Mixed Emotions In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

1984 at the time of it's release was met with mixed emotions and presently is still looked upon in the same light. Many people found the themes of the novel highly depressing, and anti-government, where as some have even claimed it to be pro-communist. The mixed emotions range from strongly against to strongly for, but one thing is certain, people paid attention to the novel, and still debate the topic to this day. Aldous Huxley author of Brave New World was among those who supported the book and saw the significance of the work. “Agreeing with all that the critics have written of it, I need not tell you, yet once more, how fine and how profoundly important the book is” (Lamar and Huxley). Huxley wrote this in a letter to Orwell after reading 1984. Huxley also said in the letter he believes the world will move toward infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis within the next generation, because it will government greater control over it's people than the threat of punishment (Lamar and Huxley). Though many, like Huxley, praised the work as a warning if things don't change, others only saw the bad in the work.

At the moment copies started being printed in Russian, the USSR banned the book from the country because the government saw it as propaganda against communism, and did not want the work corrupting their citizens (Payne). However, the Soviet Union was not the only place where the book became banned. In the United States the book was soon banned in many schools and even banned in Jackson County, FL. “...parents in Jackson County, Florida, would make the challenge in 1981 that it was 'pro communist' and that it contained 'explicit sexual matter'” (Baldassarro). The ironic part of the book being banned on the basis of being pro communist is that other schools have banned it on the grounds that the book promotes no