Brave New World

“‘And that,’ put in the Director sententiously, ‘that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their un-escapable social destiny.’”

Here, Huxley expands the thesis of the World State to include the conditioning of the mass-produced humans the chapter details. What is noteworthy in this idea is that it does not seem inherently evil or wrong-headed. The goal of the society seems to be to make people happy. However, the methodology is where Huxley would like to turn the reader’s attention, seemingly saying that, no, the ends do not justify the means in this case.

“Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too—all his lifelong. The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! [...] Suggestions from the State.”

This quote, summarizing the end goal of all the conditioning being performed at the Hatchery, both prior to and after “decanting,” speaks to the theme of control at the center of the dystopian aspects of this World State society. It is through this overwhelming control that the stability the society values over all else is able to be achieved. 

“[...] ‘you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford’s: History is bunk.’”

One of the early mentions of the main source of inspiration of the World State’s tenets, Henry Ford, this passage uses a real quote from the historical figure and fictionalizes its foundational status in this dystopian society. Mond is explaining, ironically enough, the ways in which suppressing history aids in maintaining stability and the status quo by giving a history lesson.

“‘But every one belongs to every one else,’ he concluded, citing the hypnopaedic proverb.”

This proverb, and many others like it, is repeated multiple times throughout the novel. Not only does it demonstrate the power of the hypnopaedic conditioning described in the opening chapters, but also is used to justify the practice of polyamory that is one of the tenets of the society. In order to foster stability, it was decided early on during the World State’s founding that the excessive emotions driven by monogamy and the family unit could not be tolerated, and so people are conditioned to not be possessive with each other, but rather communal. 

“‘In the end,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower, but infinitely surer methods of ectogenesis, neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopaedia […]’”

Falling in the midst of Mond’s history lesson, which reveals to the reader the origins of the World State, this passage captures one of the ideas that separated Brave New World from other dystopian novels: force is an ineffective method of control. Instead, as Mond suggests, the much slower methods of conditioning before and after birth effectively quell the very impulse of rebellion that might otherwise surface, thereby nipping the problem in the proverbial bud. 

“That which had made Helmholtz so uncomfortably aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals.”

Further setting Marx apart from the other characters we’ve seen so far in the novel, this passage notes his and his friend’s resistance to conformity. This is implicated not only in why most people dislike Bernard but also hints at what Lenina finds likeable about him: his difference. This recalls the moment in the locker room in the previous chapter, when Lenina herself was resisting conformity by going out only with Foster. 

“Twelve of them ready to be made one, waiting to come together, to be fused, to lose their twelve separate identities in a larger being.”

The most mystical ceremony we see from the World State, this soma-fueled, almost-religious experience yet again serves to highlight what sets Bernard apart: he retains his individuality. Despite the ceremony, in which the others are able to drain themselves of any individualism that has built up in the intervening two weeks, Marx retains his sense of self. Once again, we return to the themes of conformity versus individuality.

“‘It makes me feel as though [...] I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. Doesn’t it make you feel like that, Lenina?’”

In this passage, Bernard Marx is revealing the depths of his individuality and antagonism toward the World State’s need for conformity and stability. Marx, more than any other character, actively pushes back against the societal pressures, despite the active discouragement of Lenina, the D.H.C., and even his friend, Helmholtz, who wishes he were better able to control his individuality and relish it.

“‘Well,’ he resumed at last, ‘the next day there was a search. But we couldn’t find her. She must have fallen into a gully somewhere; or been eaten by a mountain lion. [...] It upset me very much at the time. More than it ought to have done, I dare say. Because, after all [...] the social body persists although the component cells may change.’” 

One of the more integral reveals that directly impacts the plot of the novel, this story from the Director foreshadows the coming discovery of Linda and John, once Marx and Lenina are at the reservation. It also serves in direct contrast to Bernard’s thoughts about the “social body” in the previous quote, highlighting the growing antagonism between Bernard and the Director, which is brought to a head by Bernard’s discovery. 

“As for the man who was his father, Linda had never seen him again. His name was Tomakin. (Yes, ‘Thomas’ was the D.H.C.’s first name.) He must have flown away, back to the Other Place, away without her—a bad, unkind, unnatural man.” 

This moment in the narrative marks a dramatic shift for Bernard. He has been spiraling, but here, at this stroke of good fortune, he finds just what he needs to reverse course and spit in the faces of his many detractors. However, it is this spitefulness and his lack of real understanding of how to exist in the world that will ultimately be his downfall.

“[...] you have no idea how difficult that is. There’s so much one doesn’t know; it wasn’t really my business to know. I mean, when a child asks you how a helicopter works, or who made the world—well, what are you to answer if you’re a Beta and have always worked in the Fertilizing Room? What are you to answer?”

