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"0, Wonder!
Row ©any goodly creatures art there here
Bow beaateoue sankind is! 0 Breve Hew World,
That has such people in it!"
1
Miranda's sense of innocent wonder expressed in the
passage does inply positive exhilaration despite the
veiled irony which Shakespeare introduces into the
context. Huxley's Brave Haw World exploits the
potential of double aeaning hinted in the passage
in The Teapest,
Huxley's world is well ordered to
a fault. All oare is taken not to leave anything
to chance in order to perfect the 'welfare tyranny*
with the help of science and technology. Muetaphe
Mond knows all, and knows better then anyone. He
is the all-wise Supreao, dedicated to the cause of
the happiness of its people.
Instead of fresdow,
one is offered synthetic happiness. Hers "affection
and loyalty ara unneoeesary, beauty is a synthetic
1. Willies 8hakee pears, The Tempest. fhe Works of
Willis® Shakespeare Hditsd by Willlaw George
Clark and Willie® Aid is Wright. Macwillan A Co.,
1961.
P. 20.
4-1
product, truth is arranged in a test tube said hope
is supplied in a pill.” 2
70 4r»l
"You are claiming the right to be unhappy?” ^
Mond warns the Savage in his famous dialogue with
him at the end of Brave Hew World.
In their
confrontation, we get the entixe ideology behind
the benevolent engineering of this world where the
individual is rarely suffered to exist on his own,
where to be free is to be freakish, where conformity
is convention#
Over-populat ion, over- organ iza t ion—are the
two basic challenges.
the help of science,
challenge.
Ihese have been overcome with
social justice is another
That is also overcome by producing
children who are genetically inoculated against
the temptations of freedom.
A society of neatly divided classes—each
class having its own right and privileges, duties
and responsibilities. No one would think of
3. Aldous Huxley,
Brave Mew World.
r»
I9752.}
P.187
«l * UNIVERSITY LHMAft*
%tf AN 7 APUMfllV
42
-
crossing the barriers*
Ho one is jealous or envious
of the other.
Even God can fail and the f ordians are
no exception,
ihere are genetic freaks even in this
scientifically augnarked world, where quality control
(eugenics) is a fetish.
freaks.
Bernard and Helmolta are
Bernard is different because of an accident
in the test tube (decanted differently with alcohol
in the blood surrogate.)
It is a crime to be unique and different in
this world.
You belong, always.
suffered only by an individual.
Alienation is
And there are no
individuals in Brave New World, except perhaps Mond
Bernard,
Hence the importance of John Savage.
He
becomes the measure by which the ’Brave New* norms
of this world are judged.
His sensibility is used
to highlight and evaluate the imponderable problems
of freedom and happiness*
How does John Savage
4-3
react to the sacred frltes of passage*- of life—birth,
death, marriage and love?
How do the Fordians react
to these? John »vage responds as an pitying Igr
tarns*
Motherhood is a shameful thing here,
at the very mention of parents*
loa blush
One is conditioned
against any coriaal feelings related to death*
love
is not a unique experience*
All profound experiences that sate nan an alive
Ppleating hetman being are excised with scientific
precision
genetic engineering, hypnopaedia, death­
conditioning and the aoraa pill.
A dehumanised, pneumatic, synthetic world
where to be implies to occupy an assorted, pxe-ds ter mins d
slot—a pigeon-hole especially designed for you*
And
there is no means of escape from the strangle-hold of
.
44
your slot*
W&at ia wore#* you begin to, and you
are mad* to lots your slot*
The people of the F ord tan world are manufactured
la bottle a*
They are conditioned from birtb ia all
tbe ways? proposed ly the psychologists*
iheir heredity
and environment are absolutely determined*
ibe bottle*
products bav* no moral tensions as their aetions lead
to no moral consequences*
They escape from reality
easily by the use of soma, a drug more powerful than
any isdatiie drug*
It beeps the people In a stats of
•uphorla and thus prisoning and coafiaiag the hwaa
spirit*
Through the hypnopaedio methods aad sleepteaching the people art taught proverbs that fill
and mates up their minds throughout their lives*
for in stanos**
4J?
•Everyone belongs to everyone else*
4
•Ending is betttr them mending *
5
♦The more stichee the less riches*
6
♦When the individual feels* the community reels* 7
and
♦A graazne is better than a damn’
8
*Whg and will make me ill1
9
are a few hypeopaedie proverbs*
Besides thege, the
slogans pertaining to class consciousness are also
taught through sleep-teaching.
