Analyzing the Elements of Huxley's Brave New World

Aldous Huxley said "Maybe this world is another planet’s Hell". Yes, a pessimistic statement, but this turns out to be quite true for a trapped man like John or perhaps a savage in our world. Being trapped emotionally and being trapped by your circumstances, it shows the sharp comparison of Brave New World (BNW) and our American society. This representation of today, or Huxley’s today, displays the relationship of meeting cultures in the past and how it could affect us even into the future.

As Huxley up in England, he could not get a true view of America, but as he was from a scientific family, he could look past media influences to get a better picture. This means that Huxley was able to just look at the facts and come to conclusions based on that without being influenced by the surrounding bias. The book reflects this as it does not reveal Huxley’s views since he merely shows the state of life in the Savage Reservation. This is shown through the sentence “The dirt to start with, the piles of rubbish, the dust, the dogs, the flies” (Huxley 119). This description would be a good description of someone visiting a third world country for the first time. What about an American reservation though? According to Native American Aid "Living conditions on reservations have been cited as 'comparable to Third World.'" Both societies have comparatively poorer lives than me and you or Bernard and Helmholtz. Coupled with their "pagan" rituals, which pray to their empyrean, so their deities can make the land fertile, imitates, without completely being, a Native American religion.

When you look at how people live in both the world state and ours, you see the comparison of two similar reservations, but the interactions between the people and clashing cultures shows a different story of the crusading and colonizing tradition still practiced by Europe a century ago. John’s encounters paints the picture of England and India. Bernard brings John to the World State for his own interests similarly to how England came to India for riches.

England exploited India's land, taking ivory, spices, and using India’s strategic location to further its trade. Bernard exploits the savage by first bringing him home to not be exiled to Iceland then to gain popularity by showing the savage off like an attraction.

The difference between the book and the real world though, is that the book seems to happen in the opposite direction of history. The savage comes into the civilized land and leaves its mark on the people it counters. If not for the tiniest bit, Lenina’s heart seems to feel the pangs of passion. If John had accepted her when Lenina opened a window into her feelings, perhaps it would have opened more, but John’s outrage was like sudden gust of wind slamming that window shut. The appearance of Lenina at the end shows some leftover residue of Bernard on her though, but this can be most seen in Bernard and Helmholtz. Bernard the exploiter seems to have redeemed himself and Helmholtz even more fully believes in his ideals.

BNW lives through us as our past with encountering civilizations, such as India and England, but also as the present as America and Native Americans. But while it is represents our present, today seems to be the opposite of BNW. The world state has engulfed all other cultures and eliminated it while we consume other cultures and make it a part of us. England and India both left marks on each other, such as England growing to appreciate Indian cuisine with many restaurants open in London today and in respect to India, the encounters resulted in changing social structures. For example "The main changes which the British made in Indian society were at the top. They replaced the wasteful warlord aristocracy by a bureaucratic-military establishment, carefully designed by utilitarian technocrats, which was very efficient in maintaining law and order" (Maddison 2).

Huxley saw these new encountering societies and predicted a world where two negatives would cancel out to be neutrally positive. History has shown to have taken a different course though. It became everything Huxley said except on the opposite end of the spectrum. While we are obviously not the World State though, we have became in some ways closer to it with our dependence on medication and the blasting of media. The government only allows licensed companies sell drugs, thus creating a monopoly, and the countless McDonald's and campaign ads seem to define us. Through this, the government has a grip on our minds bringing us closer to that distant look at the future. As Nicholas von Hoffman said "Nevertheless, it may be that at some point in the building of Brave New World it will be impossible to turn back because there are too few people who want to" (Hoffman).