Eng 4u - Civilization Is Sterilization

Sarah Soullière

Ms. Nero

ENG 4U

May 22, 2012

Civilization is Sterilization

Imagine a world where people are "decanted" from bottles, instead of being born and having parents, where no one has heard of Shakespeare, where people do not age and where the word "mother" is an obscenity. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, he creates such a society with the use of advanced technology. He creates a World State that takes advantage of these technologies, which relates to the major theme in the novel of the dangers of those in power having control of the new and developing technologies. To create this theme, he effectively uses allusion, symbolism and irony throughout the novel.

One literary device that Huxley uses to develop theme is allusion. Huxley makes numerous references to William Shakespeare, normally through the character of John "the savage" to help develop his theme. He uses quotes from Romeo and Juliet, Othello and King Lear. The title of the novel, Brave New World, is from The Tempest, by Shakespeare: "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world/ That has such people in it!" (V.i.186-187). While speaking with Mustapha Mond, the Controller, John is talking about the abolition of mosquitoes and justifies his view with a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet (III, I, 58-61):

You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether ‘tis [better] in the mid to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them… But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy. (238)

The abolition of mosquitoes shows how dependent on technology the controllers really are. They have such a desire for perfection that if something can be changed, they will change it instead of dealing with it.

Huxley also makes allusions to many political figures through the character's names. For example, Lenina Crowne got her name from Vladimir Lenin, a communist politician who led the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Bernard Marx was named after Karl Marx, a revolutionary socialist. Benito Hoover was named after Benito Mussolini the dictator of Italy at the time and Herbert Hoover was the President of the United States at the time this novel was written. With the use of advanced technology, the controllers in the World State tried to create a totalitarianism