Sacrifice In Brave New World

While, on the whole, the World State facilitates the carefree and cheery lives of its members, there is one major outlier, that being Bernard Marx, yet upon acquiring John, a savage, he envelops himself in fleeting false success. Throughout the earlier half of the novel, he merely mopes about and complains, “I’d rather be myself… Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly” (Huxley 74). He carries a clear disdain for what, he views, is the artificial joviality that all members of the World State possess. Wanting to remain “nasty”, he constantly refuses the amenities that his peers receive readily, such as the hallucinatory drug “soma”. Nonetheless, upon befriending John, a savage who becomes objectified as a source of entertainment,

Although Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, are drastically different pieces written decades apart, they all work in harmony to show that happiness cannot be achieved without sacrifice. Since every being must cope with loss throughout their lives, the persistence of all of the characters in the aforementioned works while in unfavorable situations also serves as a reminder of human tenacity and hope. On the other hand, the sacrifice of personal beliefs, a child’s life, and freedom of thought incurred in order to achieve happiness in the various works discussed is enormous. Perhaps it is also possible that, while celebrating humanity’s tenacity and the necessity of sacrifice, the authors are also lamenting the very idea of the all-encompassing nature of happiness. By forcing their characters to endure such hardship, whether for personal gain, or for the gain of others, it is likely that the authors are warning the reader of the risks the search for true happiness poses. By realizing the inherent sacrifice involved in attaining happiness, the reader is forced to consider whether felicity is truly worth the hardships required to attain it. These timeless classics deal with a multitude of varieties of merriment, yet the inherent necessity of sacrifice persists as well. Ultimately, before basking in the light of dawn, one must brave the peril of