In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, stability is the central goal and the raison d’être. It was only through the creation of a monstrous version of contemporary man would there be guarantee that the dystopia would not be endangered. Upon analysis, this was the determination for stability no matter the cost. Secondly, the reason and justification for this deterioration of the human condition. The answer was the adulteration of ideas of family and love, art, religion, and even death. Hence in choosing a question, the focus was firstly why the characters were so lacking in humanity. They seemed mannequins, caricatures of what it means to be human, like programmed robots in our modern world. Thus in my essay, I will explore to what extent in its determination to achieve a stable society does the World State subvert religion, trivialize art, and alter attitudes towards death thereby debasing the human condition?ĭuring my reading, I was struck by how the characters of the novel are so utterly different from myself and what we consider normal in society. Instead we have a world where scientific methods to ensure stability have the effect of dehumanization: a reflection of the changes that were transforming Huxley’s world such as growing consumerism, promiscuity, and changes in popular culture at the novel’s writing and a warning to his generation of what may ensue if this path continued.

This is hardly the hopeful Brave New World voiced by Miranda in The Tempest. Huxley himself described the novel’s theme as “the advancement of science as it affects human individuals”. Through various techniques of biological and behavioural conditioning, there is a successful debasement of the human condition. The subversion of religion, trivialization of art, and the alteration of attitudes towards death to guarantee this demand for stability, fundamentally affects humanity.

Huxley’s vision of a static dystopia which altered what it means to be human is as terrifying as when this novel was first published. Although written over eighty years ago in 1932, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World still maintains its relevance to society today.

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