Government In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Following the European Age of Discovery and Exploration in the 15th century, the world began to get partitioned off under the control of the European superpowers: the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, and the French. Through papal decrees and wars, the shifting colony boundaries were chiefly determined by whichever proved to be the most powerful and influential empire. By the time Aldous Huxley began to rise to fame in the 1930s, the world ideology of the advanced Western white man had been in place for centuries. In a time of growing unrest, Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, functions as a criticism of the growing secular sentiments within the Western civilizations’ beliefs of the innate superiority of the cultures, government

In their childhood, citizens are taught blind “hypnopaedic prejudices of [their] caste[s]” which carry into keeping all members in line with their destinies (Huxley 62). Epsilons, members of the lowest caste, perform menial labor like sewage work or custodial jobs. Often times, they are described as illiterate and dark-skinned, or as “[negroes],” and while in development are kept at significantly lower oxygen levels than any other caste in order to keep the “[embryos] below par” (Huxley 101, 13). The second-lowest caste members, Deltas, are conditioned from infancy to hate, or fear, books and flowers in order to keep them away from nature and fixated on their jobs. Gammas, semi-skilled workers, are described as “[octoroons],” they are more educated than the other two castes and participate in service jobs like piloting planes (Huxley 105). Alphas and Betas, non-mass produced members, are given more freedom and individuality than others in the society. Betas work in jobs with high technical skill, and alphas can become teachers, writers, or leaders. They are also both described as white men and women, reinforcing the notion of the innate superiority of the white man that is commonly associated with Huxley’s times (EXPLORING Novels). Because of the anger the British public had toward the Indian caste system, Huxley utilizes a caste system, to exemplify how backwards the Brave New World society is, to condemn discrimination in the Western cultures of the