: Huxley's novels are essentially critical portraits of modern life, in which the humour is both satirical and a

vehicle for expressing various conflicting ideas. They present the following features and themes:

the.main characters are generally representative contemporary "types", embodying certain values or
principles;

- the plot is then the working-out of the consequences and effects of these positions;

- the different characters are analyzed and illuminated with reference to a very impressive range of ideas,
generally taken from the sociological, medical or psychiatric sciences;

- his novels are, in short, "novels of ideas", frequently taking the form of

conversational novels, in which ideas are debated by the ditterent characters, whose actions are a further
revelation of the implications of these. ideas.

Of all Huxley's novels, Brave New World is the most successful

combination of a rich fund of ideas with convincing plot and characters. Its title Is taken from Shakespeare's
The Tempest Act v, Scene 1), in which Miranda, exiled on an island since she was a little child, on seeing
other human beinas for the first time. savs: "O brave new world that has such

• people in it"

It is essentially a work of futuristic science fiction, though Huxley always scornfully rejected this definition. It
attacks the scientific Utopias of technol-_ogical and technocratic societies. Like Orwell's 1984, Brave New
World proves to be a nightmare; unlike 1984, it emphasizes technological rather than political
totalitarianism. It also ditters trom the rather grim atmosphere

of Orel's novelov.is genuine v humorous and saurical wIt.

The story starts in A.F. 632, i.e. the "year of Our Ford 632" or, in our

system of dating, in A.D. 2540. The civilization of the tuture dates all history from the birth of Henry Ford I,
popularly regarded as the inventor of the modern factory system and its essential organizational principle,
the assemblv line. It is set in a utoplan

count. ado

presents an imaginary

future world as it might develop out of what the present world is like. In this future world. society is based.
on stability thanks to a strictly scientic caste stratification. People are katched from test-tubes according to a
precise

proportion of number and quality, and then caretully selected through artificial processes which, by
manipulating the foetuses during the. incubation stage, produce a race of human beings ranging from
intellectuals and administrators Alphas and Betas to the lowest manual workers (Gammas Deltas and
Epsilons), all of them fitted, in their precise roles, for the requirements of industrial mass-production. The
motto of this society is

"Community, identity, Stability", and its aim is happiness, reached, if necessary, also through the
administration of a drug called "soma", a sort

of hallucinogen which helps to escape from solitude and boredom and avoid thinking. All aspects of human
life are systematically conditioned and organized by ten World Controllers or benevolent dictators in control
of society. Their task is to smooth down tension and anxiety, together with all the sources of. unhappiness.
which, in the old world, were connected with human passions. So literature, art and philosophy are
suppressed, marriage and the family have been abolished, sexual promiscury is encouraged children are
brought up in communal- nurseries and are taught to be satisfied with their social condition as the best
possible one.

in this consumer society, based on conformism, hedonism and self-indulgence, there is some dissatisfaction
embodied in two slightly anomalous characters, Bernard Marx, from the Psychology Bureau, and his Aloha-
Plus friend Helmholtz Watson. One day Bernard and Lenina Crowne, a young, pretty girl, very popular as a
sex partner, visit a new Mexican reservation at Malpais and bring a Savage, John, back to London.

[09:42, 26/6/2023] Fabrizio Aurilia: At first John is fascinated by the new world, but then he revolts against.
its massification, its lack of passions, its conformity, defending the right of man to disease, poverty, suffering
and death in the name of higher spiritual values like beauty and truth. His attitude eventually drives Bernard
and Helmholtz to question their long accepted artificial values; as a consequence the three men are
summoned before Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe, an intelligent man
but absolutely pragmatic in his views. The result of this summoning is tragic: since individuality and free will
are abolished, the two rebels, Bernard and his friend, are exiled because of their unorthodox conduct, while
John is retained as the subject of scientific experiments. Yet, torn between the physical attraction he feels
for Lenina and his inability to accept her code of free love, after seeking refuge in a deserted lighthouse,
constantly dis turbed by bands of curious people, John finally commits suicide.

language and style

Besides the plot, the style is also responsible for the great success the novel at once enjoyed when it first
appeared. It is highly ironic and allusive, rich in references and quotations, especially from Shakespeare,
interspersed with scientific terms, Latin and Greek derivatives, specific words drawn from various fields of
culture. and allusions to places and people still easy to recognize after so many years (e.g. Marx, Lenin, etc.).

These linguistic devices are applied to a narrative structure which, though not "modern" in the Joycean
sense, yet already departs from the traditional modes of novel writing in its lack of linear development, its
use of

Tashbacks and Its occasional alternation of parallel passages inside the same chapter, working as a sort of
interwoven commentary on the various situations

themes

902

Brave New World constitutes a turning point in the development of Huxley's work. Instead of analysing the
condition of the individual in modern society (as he did, for instance, in Point Counter Point), here he
focuses on western civilization at large, for which, pessimistically, he foresees a future of self-destruction
symbolized in the Savage's Tragic,

SUICIde

The main themes he faces and the main dangers he denounces in what he himself defined as a prediction of
or a warning for the future, can be grouped as follows:

The effects of scientific progress on the individual; the danger of genetic manipulation;

_the conception of equality taken to extremes and turned into _massified conformism;

- today's worship for technology, to the detriment of art and the humanities;
E men's unconscious desire to be ruled and to divest themselves of their own conscience, which they
willingly hand over to other men; the religious atrophy land the materialism of our century, which denies
God as "not compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness";

"the danger of any sort of totalitarianism and authoritarianism which, though non violent and coercive, all
the same manage to manipulate man's physical and mental growth, as we read, for example, in the passage
given below for study and analysis.