& the Fordian world
Alpha and Beta classes are decanted different from
the Gammas* Epsilons and Delias which are "saved
from books and botany all their lives*'
10
x
by subject­
ing them to electric shocks while they are infants.
"Books and loud noises* flowers and electric
shocks—already in the infant mind are compromising^
4 to 9.
10.
Brave New World, k, 42 to 88.
Ibid.,
k. 29.
AS
linked;
and after two hundred repetitions of the
game or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly
what man has joined, nature is powerless to put
asunder." 11
Erotic play in children in encouraged.
Women
are completely promiscuous.
There are no families
and there is no mother love.
Though the people of
the Fordian World look abnormal in their behaviour,
they are the right persons suited best to their
world.
The normal ones in the Fordian world are
those who are extravagant and outrageous.
is inverted normalcy.
Theirs
Anything steady is denied
in this world.
Anyone who tries to express one's self is
branded as an eccentric in the brave new world.
For
instance Helmholtz Watson, a laboratory mistake like
11. Brave Hew World.
23.
9
4-7
Bernard Marx, is can side red an eccentric because of
the queer feeling he exhibits in hi a behaviour.
Helmholtz is airfare that he hag something important
to say and that he has the power to
&ty
it.
But
the amblente of the world in which he lives, deprives
him of that power.
He struggles and, one day while
talking to Bernard, he succeeds to let out the volcano
in him.
It is the volcano of words and his faith
in their power.
Helmholtz believes that words, if
used proper Jy, will pierce through anything like
X-rays.
He is sad at the way the words are used in
the brave new world.
His angpish is not understood;
instead, it is taken for eccentricity by the fellowbeings of his world. And so is the case of Bernard
Marx.
"Alchohol in his blood surrogate”
to he the reason for his eccentricity.
12
ia supposed
He too like
Helmholtz, feels vaguely something individual about
12. Brave Hew World.
1. 76
4-8
himself*
He doesn't like crowds and wants to do
%
things in private.
diking to Ieniaa9 he says*
"It makes as feel • •• as though I wars more Ht
If you ase what I mean.
Hors on my own* not so
completely a part of something else* Hot jest a
cell in the socialbodjr*" ^ lenina9 who is a
faultless product of the 9hrave new world* 9 is
shocked at the blasphemous talk of Bernard*
Mice
most other perfect products of the brave new world,
she does not know what it is to be an Individual*
Her knowledge is taugbt-knowledge9 her responses
are oultivatad-re sponses*
Her mind is a made-up
mind9 filled completely with faypnopaedie proverbs*
Hence she is unresponsive to Bernard*s agony to
be himself*
later in the novel the author makes
use of this character as a yard-stick to meastve
the depth of difference between a normal human-be lng
and a brave-newworIdian•
15* ten.fffy. .Horl4t
3he Is attracted hy Jobs
1. 78
43
savage who deeply falls in love with her*
John
Savage is a normal human “being who has come to the
brave new world from the Indian continent along
with his mother Linda.
Ualike savage, his mother
and father are products of the brave new world.
They are bottle-bred.
In an accident Linda gets
lost on a trip to the Indian continent,
iregaant
at that time, she gives birth to a male child*
John savage.
The atmosphere in which John Savage
KI $
grows up* makes him a striking contrast to hex mother
in his behaviour.
of the Indians.
He learns the manners and customs
His reading of Shakespeare teaches
him the value of tears and emotions.
He dislikes
his mother sleeping with several men but his protests
are met with beatings by his mother.
But it always
fascinates him when hi smother talks about the
other world from which she has come.
it.
He longs to see
When the opportunity castes, he goes to the
•brave new world* along with his mother, in the company
of Bernard Marx and Lenina.
at the life in the
But soon he is disappointed
brave new world.
However, he
50
gets attracted to Lenina and loves her ”10ore than
anything in the world." ** Lanina shows interest
in the new comer as she just "wants to know what it
is like to make love to a savage."
'
Utolike the
Sfrvage, she has no strong emotions attachedto the
idea of love.
Love for her is "as good as soma."
It is just a sport to Indulge In and get out.
16
Bit
for John Savage it is a sacred rite, which should
be performed with the holy permission sought from
Gods in the institution of marriage.
