Literature Analysis 3: Brave New World

1.  The novel takes place in the future where people have been grown in bottles and society is perfectly happy and perfectly stable. The story starts in one of these hatcheries and goes on to describe this new world that the audience finds themselves in. Eventually, the audience meets Bernard Marx, a man who is unhappy with society. He is unhappy with the way the world has turned out, so he secludes himself from society and searches for someone who feels the same as him. One day, he takes an Alpha woman, Lenina, to the Reservation, a place where those who were born, not decanted, live. There he meets a woman who had been decanted and forced to live in a society and give birth. This woman had become everything that she had been conditioned to hate; old age, fat. When they return to society, this woman takes a permanent soma holiday to escape the hatred she has for herself. Her son, John is unaccustomed to this society and for the most part he doesn't understand how people can drug themselves with soma and only worry about sex. When his friends leave him, John retreats from London and lives his life as a Savage to the rest of the world trying to purify himself.

2. This novel is satirical upon society. During this time period, industrialization was taking off to a point that it was hard not to see its prominence. Also, Ford's assembly line was taking off. Capitalism was on the rise as were material items. People would buy things to gain some sort of happiness and use drugs to escape the world they lived in, one of war. In the novel this is represented by soma. After the wars, society was in shambles; people want to buy and get what they want, but people have to work. The world has suffered so much that they yearned for and remedy to fix it. In this novel, Huxley approaches a remedy, one in which society s stabilized to only experience happiness while sacrificing all other emotion. In this society people are decanted and conditioned into a specific caste so that all members of society will work to achieve stability. In the words of the Controller "Because 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. The world's stable now. 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; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!" He laughed. "Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!"

3.

The author’s tone is dramatic and descriptive. The author talks in great length of events that are happening and usesshort descriptions in dialogue unless they are explaining things. For example, the author's description of the hatchery room is extensive. The hatchery is an extensive room, but in this description is of one part of the hatchery. " The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables. "

"That's a charming little group," he said, pointing.

In a little grassy bay between tall clumps of Mediterranean heather, two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focussed attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game.

"Charming, charming!" the D.H.C. repeated sentimentally.

"Charming," the boys politely agreed. But their smile was rather patronizing. They had put aside similar childish amusements too recently to be able to watch them now without a touch of contempt. Charming? but it was just a pair of kids fooling about; that was all. Just kids. 

In this example, the author talks about a group of kids playing a "game". The author uses the extensive detail to portray this brave new world. Without these descriptions, this world would be left to much to the imagination and the author's theme would not come through.  "In the end she persuaded him to swallow four tablets of soma. Five minutes later roots and fruits were abolished; the flower of the present rosily blossomed. A message from the porter announced that, at the Warden's orders, a Reservation Guard had come round with a plane and was waiting on the roof of the hotel. They went up at once. An octoroon in Gamma-green uniform saluted and proceeded to recite the morning's programme. " Ironically, when the author is describing soma, a drug that is like water, the author is blunt and to the point. Yet he shows soma's ability to allow the user to escape reality.

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

Imagery- "on holiday in some other world, where the music of the radio was a labyrinth of sonorous colours, a sliding, palpitating labyrinth, that led (by what beautifully inevitable windings) to a bright centre of absolute conviction; where the dancing images of the television box were the performers in some indescribably delicious all-singing feely; where the dripping patchouli was more than scent–was the sun, was a million saxophones,"

Repetition- "O brave new world …" By some malice of his memory the Savage found himself repeating Miranda's words. "O brave new world that has such people in it."

Situational Irony- "Our library," said Dr. Gaffney, "contains only books of reference. If our young people need distraction, they can get it at the feelies. We don't encourage them to indulge in any solitary amusements." irony because of reading

Antithesis- Linda was dying in company–in company and with all the modern conveniences. The air was continuously alive with gay synthetic melodies.

Rhetorical Questions- Should she speak to him? Try to bring him back to a sense of decency? Remind him of where he was? Of what fatal mischief he might do to these poor innocents?

 Hyperbole-  Undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning with this disgusting outcry–as though death were something terrible, as though any one mattered as much as all that! It might give them the most disastrous ideas about the subject, might upset them into reacting in the entirely wrong, the utterly anti-social way.

Linda had been a slave, Linda had died; others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty. And suddenly it was luminously clear to the Savage what he must do; it was as though a shutter had been opened, a curtain drawn back.

Allusion- “Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about my ears and sometimes voices." Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Metaphor- Christianity without tears–that's what soma is."

Parallelism- "Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."

