In Atwood’s article, she starts off by comparing two novels: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. The first novel was written by George Orwell in 1949 which gave society a vision of a brutal mind-controlling totalitarian state; meanwhile, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932 which showed society a different and softer form of totalitarianism. Atwood goes back and forth deciding on which novel shows society how totalitarianism can influence them. She bases her whole article mainly discussing the novel Brave New World. Atwood asks, “What sort of happiness is on offer, and what is the price we might pay to achieve it?” Her question is one that is very debatable. “Brave New World is either a perfect-world utopia or its nasty opposite, a dystopia depending on your point of view” (Atwood). Sex is often a main topic in utopias and dystopias. In my opinion, it is difficult to comprehend what Atwood means when she talks about sex and who can do what, with which set of genital organs and with whom. One of the main questions Atwood tries to answer throughout the article is “How does Brave New World stand up 75 years after being published?”. Huxley, the author of Brave New World, uses language and events that somehow make it able to stand up in today’s society.
There will always be another Brave New World
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was released in 1932 and its content is still relevant in today’s society. In her article Margaret Atwood says Brave New World hasn’t gone away. She also states that “shopping malls stretch as far as the eye can see” and “On the wilder fringes of the genetic engineering community there are true believers prattling of the gene-rich and the gene-poor, Huxley’s alphas and epsilons, and busily engaging in schemes for genetic enhancement and to go one better than brave new world, for immortality” (Atwood). By saying this Mrs. Atwood is saying that even 75 years after Huxley’s book is still relevant and what he wrote about is actually going on. I agree that some of what Huxley has written has come true. Along with what Mrs. Atwood has said about the countless shopping malls and genetic engineering Huxley also wrote about flying contraptions and drugs both of which are around today. Helicopters were not around in the 30’s even though Huxley created an identical machine in his story. He also wrote about the use of drugs and medicine to further the human life. The study of medicine is still around today and will be for the next 100 years. Even though the study of medicine was around in the 30’s Huxley took it to a whole other level. He wrote about the use of special medicines and drugs to calm people down or hype them up. So after reading Huxley’s Brave New World one can not say that what he wrote about has not actually come true. It may not have come true to the extent that Huxley wrote about but his writing have still come true. The end of the article reads “It was Huxley’s genius to present us to ourselves in all our ambiguity” (Atwood). Mrs. Atwood is giving Huxley the credit he deserves for writing a masterpiece about what the world might be like in the future that has partially become true.
Atwood’s article
The article made me realize what Brave New World is about. I have not read the book, but I understand from the article that it had a big affect on the people who have read it. It seems some people are disgusted by the book. Just by reading the article I am glad that I have not read the book. I do not think that I would have enjoyed it.
I believe that Atwood makes a good point about what the world is turning into. She points out that the book talks a lot about sex being a pastime or hobby. She includes how contraceptives have taken over the world. No one actually wants to have children. She states how the book is based around that. Atwood states, “The others practice “Malthusian drill” – a form of birth control – and take “pregnancy surrogate” hormone treatments if they feel broody, and sport sweet little faux-leather fashionista cartridge belts crammed with contraceptives” (Atwood). By stating this, Huxley shows her opinion that it is too easy to fix accidental pregnancy. The book makes it clear how easy it is to have sex for recreational purposes instead of to get pregnant, and if one accidentally becomes pregnant then she can just fix the problem by getting rid of the baby. This is exactly what the world is like these days. There is so much that one can do to prevent pregnancy, and if that does not work there is abortion. Atwood states, “If they slip up on their Malthusian drill, there’s always the lovely-pink Abortion Centre” (Atwood). The facts pointed out by this book may be shocking, and her opinion may not be pleasant. However, that is what the world is coming to.
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Huxley’s Brave New World and its Accuracy
Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley, is in my personal opinion, one of the greatest works of the 20th century. It shows us the future, or at least as Huxley imagined it. Brave New World contains some surprisingly accurate predictions about our modern-day society. Aldous Huxley’s work is often regarded as science fiction or fantasy, but in many aspects, it seems to be more non-fiction than anything.
Margaret Atwood recently wrote an article comparing both Brave New World and the George Orwell novel, 1984, and how they compared to modern times. She explains that Huxley’s work shows many similarities to the present. I think that her most interesting connection, something that I had not really thought about before, is the use of sex for recreational purposes. As explained in her article, Margaret Atwood states, “Huxley wrote before the pill, but its advent brought his imagined sexual free-for-all a few steps closer” (Atwood 6). I think that Huxley hit the nail on the head when he wrote about recreational sex. This was a concept that did not exist when the novel was written in 1932. Such a bold, yet accurate, prediction was made when Huxley eloquently wrote of the dystopia that he dreamt about; possibly while under the influence of drugs himself.