In this passage, we see a particular downfall of the culture of hyper-specialization and compartmentalization inherent in the World State. While everything might run smoothly in ideal circumstances, if those circumstances are altered, as Linda finds hers altered, then the system quickly breaks down and is unfixable. Thus, we see John’s predicament: he was raised in a household that values the World State’s ideals, but was unable to produce the necessary circumstances to fully instill them.

“These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were taken (he couldn’t make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all the same)—they gave him a reason for hating Popé; and they made his hatred more real; they even made Popé himself more real.”

In this passage, we return to Shakespeare and the power of words. John, uninhibited in his emotions, finds the words powerful, so powerful in fact that they help amplify and even shape his reality. One of the aspects of the World State that will utterly confound him and cause him to despair is the lack of art or literature.  

“[...] he looked down [...] into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little jump [...] He had discovered Time and Death and God.” 

John, in this passage, makes manifest something that can easily go unnoticed in the previous chapters set in the “civilized world”: there is no real concept of one’s own mortality, beyond the mention of people being chemically the same and being recycled to some extent, after they’ve died. Here, John shows how starkly he contrasts from even the strangest and most individual character from the World State, Bernard. More than that, he equates this concept with God, another idea that is absent in the World State, conflating the perceived negativity of Death with the positivity of religion. 

“O brave new world that has such people in it. Let’s start at once.”

As the quote that first contains the phrase of the title of the novel, the end of Chapter 8 draws attention to itself. Here, we see an ironic form of foreshadowing. We know that Bernard has ulterior motives for bringing John with him, and yet John himself cannot see this. Instead, he is genuinely excited and convinced this journey will allow him a place where he can finally fit in.

“Detestable thought! He was ashamed of himself. Pure and vestal modesty...”

One of the important aspects of John’s character is his conflicted relationship with his own and others’ sexuality. Here, he is caught between his own base desires and the fact that he could easily get away with slaking them, only to have a bout of conscience stay his hand and drive him to shame. This internal conflict is symbolic of the competing conceptions of sexuality we see in the novel: the monogamy and deep feeling of the Reservation and the surface level polyamory of civilization.

“It is better that one man suffer than that many should be corrupted. [...] no offense is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior [sic]. Murder kills only the individual—and after all what is an individual? [...] Unorthodoxy [...] strikes at Society itself.”

Arriving, ironically, right before his fall from society, this speech from the Director epitomizes the World State ideal of the society over the individual. The comparison to murder is meant to show the extremes to which the society’s most model citizens devalue the self in favor of the whole. Huxley layers this speech in irony since the reader knows what is coming, and the Director is essentially damning himself.

“‘I feel,’ [Helmholtz] said, after a silence, ‘as though I were just beginning to have something to write about. As though I were beginning to be able to use that power I feel I’ve got inside of me—that extra, latent power.’” 

One of the clear themes in this chapter is the power of poetry. Here, Huxley highlights this by repeating the word “power,” and adding the word “latent.” This foreshadows the conversations in the final few chapters, in which Mond clearly states that stability can only be achieved through suppressing passions fostered by art and science. 

“Bernard dashed to meet them. He waved his arms; and it was action, he was doing something.” 

This final impotent act, though not the last we see of Bernard, is the proverbial nail in his coffin as a character. He has been plagued by inaction, and even his one action, bringing Linda and John to London, becomes ultimately impotent, as he is shut up and shipped off to an island to live out the rest of his days. 

“‘But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art.’”

One of the novel’s theses for a stable society on the World State model is that people cannot be allowed an excess of emotion, as emotion is irrational. Here, Huxley links emotion directly to literature, and by extension all “high art,” thus making the case that censorship and stability go hand in hand. 

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery.”

This is one of the more interesting and difficult-to-parse passages from Mond’s conversation with John at the end of the novel. This is where the novel gets most philosophical and the narrative essentially becomes a vehicle for ideas. Actual happiness here refers to the even keel of utopia, whereas the alternative is the violent swing from misery to joy.

“You can only be independent of God while you’ve got youth and prosperity; independence won’t take you safely to the end.”

This is another of the intriguing philosophical ideas the novel expresses near its conclusion. Here, Huxley, through Mond, is drawing a connection between a need for God and imperfection. In a perfect world, there is no need for religion or God.

“‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’

‘All right then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’”

This final piece of the conversation between Mond and John, before moving to the denouement in the final chapter, highlights and summarizes the two characters’ opposing views, which also symbolize their respective cultures.

“Loathsome civilized stuff! He had made up his mind that he would never eat it, even if he were starving. ‘That’ll teach them,’ he thought vindictively. It would also teach him.” 

The narrator begins to break in to the narrative more forcefully here, at the end of the novel, directly alluding to what is going to come next. This is similar in style to the intriguing narration that begins the novel, and seems to be both a conscious narrator, and a groupthink take on the voice of the character, effectively cloning it, just as the citizens of World State are effectively clones of one another.