AP Literature & Composition, 8/23/2011, HW:
Look up the following terms/people on Wikipedia and read the ENTIRE entries:
1. Aldous Huxley (advocating/taking psychedelics; grandson to Thomas Henry Huxley (zoologist, agnostic, controversialist); father had botanical laboratory)
2. Henry Ford (assembly line; mass production; model T; "Fordism";
3. Dystopia (pay particular attention to the characteristics of dystopia. Which of these are already identifiable in Brave New World?) (society in repressive, controlled state; under guise of being utopian; social groups; nature; caste systems; hero; conflict)
Read the first 5 chapters of Brave New World (approx. pgs. 1-58)
Blog a response to the novel or any connections you see between the novel and the Wikipedia entries you read. Please do NOT regurgitate SparkNotes or Cliff Notes take on the novel. I read it already.
Note: If you find it at all difficult to comment on the novel, then try to apply Marxist theory.
The first five chapters' main points: artificial human production, (factory) tour, caste system (Alpha, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, Epsilons), Pavlovian (fear) conditioning, oxygen deprivation, Lenina, and Benard. The novel seems quite misleading at first, describing what seems to be normal assembly production and artificial growth for plants. The vivid description that resembles botany may stem from Huxley's father's botanical laboratory. We soon find out that humans are being mass productions and the concept of family and maternal/paternal lineage is extinct. The author, Huxley, inputs quite a lot of references to his interests and Henry Ford. Huxley was known for advocating the use of psychedelics and has even taken some himself. This is evident in the book by the use of "soma" which are essentially "happy pills." Psychedelics are known to be euphoric and the use of soma in the "orgy-porgy" scene reflects this.
Henry Ford, famous for being the founder of the assembly line and mass production, is also referenced throughout the novel. The generation in seem to revere Ford as a God. Statements that refer to god today e.g. "Oh my god" or "God!" are replaced with Ford. God does not exist in the novel because Ford is the God. Christian crosses are replaced with "Ts" which could be a reference to Ford's model T automobiles. The mass production of humans itself is reminiscent of an assembly line.
This is a dystopian novel because it has the characteristics of one. The society is artificial; that is, the people are trained and conditioned to be what they are and therefore they are hindered in both mind and body. The social stratification of humans are also controlled and social groups are formed: the alphas, betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons. It also seems to foreshadow that there is a hero (Bernard?) that seems cognizant of the controlled state he is in and feels conflicted. He doesn't seem to hold the same ideology and "brain-washing" most people do (most because I don't beliave Bernard is the only one, Helmholtz seems to be also aware) which is obvious when he acts as if "he" is coming during the "orgy-porgy" scene. The soma doesn't seem to affect him either (or he refuses to take it, not sure ("orgy-porgy" scene). Bernard seems to be on the few true, unique individuals.
That being said, I would like to make references to other novels and movies that are dystopian such as the Giver (conformity all the way though. If I remember correctly, there is no or the lack of a caste system), Equilibrium (starring Christian Bale, who stops taking the pills that allows one to feel no emotion), and the Matrix (the production of humans for the survival of the machines that rely on bio-electricity generation).
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