How Does Hillary Mantel Use Power In Brave New World

An individual’s perspective about people and politics can be shaped through characterisation and perspectives they present. Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World and Hillary Mantel’s 2014 historical reimaging short story The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983 both allows the audience to shape their understanding of the values presented in the novel through the various perspectives they present about power without controversy.

An individual’s ambition to gain power in politics can lead them to constrain their ability to think. The fact that politics may manipulate an individual’s belief system is explored in depth through Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Huxley writes his dystopian novel to position his readers

Hillary Mantel in her short story employs literary devices like diction “as if giants have a wedding in the street” suggests that the narrator is an outsider because she does not conform within the society signified in the short story. Mantel’s employment of metaphorical reference dehumanises the notion of wedding due to the reverse values she present. Moreover, she uses personal pronoun “As long as I get a clear view, the distance is a doddle.” This represents a historical political leader in a negative manner. Her reference to ‘doodle’ suggests that many individuals in the society do not fully understand her political actions like rising taxes hence enabling the audience to challenge the political system. Her characterisation of the assassin is similar to that of John, depicted by Aldous Huxley in Brave new

This is evident when Huxley writes in Mond’s dialogue, “you must make a choice”. The high modality and irony in Mustapha Mond’s dialogue to savage that the citizens must make the choice to join the state’s conditioning process, that they all have a choice. The irony of this statement shows how the political motivations are powered by manipulation and masked conditioning. They make the citizens feel as if they have a choice in what they do when it is just an allusion of choice. The emphasis on the word ‘you’ provides the reader with a false sense of power. It is also a motif that repeats throughout the novel. Yet, it can be said that the minds of citizens are corrupted, that they do not realise they are being used as products due to the conditioning. The hypnopadeic slogan “everyone works for everyone else” emphasises the loss in individuality and humanity in the World State. Furthermore, the religious connotation of, “Christianity without tears- that’s what soma is” emphasises Huxley’s beliefs about religion. He describes all religion as ‘conditioning’ which is no different to the conditioning of the citizens of world state. Furthermore, individuals are conditioned so that the slogan embodies