Freedom In Brave New World Essay

In democratic countries, people often believe that they are free to choose their destinies, while in fact, everyone’s life is controlled in one way or another. The idea of manipulated life and freedom is a popular subject in dystopian fiction and film. The novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the film Never Let Me Go by Mark Romanek, and the TV episode “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”, Twilight Zone are all examples of exploring how social control of life and freedom does not benefit the individuals.
Life has been controlled by society. In Brave New World, the World Controllers control people’s intelligence by manipulating the oxygen amount supplied to their embryos. When Mr. Foster said “Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par” (Huxley 11), he rubbed his hands as if he was enjoying the prospect of

In Brave New World, people can only escape reality and get happiness by consuming Soma. Like what Lenina says, “A gramme in time saves nine” (Huxley 77), people in Brave New World depend only on soma to ensure their “freedom” and “happiness.” This is but an illusion of freedom, since Soma controls people’s feelings, making them only to feel happy. On the other hand, in Never Let Me Go, the government gives the donors opportunity to delay their donation by becoming carers. In this case, they get the freedom to choose when they want to donate, but not the right to the ultimate choice: whether they want to donate or not. As a result, eople in both cases do not have the actual freedom. Also, in the TV episode, before people get transfermate, they have their freedom to cry or smile. However, after transformation, their freedom of feeling is manipulated. The only expression they have is smiling. Outside fictions, in current society, the freedom is also manipulated. Everyone has the freedom to have dreams and make them come true, but the pressures from the society would stop them from achieving