Love And Dehumanization In Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

“A life without love, no matter how many other things we have, is an empty, meaningless one.” (Leo Buscaglia). In the novel “Brave New World” Huxley asserts the theme that when love and emotions are removed from relationships, the result is meaningless and dehumanization. The theme is revealed in the novel through the way the World State is, along with how it differs from the Savage Reservation and the struggles John encounters in a new and different society while being in the World State. In the novel, the society they live in is based on science and efficiency, but to be efficient they have to remove the sense of having emotions, especially when it comes to having a significant other. To achieve this goal, everyone within the World State

The individuals that reside in the Savage Reservation are not conditioned, they were brought up knowing about gods and history from the past, having parents to nurture them, having the ability to understand and express emotions good and bad, which is something that is foreign to the community within the World State. The readers are able to see this through the quote “Take the way they have one another here. Mad, I tell you, absolutely mad…… Nobody’s supposed to belong to more than one person. And if you have people in the ordinary way, the others think you’re wicked and anti-social. They hate and despise you.” (Huxley, 121). In this quote that was said by Linda, who used to reside in the World State and is the mother of John, is explaining about how love in the Savage Reservation is. Love in the Savage Reservation is traditional, there are two people who have full devotion to one another, and when that is broken it is seen as being evil. In contrast to the conditioning in the World State, the Savage Reservation acts upon their human nature, peculiarly in love and relationships. They see love as something that is fulfilling in life and with that comes emotions that they can express to their significant other, whether those emotions are good or

As John enters the World State all seems well until he is met with the meaning of romance within the society. John, coming from a place where love is traditional and is only right to love one person, faces troubles when he encounters Lenina. Lenina comes from a society where it is considered normal to “get with” multiple people. The readers can see the differences between John’s and Lenina’s views through the quote “Listen, Lenina: in Malpais people get married.” which Lenina replies with “What a horrible idea!” (Huxley, 191). John is in love with Lenina, he does not just want to have sex with her, he wants to marry her, but to Lenina this idea of marriage as something that is disgusting. In the World State this is foreign, there is not one human that is married or only loves one individual. Since the moment they entered this world, they know only negative things come from being in a relationship with another person, the idea is drilled into their brains that everyone belongs to everyone else and anything that offsets this idea is evil and repulsive. John later becomes so disgusted by the way the society views love, that it leads to his death by suicide. The readers can see this through the quote “Stupefied by soma, and exhausted by a long drawn frenzy of sensuality, the Savage lay sleeping in the heather…. Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet.” John fails to resist the