Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating.” -Kofi Annan. This quote establishes that through learning, wisdom, and education, one will find themselves in a position to succeed; a place of awareness in a society of unnoticed, let alone unanswered, questions. Throughout our lifetime, we are surrounded by rules and guidelines that are set to to create a baseline consistency in society. This creates a large population of those who follow such guidelines, or a majority. Opposing the majority, are those who seek information for themselves, wanting their own, more personal enjoyment, rather than conforming to the status quo. However, if too many people are given their personal freedom to find happiness for themselves, instability and

Aldous Huxley, the author of the dystopian fiction book Brave New World, writes of a society paralleled to our own, as he tells of a ‘savage’ who is introduced to a system of life unlike anything he has

As the Director leads his students into the Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning Rooms, he draws a connection to the children going through hypnopaedia and a wax-covered rock, saying: “Water can wear in the hardest of granite, rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax...incrust,incorporate. Themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.” This passage is very insightful, as it gives the reader an excellent outlook on principles of the conformity. Description words such as ‘incrust’ and ‘incorporate’ are symbolic, and display how ideas of the majority plague one’s brain, to the point where it is just ‘one scarlet blob.’ This ‘blob’ shows the theme of the novel in the sense that it represents the loss of identity, for after repeated exposure to what society wants you to hear, you are no longer the same. While describing the drug soma, Huxley writes a notable description from Mustapha Mond: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant.” This quote holds thematic significance in a number of ways. For example, the word ‘euphoric’ and ‘pleasant’ give the idea of happiness as a result of soma. Soma is a drug that controls one’s emotions, keeping out bad thoughts. Therefore, soma is basically forced happiness. This relates to the theme in the