Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is an interesting read, but one chapter in particular stood out to me. In my opinion this is a difficult novel to comprehend at first, but once I had cleared up confusing vocabulary or stopped to understand passages the novel became much more straightforward.
Despite, the complexity of the novel I want to bring Chapter 3 up in a discussion. This chapter is written in three scenes that consecutively continue one after another. I find this an interesting writing choice as I have never seen an author write in this way before. My guess as to why the author chose to write this scene in this way is to give us a first hand insight of the reality that the people live. While, the reader also learns from Mond's speech their history and events that have lead human civilization to live this way.
Additionally, the controller continuously emphasizes the importance of social and individual stability as seen on page 42. He notes that strong emotions are unstable which is what previous societies were, due to family relations and monogamy. Yet, as Mond tells his speech we learn that Lenina and Bernard contradict this statement. Lenina had been with only Henry for a long period of time and doesn't see the need to be with others, while Bernard doesn't like how Henry and the Assistant talk of Lenina as a piece of meet that should be shared among everyone. I found this very interesting since they are of the Alpha caste who would essentially be the last to steer away from the "rules" of the society. I would like to know if anyone else found this chapter interesting and would like to add their thoughts on why the author set up this chapter in this way or any other topic in chapter 3 I did not already discuss.
-Xela Dinh
I have in addition found this specific chapter of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley to be quite compelling. I agree that it takes time to grasp what is happening due to vocabulary and complicated passages. Upon reading chapter 3, I thought of the author’s writing choice. I have never come across this style of writing and so it took me a second to comprehend the author’s words. One passage made it feel like different movie scenes were cutting back and forth from one another. I agree this passage had the intention to give us a look at the reality of this futuristic world and would like to add more. For example, the promiscuous sexual relationships which we consider inappropriate or immoral is what helps keep the World State productive and stable. I thought this was strange because the logic explained was very different from what I believe should happen in a relationship. The word conditioning was interesting to me because it showed a kind of totalitarian state. For example, Fanny repeats words she is conditioned to think and because she does not know otherwise, she accepts them as virtuous expressions. Coming across the conditioning of certain words surprised me and made me wonder what other aspects of the citizen's lives was the World State controlling.
ReplyDeleteI do not think it is strange that promiscuous relationships are what keep the World State productive and stable, because like you said there is a totalitarian feel to their world. Therefore, in a totalitarian state the leaders need to be in control of everything and everyone. Consequently, the leaders have created a world where the people have no secrets as seen from Lenina's and Fanny's peculiar ease naked in the public locker room. On the other hand in an exclusive relationship there are secrets. Thus, the leaders have to condition the people to live this way hence the "hypnopaedic proverb", "Every one belongs to every one else". (Huxley 40)
ReplyDeleteI have just finished reading chapter 3 and I do agree with you with being a different type of writing. At first, I wasn’t unsure what was going on, but as i kept reading the chapter it made more sense. I also have never seen this type of writing by a writer. However, I think Huxley writes in 3 different perspectives to understand the 3 characters more in the book.
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