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Suffering In Brave New World

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Maxwell Maurantonio Mr. Vasquez British Literature 9 May 2023 In Defense of the World State Despite being written nearly a century ago, Brave New World is still studied across the world. It gives great insight into a world run by totalitarian communist idealisms. It is seen as a warning to the world about what happens when a state grows too powerful. However, this warning is flawed. Our society is far from perfect and displays prejudice and pain. This pain is seen as necessary by many and is not viewed as a problem. Due to the suffering which humanity endures and accepts in our world, the abolishment of individuality in favor of stability in Brave New World provides a superior society compared to our own. Many readers find Brave New World …show more content…

It accepts this suffering as necessary. However, in Brave New World we see what happens with that acceptance of suffering. John desires this pain and hardship, this individuality for himself. When he argues with Mustapha Mond he states, “But I don’t want comfort, I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” (Huxley 240). John covets a world where he can be himself and suffer. He wants to endure the hardships of humanity rather than accept the life which the World State is offering to him. On the surface, this seems like a justified belief. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out very well for John. After he is exiled he returns to the World State and retreats to a lighthouse, “Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet… Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right…” (Huxley 259). John wanted freedom and sin and when he got it after being exiled he was unhappy. He chose not to accept the society which the World State offered him and as such he was …show more content…

Well, that's quite simple, as discussed earlier humanity defines life through hardship and suffering. Our world is the world John wants to live in. And all it takes is one look at our world to realize how flawed it is when compared to Brave New World. To understand this best it is important to analyze the happiness of people in Brave New World, compared to our world. The world happiness report measured the happiness levels of citizens from 197 different countries over 3 years. This was determined using the amount of positive emotion and negative emotions a person self-reported. These emotions can be impacted by stability in the person's home country, security in meeting basic needs, and several other factors including life expectancy, and a healthy family life. The highest score which was given was to Finland, scoring 7.8 out of 10. The lowest was Afghanistan scoring around 1.6 out of 10. The average score was around 5.54 points. This means that the average person living in our society is slightly happier than

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