CHARACTERIZATION

1. Direct-

Ladies and gentlemen," the Director repeated once more, "excuse me for thus interrupting your labours. A painful duty constrains me. The security and stability of Society are in danger. Yes, in danger, ladies and gentlemen. This man," he pointed accusingly at Bernard, "this man who stands before you here, this Alpha-Plus to whom so much has been given, and from whom, in consequence, so much must be expected, this colleague of yours–or should I anticipate and say this ex-colleague?–has grossly betrayed the trust imposed in him. By his heretical views on sport and soma, by the scandalous unorthodoxy of his sex-life, by his refusal to obey the teachings of Our Ford and behave out of office hours, 'even as a little infant,'" (here the Director made the sign of the T), "he has proved himself an enemy of Society, a subverter, ladies and gentlemen, of all Order and Stability, a conspirator against Civilization itself. For this reason I propose to dismiss him, to dismiss him with ignominy from the post he has held in this Centre; I propose forthwith to apply for his transference to a Subcentre of the lowest order and, that his punishment may serve the best interest of Society, as far as possible removed from any important Centre of population. In Iceland he will have small opportunity to lead others astray by his unfordly example." The Director paused; then, folding his arms, he turned impressively to Bernard. "Marx," he said, "can you show any reason why I should not now execute the judgment passed upon you?"
In this quote the author is using the DHC to characterize Bernard. the Director blatantly calls out Bernard as being different and a threat to the stability of civilization.

He won't find another Savage to help him out a second time," they said. Meanwhile, however, there was the first Savage; they were polite. And because they were polite, Bernard felt positively gigantic–gigantic and at the same time light with elation, lighter than air.

In this quote the author describes Bernard's egotistical growth due to people's insincere kindness. This kindness had arisen from his popularity from the Savage.

Indircet-

"The wren goes to't and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight." Maddeningly they rumbled in his ears. "The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't with a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are Centaurs, though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit. Beneath is all the fiend's. There's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning scalding, stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie, pain, pain! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination." Here the author characterizes the Savage by his values. He believes saving himself for marriage because that was what he had grown up with, something outside the norm of society. Here the Savage is angry at the temptations of the world he longed to be in.

"Often in the past he had wondered what it would be like to be subjected (soma-less and with nothing but his own inward resources to rely on) to some great trial, some pain, some persecution; he had even longed for affliction. As recently as a week ago, in the Director's office, he had imagined himself courageously resisting, stoically accepting suffering without a word. The Director's threats had actually elated him, made him feel larger than life. But that, as he now realized, was because he had not taken the threats quite seriously, he had not believed that, when it came to the point, the D.H.C. would ever do anything. Now that it looked as though the threats were really to be fulfilled, Bernard was appalled. Of that imagined stoicism, that theoretical courage, not a trace was left."
Here the author is characterizing Bernard. Bernard is the black sheep of London and nobody understands him just as he doesn't understand them. All of society drowns themselves in a sea of soma and he longs to feel something other than the numbness it brings. 

The author uses both approaches because it helps the reader understand how Bernard and John view society and how they speak in society. Bernard was seen as being reclusive, but in actuality his mind was busier than Los Angeles traffic. By using both techniques, the reader is able to gain a deeper understanding of the characters.

2.  The author uses syntax while describing an event or process, while in characters diction is used to display their level of intellect. For example, John has a fairly high level of intellect for someone who was born and not decanted as an Alpha. Also, whenever John speaks, he uses both syntax and diction to describe his feelings. In many of his descriptions, he alludes to classic authors such as Shakespeare and Othello by incorporating their work into his feelings. The syntax of the novel is very long in describing an event which fuels a dramatic tone. When character's speak, the syntax is short and to the point. The author uses the word surrogate to describe many of the new world's items. There is blood surrogate, beef surrogate, etc.. The use of this word helps to enforce the fact that this new world is grown in tubes. Nothing has emotions or family.

3. Bernard is a round and dynamic character. Initially, the audience knew that he would like to experience something more than soma and feel something other than just sex. He couldn't find anything until he brought John the Savage to London. Instantly he gained fame, sex and elation to his ego. He felt on top of the world and became everything he hated about society. In the end, he was forced to go away because he didn't fit into society. He is a round character because the audience would expect him to befriend John instead of using his fame as an opportunity to fuel his elation. He is a dynamic character because Bernard's personality changed. He became what he hated and drowned in soma like the rest of his peers.

4.

 After reading the book, I had come away with feeling like I had met a person. The author goes into such great detail about John’s feeling and curiosity that the audience gets to understand this new society better than it had the entire novel.

The Savage stood looking on. "O brave new world, O brave new world …" In his mind the singing words seemed to change their tone. They had mocked him through his misery and remorse, mocked him with how hideous a note of cynical derision! Fiendishly laughing, they had insisted on the low squalor, the nauseous ugliness of the nightmare. Now, suddenly, they trumpeted a call to arms. "O brave new world!" Miranda was proclaiming the possibility of loveliness, the possibility of transforming even the nightmare into something fine and noble. "O brave new world!" It was a challenge, a command.

This quote was taken just after John had left London and made his new home near a light house. He felt the need to purify himself after being exposed a society that was deemed: happy and stable” The world had mocked him in the Reservation and now in this society because he was different. But now out in the wilderness he can finally repent and accept the rights he was given by the Controller. Out in his forest the mockery had ceased. John came to realize that even the dream can be turned to ash as quickly as it was set aflame.