Huxley wrote about many of the flaws of the future, such as its meaningless nature; Atwood states, “in a world in which everything is available, nothing has any meaning” (Atwood 6). This is a message that could definitely be applied to our current society. Everything is becoming so available; it is almost pointless to leave the house, other than for a job or a social event. Fruits, vegetables, car parts, school supplies, nearly anything can be shipped to your house. Why even socialize? Our modern society is turning its population into recluses, a topic mildly discussed in Brave New World.
Overall, Atwood has articulately explained her stance on how Brave New World has stood up to its original risqué predictions. She implements a well-written summary of some of the more bizarre aspects of the novel.
Huxley’s vision
Huxley’s Brave New World portrays a futuristic society in which everything is governmentally controlled, yet boasts a perfect social order and an efficient operating system. This new society stems from extreme control of the government, controlling the development of babies into certain caste systems, deciding how and when citizens have fun, and providing drugs to workers as a controlled escape from life. In reality, the government discreetly assumes control of everything and everyone creating not a utopia as described, but a complete dystopia in which thought, emotion, and nature are destroyed by efficiency, business, and work.
Today’s society, while still in a somewhat natural state is creeping ever closer to a government controlled dystopian society where technology and organization reign. The natural state of society is becoming overrun by beaurocratic nonsense forcing everyone to comply and live and act the same way. Once we are shaped into an unvarying society, government can easily control one operating body and manipulate us to work only for governmental gain. The true utopia is one in which mankind returns to a natural state of being under no governmental control and living simply in harmony with nature, allowing everyone to flourish as an individual.
Huxley’s Brave New World
Your reaction of the article and how much of what Huxley has written has come true and how do you feel about that?
The article “Everybody is happy now” written by Margaret Atwood did not do Brave New World justice. Aldous Huxley’s book was brilliantly written and correlates to today’s world. Many occurrences that Huxley wrote about happens in today’s society and some things that he wrote about, such as contraceptives, were not invented before he wrote the book. In my opinion, Atwood described the book harshly and would give people a false interpretation of Huxley’s writing if they have not yet read the book. Atwood did not include the mental struggles that John the Savage had to go though as he was trying to grasp this new world. She also did not include the internal problems that he was having as he was experiencing the new world. Atwood did not include one of the main characters in her article. Bernard was in love with Lenina but he had older style values that did not match in the new world. The people in the new world blamed his lack of new world concepts on the alcohol in his blood segregate. Bernard did not take “soma” very often in contrast to Lenina who was addicted to the drug. Bernard got annoyed with Lenina because she believed in the “everybody belongs to everybody” and had casual sex and did not want to stay with one person. Atwood states “Lenina doesn’t see why she shouldn’t have sex with anyone she likes whenever the occasion offers” (Atwood). She does include the fact about Lenina but she loses the important fact that that annoyed Bernard. but Atwood lost a crucial part of the story by not including Bernard. He had many internal problems that resulted in him being exiled from the new world.
One element that especially intrigued me about Aldous Huxley’s writing is that it did correlate with today’s society. Soma was a drug that was extremely popular in the new world. In today’s society many people are addicted to drugs just as the characters are in Brave New World. Another major problem in today’s society is that younger and younger teenagers are beginning to become sexually active. In Huxley’s book he talks about “erotic play” on the playground with six year olds. In today’s world it is not that dramatic, however there are many young children that are maturing before they are ready. This concerns me greatly and I worry about our world’s future because children are partaking in many events that are not healthy for them, such as drugs and sexual intercourse at an early age. One very shocking element that Huxley included was the use of birth control. Contraceptives were not regulated at the time that Huxley wrote Brave New World. In today’s society many women do take contraceptives, and in the book every woman takes them. The difference is that women nowadays do not stuff a fanny pack full of them; however it is the same concept. Atwood includes in her article, “Huxley wrote before the pill, but its advent brought his imagined sexual free-for –all a few steps closer” (Atwood). In today’s society it is much more accepted to be involved with multiple people than it was in the past. At the time that Huxley wrote this book it was expected that people should only be involved with one person, however in the book everybody “belongs” to everybody else. It intrigues me that Huxley had these ideas and this thought process. He had somewhat of an understanding of the future. He was a very smart and creative man.
Brave New World Responce
The novel Brave New World describes a future society where the higher classes are free to run and play as they wish while the lower casts are engineered to work and do menial and laborious work to keep the system going. Though this was written in 1932, it displayed very similar concepts that are in our world now.
