Social Movements In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Animal rights, black lives matter, civil rights, fair trade, feminism, and gay rights are all movements that people have created and supported because they saw an injustice taking place and they wanted to actually do something about the issue. These movements go against wrong ideas that were, and maybe still are to a lesser extent, prevalent in society. What is so great about social movements is that they can change the way huge groups of people view things. In Brave New World, movements are needed, but rendered impossible. As a result, citizens are unable to bring to light the flawed structure of their society. The author, Aldous Huxley, develops this world with a warning to society now to not let our world become like the one in Brave New

In this case, allusions to William Shakespeare's works. Huxley incorporates Shakespeare throughout the novel by using John. When John is interested in Lenina, he tells her that, " some kinds of baseness are nobly undergone" (190). Which is an allusion to The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's works, and shows the difference between the citizens of Brave New World and people in Shakespeare's time. John basically states that he wants to go through something awful to prove his love for Lenina. Lenina on the other hand, doesn’t see the purpose of proving love and just wants John to have sex with her. This Brave New World society has conditioned Lenina to not care about love or even know what it means. This results in her not being able to truly develop a meaningful relationship with John. If you compare their relationship with the romantic relationships shown in Shakespeare's works than you can see a large difference. In Chapter 13, John quotes The Tempest and tells Lenina, "If thou dost break her virgin knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies may with full and holy rite," which in the original work ends, "be minister'd, No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall," saying that he doesn’t believe in sex before marriage (191). In a place where marriage or even monogamy isn't a thing anymore, it shows a huge gap between Lenina and John's views and cultures. John is focusing more on deep human relationships which bring happiness and valuable human experiences and Lenina focuses on immediate gratification and physical satisfaction through meaningless sex. This shows how the Brave New World society has taken away one of the most basic human rights, being allowed to feel how you and form relationships with others. The culture gap is shown again later in Chapter 13, when John says, "The murkiest den, the most opportune place, the strongest suggestion…shall never melt mine honour into