Discuss “Brave New World” as dystopian fiction.
Introduction
Brave New World is the masterpiece by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) published in 1932. To understand Dystopia it is needed to know about Utopia. Dystopia is out and out opposite to Utopia. According to Thomas More, Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. But Dystopia is an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a Dystopian fictional Novel.
Brave New World as dystopian fiction
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Representation of negative Utopia
Utopian novel “Men Like Gods” by H. G. Wells inspired him to write this novel, it gave him an idea to write a parody of it, negative utopia. In this novel, Huxley generously presents before us the baffling obscurities of human beings. In this society, words like” mother”, “father”, “family”, “love”, do not mean anything and they are considered very insulting.
Class discrimination
This is a world where the birth process has been mechanized and there is no natural reproduction. Society is divided into castes: The Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, every class has plus and minus members, ranging from the highly intelligent to the semi-morons. Here we find Tomakin saying;
“Bokanovsky’s process is one of the major instruments of social stability”
The Brave New World encourages heterosexual sex as a social activity from early childhood.
Everything is treated as consumer goods
World State is enriched in Science and technology. Here women’s ovaries are used to produce the test-tube children. This is applied to control the reproduction system. In the hospital, children are allowed to see the death of any man. The governing body wants them to feel that death is very natural. Actually, it’s a dystopian society. So sex, death, women’s ovaries are treated as consumer goods.
Worship of Ford instead of God
People of the world state mainly worship Ford because of his massive production. It becomes quite clear to us from the conversation between John and Mustapha Mond that before “Nine Years War” people used to worship God. Mustapha Mond relates:
“You can only be independent of God while you’ve got youth and prosperity; independence won’t take you safely to the end”
During the war, they were not saved by God. They had to suffer a lot. Their sufferings had no bound. Many people died in the war. So after the war, they reject worshipping God. They are now solvent and out of poverty. There are no war, no sorrow, and no pain for the massive production of Ford.
The hypocrisy of world state
John realizes the mortal effect of Soma. So he takes the role of a defender. He engages himself in a mission to rescue people. He starts to obstruct Soma distribution. John sees the Delta workers in a long line. They are waiting to take Soma. It frustrates him. So he utters;
“Very well, then, I went on grimly, I’ll teach you; I’ll make you be free whether you want to or not”
Again his mother’s death due to the overdoses of Soma disappointed him deeply.
John throws the boxes of poisonous Soma outside. But the Delta workers can’t understand his great purpose because they are totally under the control of Soma.
Conclusion
So, “Brave New World” explores a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. Huxley represents perverted civilization in the novel. So, the novel is packed with all the conditions of dystopian fiction.
