Satire In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

In today's society, having sex before marriage is seen as promiscuous, but imagine a society where this is the social norm. Imagine a society without families. This society becomes a reality in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where the normal society believes in instant satisfaction, and the thought of parents or loving anyone deeply is feared. Huxley utilized the work of Sigmund Freud in his writings. Sigmund Freud studied the ways of humans concerning sexual desires that are conscious and unconscious. Sigmund Freud´s works and studies influence the satire in the writings of Huxley and are present through different aspects of Brave New World. Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, presents the ideas of Sigmund Freud through John the Savage and

John lives on the reservation, which is described as similar to the old world before the World State came to be. A savage is someone who is native to the old world and lives by their outdated cultures, yet the culture of the reservation is similar to our culture today. In Freud’s opinion, the savage as a young state of our lives: “We can thus judge the so-called savage and semi-savage races; their psychic life assumes a peculiar interest for us, for we can recognize in their psychic life a well-preserved, early stage of our own development” (807). The savage tribes are against sexual relations outside the appropriate circumstances: “Yet we learn that they have considered it their duty to exercise the most searching care and the most painful rigour in guarding against incestuous sexual relations” (Freud 808). In Brave New World, the citizens on the reservation are opposed to the thought of having sex before marriage and the idea of incest, so when John visits the utopian society he is very shocked by the culture and beliefs. John believes that his feelings are not normal because nobody else in Huxley’s fictional society felt the same way. If the World State had exposure to literature and philosophers, John would have known that his feelings are normal: “Direct exposure to Freud’s writings might have informed John that his feelings are not symptoms of some extraordinary powers or responsibilities, that they are normal emotions (or at least in Freud's mind) to be recognized and overcome” (Buchanan 4). In the World State, they have sacrificed the privileges of art, family, and education in exchange for a so called “utopian” society all about sex and not thinking. John’s Oedipal feelings for his mother