’s story is, ‘The gods made the world for man, but they botched the job, so we had to take matters into our own, more competent hands.’ The Leavers’ story is, ‘The gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows and rabbits for the world; this seems to have worked pretty well so far, so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods.'”

The Takers are us, the modern humans. The ones who see themselves as the top of the world and will govern it how they see fit. The ones who will conquer everything and anything they want with their technological advancements. The ones who dont need gods anymore and see themselves as becoming gods. The Leavers are the ones who lived in tribes and lived simple lives. They just followed life the same way any other living thing does. Ishmael makes it clear that the Takers will burn the planet and die out with it.