While reading the article, “Margaret Atwood on Brave New World” I was kind of confused at first. I have never read Brave New World so I could not make the connections. Only when I have read the summary that things started to make sense. When I could understand it, I was quite surprised that Brave New World had so many roots to other, and older, stories. It even had roots in Plato’s Republic and the Books of Revelations (Atwood). I was also surprised on how close the novel’s futuristic setting is similar to our own.
A lot of different themes that are in Huxley’s futuristic world are very similar to our society. One of the items in genetics. In Huxley’s novel, babies are not born normally, instead they are grown in a hatchery. Today’s genetics have gotten so advanced recently that we can genetically clone animals and even check embryos for chances of diseases and imperfections. In a few years, we could even be able to “grow” our children. Another item is their drug, soma, which makes the user really happy with no side affects. We have drugs in our society that give us temporary bliss, but they also come with nasty side effects. Another theme is how intercourse is almost normal in Huxley’s society. In our society, you only lay with who you love and/or marry and laying with anyone else is considered adultery. In Huxley’s world, there is a saying, “Everyone belongs to everyone else” They sleep with everybody and the women take drastic measures, from contraceptives to abortion, to make sure they do no conceive. I find this very unnerving. I am also uncomfortable with the thought that they are okay with children doing this as well.
This article was seriously ridiculous. I have never read the book “Brave New World” and after reading I have no desire to either. This article did nothing but point out things that would make someone not want to read it. The article mainly pointed out how the book dealt with sex and how no one wants to give birth to a child. Now having a book that has sex in it is completely different than having a book that is based on nothing but sex. . Especially if the one deals with little kids are fooling around with each other! “sex has become a recreation. Little naked children carry on “erotic play” in the shrubberies, so as to get a hand in early” (Atwood). I really don’t want to read something that involves little kids doing this.
In “Brave New World” I gather that people are living in a utopia and are trying to maintain the peace in their strange little way. “Brave New World has its own gentler punishments: for non-conformists, it’s exile to Iceland, where Man’s Final End can be discussed among like-minded intellectuals without pestering “normal “people- in a sort of university, as it were” (Atwood). This gives me the impression that these people are of a higher intelligence than for the time period it was written. Well the book was half right. During this day and age there is things to help prevent someone from having a child after having sex and there are a lot people who base everything around sex. Yes there are those types of people out there, and yes we all know them, so no, there is no reason for anyone to get offended I’m just stating facts.
This article also points out that there is a detachment of emotion between a test tube baby and the so called parent. There is no emotion or there is no trial and error while learning out to parent a child. They are programmed on what to say and how to act. Really?? That is ridiculous. Parents are supposed to be parents and children are not supposed to be born from test tubes which is just absurd.
This article just leaves me perplexed. Atwood seems to be running Huxley in the mud about something and then compliments him. Either way I do not want to read this book and it is just way too confusing and I don’t want to read it. It may be a good book, but it will take a lot of convincing for me to read it.
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I can’t think of a title
Huxley’s masterpiece “Brave New World” has brought to light the controversies of an ever-developing society. Some highly controversial subject matters include a totalitarian society, genetically enhanced individuals to be useful to uniformed society, and an absolute synthetic urban community.
After Seventy Five years since the publication of “Brave New World” we are finding correlations in everyday modern society. In Margaret Atwood’s article “The Guardian” she realizes those daunting controversies are starting to manifest in our progressing society. One noteworthy similarity is the curiosity of geneticist and the altering of human genes, “true believers” in gene-rich and gene-poor are “busily engaging in schemes for genetic enhancement” (Atwood 2).
Society is always progressing in order to become evermore efficient, but this does not mean we have to shed our humanity in order to evolve ahead of our time. In “Brave New World” infants were genetically altered and hypnotized into making them useful to society. The infants were stripped of their individuality in order to fill gaps in the metropolitan hierarchy.
The expanding metropolitan community is another problematic development that relates to Huxley’s predictions. “Shopping malls stretch as far as the bulldozer can see” (Atwood 2). In heavily populated cities it is uncommon to come across something that is not of human design, in other words natural.
We have the means to create a society in which “Brave New World” entails and it might not be long before some reformist attain the will. In order to avoid such a society we must heed Huxley’s warnings and differentiate between bettering society and losing our humanity.
In A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley journeys deep beyond the opaque mask that is modern ideology in order to solidify what humanity truly means, however in the midst of his shockingly realistic interpretations of the future, a reader may be left with more questions than answers. What is really so remarkable about the book is that after so many decades it has the same impression on the reader that it was intended to when it was written. This is because the subject matter of the story is universal and concerns human interaction, examining human sociology under a microscope. Huxley makes us question what about our lives gives us true meaning, if, even in a material utopia, sex does not mean love and the only happiness is drug-induced.
Composition 111 