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Brave New World Marxist Analysis

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Recommended: Impacts from karl marx and friedrich engels ideas

Randa Abu-Baker
17 October 2017
Subverted Realities of a Brave New World.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) examines the effects of a hegemonic, capitalist government’s rule upon the individual. Critics have explored numerous themes within the novel, such as, dehumanization, ideology, manipulation of history and language, and sex, as well as the way each of those themes contribute to controlling the masses under the hegemonic rule. This chapter analyzes the characters’ perversion from the normal human being known today, and studies the effects of this perversion on the human complexity along with the effects of the control studied by previous researchers on the human nature and condition. The novel projects a question of the complexity …show more content…

The writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are the main source of the Marxist concepts used in the thesis, along with Louis Althusser's critique of ideology, since it tackles the idea of social function and ideological practice that are also imposed on the posthuman to control him physically and mentally. As for writers of posthumanism, the writings of Cary Wolfe and Robert Pepperell are the main source for the concepts discussed in the thesis. Those two theories can explain the methods the ruling state uses to control the masses and explain the shape of the posthuman who is created by the effects of such rule. The theories’ notions of the subverted posthumans and the capitalist view on the individual as a consumer and a commodity seem to be appropriate to analyze the characters of the novel since the characters themselves act according to their conditioning and not according to their humanity. the capitalist ideology's effect on the human's intrinsic and extrinsic complexity denounces him and forces the post human to behave like a child. The aim of this study is therefore to prove that In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, by controlling the citizen’s perception of themselves and their environment, the state not only achieves their ultimate subordination, but also downgrades them into …show more content…

For intrinsic complexity features, they are the features that would affect the individual on a personal level, what effects his mind, or how he perceives the world. matters like his consciousness, the advancements an individual is allowed to make, whether in science or creativity, and the ideology’s effect on the personal level. While the extrinsic features, they are the features that would affect the individual on a group level, Like his identity and individuality within the group, the effect of stability on the order and disorder, the continuity and discontinuity of the society as a whole, and how the body is treated, whether it means the person’s body, or the body of the group as a

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