In Shakespeare
he has read:
"If chou dost break a virgin knot before
all sanctimonious ceremonies may and with
full holy rite." ^
Be has observed the Malpians following this custom.
He knows how Malpians marry and make promises to
live together always.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Brave Hew World.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Be knows what is love
P.
P.
P*
P.
152
153
133
152
and the sacrifices it entails* He wants Lenina, to
understand him* fo win her love he ia prepared to
da anything.. shrill do anything
tell me*
know*
anything you
I’here be some smarts are painful*
lou
But their labour delight in them sets of.
i'h&t*s what i feel*
if you wan ted* *
I mean I*d sweep the floor
18
Nothing about marriage and sacrifices in love
goes into the he..d of Lenina,
and embarrasses her*
It drives her crasy
She doesn't seem to find any
point in the J*vage making a lengthy speech ^ast
for an act of love*
All that she understands in
the savage's speech is that he loves her more than
anything else in the world*
18. Brave Hew World.
She comes out of the
km 151.
Zippers sad embraces the Savage*
fbe Savage is
disgusted at her behaviour and feels ashamed of
her whorish attitude*
3nspite of his love for
her* he scolds her as an “impudent atrmapet*"
13
m
is shoo bed at the civilization of the ‘brave
new world* • His dreams of it are shattered* And
his disgust reaches its acme*
He is enraged when
he finds that the body of bis dead mother is taken
as an object and used for * death-conditioning**
Absence of human emotions and blindness to the valuss
of sacred rites of life among the bxave new worldlans
males him shuddsr with rage and he goes about destroying
tbs root cause of their blindness*
Marx and Helmholtz
assist the savage a« be tries to destroy a large
13* Brave Hew World*
*. 154.
53
quantity of soma pills,
The police take them into
custody and bring them be tore .ion a for interrogation.
The Mirage is questioned by Mond^te Mmi
hates the ‘brave new world'.
why he
lor the savage, the
happiness of the brave new world is too ignominious
to be achieved at the sacrifice of Art, science,
God and Religion.
"... You seem to have paid a fairly high price
for your happiness,H
20
Savage tellE Mond.
He
doesn’t want to live in a world where God, religion,
nobility, heroism, chastity, tears are got rid of,
where the stings and arrows are abolished, and
where nothing costs enough.
He wants tears and the
calmness that comes after a tempest.
20. Brave Hew World.
1. 180.
54
"I don’t want comfort, I want God,
I want poetry, I want real danger,
I want freedom, I want goo due sa,
I want sin,"
the Savage tells Hond.
•lo Hoad, John Savage seems to be claiming
iX$ ■WeU.C.tv .
ke
the right to be unhappy and^tells him^the same.
But the savage is resolved to accept the unhappiness,
that follows his claim.
He would not change his
mind, even if it happens to be claiming
"the right to become old, ugly, impotent?
the right to have syphilis and cancer?
the right to have too little to eat?
the right to be lousy?
21.
Brave Hew World.
the right to
P. 137
55
live in constant apprehension of what may happen
tomorrow! the right to eatch typhoid! the right
to be tortured by
"Alright# then#"
mspeafcable
pains of every kind*
the savage gives his decision
»
Hand welcomes it.
The savage is freed to go to the
place of his choice.
He leaves atjonce the world
f-or
that has poisoned and defiled him *« a solitary place
that stands on the crest of the (till between rut ten ham
and llstead.
Sat even in the new hermitage# he is
not left alone.
He is haunted by the to oughts of
Lenina and by a guilty feeling that he is not living
uplto the ideas he thought of in coming out of the
brave new world.
Moreover# he bee ones harassed by
the news-reporters and in a desperate bid to control
22. Brave Hew World.
23. Ibid.,
£,
187.
178.
22
56
his mind he admonishes himself by whipping and*
later by committing suicide#
Shis nightmarish world of unfreedom and
synthetic happiness is enclosed in the citadel of
science whose potential power can easily became
actual political power.
Huxley manages to show
how this power is apt to be abused* apt to become
tyranny.
The All-Wise Guardian is fcpt to become
too wise to be good to the people.
The inherent
will-to-order becomes the will-to-power brooking no
opposition.
"There are many roads to Beeare New World*
tot perhaps the straightest and the broadest
of them is the road we are travellin g
today, the road that leads through
gigantic numbers and accelerating increases." 24
24. Aldous Huxley* Brave New World - Revisited.
(Ghatto & WIndus, London).
p.
19
.