An English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family, he is best known for his novels including his masterpiece (1932), a dystopian work as vibrant today as then. By the end of his life he was considered a leader of modern thought as well as an intellectual of the highest rank. SECTION SUMMARY

ALDOUS HUXLEY

• 1894: born into a well-to-do upper-middle class family of well-known scientists (biologists and zoologists).

 1911: at 17 he suffered an attack of keratitis punctata which left him totally blind for over 18 months. He learned Braille but by using special glasses (and with the partial recovery of one eye) he was able to read again. • 1913-15: having turned from to literature at Oxford University, he received his B.A. in English and published his first collection of poetry. • 1921: his first novel, , a witty criticism of society won him widespread recognition. In the following eight years he published a dozen books. ALDOUS HUXLEY

 He formed a close friendship with the English writer D.H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930) who shared Huxley’s vision of the dehumanising effects of modernity as well as of industrialisation: together they travelled around Italy and France. ALDOUS HUXLEY  1930s: he moved from Italy (near Florence) to France where he wrote Brave New World (1932), a dark vision of a highly technological society of the future.

 1937: he settled in California with the guru figure Gerald Heard (1889-1971) who introduced him to Vedanta, meditation and vegetarianism. ALDOUS HUXLEY  1953: he had his first experience with psychedelic drugs, in this case, mescaline (an alkaloid found in the Peyote cactus in Mexico, for example), in sessions which were under the supervision of a psychiatrist.  1954: he published , an influential study of consciousness expansion through mescaline. He became a guru among Californian hippies and started using LSD. ALDOUS HUXLEY  1958: Brave New World Revisited appeared; it was followed by (1962), a utopian novel.

 1963 (22nd November): he died in Los Angeles on the same day in which J. F. Kennedy was assassinated. The New York Times announced “Aldous Huxley Dies Of Cancer on Coast”… here!

BRAVE NEW WORLD  The novel opens in London in the year AD 2540 (in the book 632 A.F., After Ford): the majority of the population is unified under The World State, an eternally peaceful, stable, global society.  Goods and resources are plentiful since the population is kept limited to no more than two billion people and everyone is happy. From the HATCHERIES…

 Natural reproduction has been done away with and children are “decanted” and raised in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres. ... TO THE CASTE SYSTEM.  There they are divided into five castes, from Alphas to Epsilons: each caste and each person within it is

designed to fulfill predetermined positions within the social and economic strata of the World State.

INDOCTRINATION  Indoctrination starts at birth through hypnopædia i.e. recorded voices repeating slogans during sleep which teach people: ➢ to value constant material consumption, since “spending is better than mending”); ➢ to make use of soma, a hallucino- gen that takes users on hangover -free “holidays”, releasing them from the need of transcendence and solitude; ➢ to consider sex a social activity, because “everyone belongs to everyone else”). PRINCIPLES & BELIEFS

 Words like «marriage», «pregnancy», «natural birth» or «parenthood» are too obscene to be mentioned in casual conversation.

 Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money; wanting to be an individual is horrifying so free time is spent enjoying the company of one’s caste members and doing activities together.

 People typically die at age 60 having maintained good health and youthfulness their whole life: death isn’t feared and, since no one has family, they have no ties to mourn. THE SAVAGE RESERVATION

 But in The World State there is still an area, located somewhere in New Mexico, where people live in the “old way”…

 It is known as The Savage Reservation and the contact between the inhabitants of the two worlds will bring about tragic consequences… CHARACTERS 1. Mustapha Mond

➢ Mond is the Resident World Controller of Western Europe. ➢ He was once a very ambitious, young scientist performing illicit research. ➢ When his work was discovered, he was given the choice of going into exile or training to become a World Controller. ➢ He keeps a collection of forbidden literature in his safe, including Shakespeare and religious writings. CHARACTERS 2. Bernard Marx

➢ Marx is an Alpha male who, though not exactly heroic, is still human. ➢ He holds unorthodox beliefs about sexual relationships, sports, and community events. ➢ His surname recalls Karl Marx but there is a basic difference between the two: in fact, unlike his famous namesake, Bernard’s discontent stems from his frustrated desire to fit into his own society, rather than from a philosophical criticism of it. CHARACTERS 3. JOHN, the Savage

➢ John is the son of the Director and Linda, a Beta left behind by mistake while visiting the New Mexico Reservation. ➢ He is the consummate outsider, who has spent his life alienated from his village on the Reservation, and finds himself similarly unable to fit into World State society. ➢ His entire worldview is based on his know- ledge of Shakespeare’s plays, which he can quote with great facility. ➢ He falls in love with Lenina… CHARACTERS

4.Lenina Crowne

➢ Lenina is a vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. ➢ She is an object of desire for a wide number of major and minor characters, including Bernard Marx and John. ➢ Her primary means of relating to other people is through sex and her development as a character shows the reader how the unstable and unpredictable emotions incited by sexual desire and love threaten the stability of the World State.

FROM THE «MODEL T»…  Although the novel is set in the future, it contains issues of the early (as well as the late!) 20th century: the Industrial Revolution had transformed the world.

 In 1908 Henry Ford’s first Model T rolled off his assembly line: it was built on the principles of  mass production,  homogeneity,  predictability,  consumption of disposable consumer goods. … to CONTEMPORARY ISSUES.  Banned, challenged and misundertood at various times, this fiction novel touches on a number of burning issues:

➢ the use of technology to control society;

➢ the dangers of an all-powerful state;

➢ the risks inherent to a consumer society.

 Furthermore, if we compare Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) with Orwell’s 1984 (1948) what emerges from them is so astonishingly and tragically true … in our world, today.

HUXLEY vs ORWELL  Social critic Neil Postman put into contrast the worlds of George Orwell (1903 – 1950)’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948) and Huxley’s Brave New World: 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.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. HUXLEY vs ORWELL Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.

In 1984 people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

CONCLUSIONS

 Through the idea that this future New World shares the similarities with our current society, Huxley is ultimately warning us of the harmful effects that expansion and development of a capitalist ideology can impose on society.  Above all, the book expresses ➢ the fear of losing individual identity in the fast- paced world of the future; ➢ the risk of mistaking the satisfaction of material needs for real happines; ➢ the danger of becoming a leisure-oriented society. LEGACY

 In his vision no Big Brother was required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people would come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.