![]() With this basis, Huxley initiated the “reinforcement of desired behavior by reward rather than by punishment” (Fjellman, 3), with the “ that we might be tamed instead by desire and pleasure” (3). In his “brave new world,” people are mere products of creation, relegated into their castes, who live out their lives as they are supposed to, never questioning, never wondering, never living. ![]() Huxley’s employment of these plot conditions marks his greatest theme: that of the loss of individual identity. In this society, the upper-castes are given more time in the hatchery to develop intelligence and physical prowess, whereas the lower castes are essentially poisoned to have lower intelligence and lesser physical endowment. Huxley’s world is separated into a large caste system: with Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. There are no emotional ties to family, loved ones, or friends, and death is accepted as the natural cycle of life, not to be mourned, but not really to be thought about either. Sex is no longer the means for reproduction but has been relegated the role of pleasure, where any man can have any woman, and there are no relationships based upon such intimacy. In Huxley’s world, reproduction has no use as it is easier, and more economical, to essentially create new individuals via a hatchery process. The cultural impact of the Industrial Revolution alone highlights a major theme within the work that the world is moving at too fast a pace for survival tempered by the loss of intellectual individuality. The story itself is a frightening version of the future that could be, all the while containing social and cultural issues of the early 1900’s. Further, in a direct parallel from Huxley’s work to modern society, capitalism could, very easily, take the same turn in an attempt to create a better, more stable economy. With that said, Huxley’s work should be “read primarily as a warning against runaway capitalism and as an anticipation of coming developments in Western consumer society” (Booker, 20). Order custom essay Cultural Implications of a “Brave New World” For, written in 1931, Huxley was essentially inventing a society some 600 years into the future, one in which he has created a ‘negative utopia’- in which utopian dreams of the ‘old reformers’ have been realized, only to turn out to be nightmares” (Booker, 16), which, with the Utopian books of his time, was his very intention. Plotted in this extreme, Huxley has liberated himself from any confines of modern literature and opened up the doors for a future entirely of his making, with his own rules, and own utopian predictions. Huxley’s “Brave New World” is set far into the future, in 632 AF, or 2540 AD. With that said, a close look will be taken into several of Huxley’s themes within a “Brave New World” to best determine the impacts of his fictional society in regards to current cultural trends, and trends for the future. His work employs many parallels that can be drawn to society’s culture today, possibly even serving as a prediction of the future 500 years from now. Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” relates a fictional society in which freedom is dead, morality is forgotten, and man’s future is bleak indeed.
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