Brave New World

Brave New World
Overview
Themes
Main Characters
Conditioning In the dystopian, futuristic landscape of Brave New World, people are mass produced in test tubes. Lab technicians chemically decide each person's Social Destinies physical and intellectual traits, and individual thought is disdained. For outcast John the Savage, the idea of emotional and intellectual conformity is unbearable and disturbing.
Alienation
People who do not conform are ridiculed and banished from society.
identity
Each groups identity is predetermined.
Oppression and Conformity
The World State uses conditioning to smother independence and create obedience.
Bernard Marx
Unconventional psychologist
Hatchery Director
Rigid, humorless administrator
John the Savage
Prudish, salve pariah; uncomfortable with conformity
Lenina Crowne
Lab tech; frequent Soma user
Helmholtz Watson
Rebellious propaganda writer
Henry Foster
Intelligent, cheerful embryo expert
Consumerism
Mass production encourages buying and creates job security.
Mustapha Mond
Controller, suave intellectual
Symbols
Numbering
Henry Ford
Represents the deification of mass production
Decanters
Symbolize a test-tube population
Soma
Represents state control and personal escape through state-sponsored drug usage
$7,000
Highest asking price in 2016 for a limited 1st edition of Brave New World signed by the author
1922
Year of publication of Henry Ford's manifesto that inspired the novel
324
First-edition copies signed by Aldous Huxley
10,000
Last names used for the two billion people in the World State
Author
ALDOUS HUXLEY 1894-1963
Growing up in a time of great technological change, Huxley focused much of his writing on society and the effects of technology. Despite being panned by fellow science fiction writers H.G. Wells and George Orwell, Brave New World has remained a popular exploration of a totalitarian future.
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