Brave New World Analysis Paper

7/23/2019 Brave New World Analysis Paper

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Samantha Boyd

Veritas Symposium

FamilyValues in

BraveNewWorld andWall-EWith Dr. Ryan


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In Aldous Huxleys dystopian novel,Brave New World, it is evident that there are several key

factors missing from their society. There is no individualism, people have their fates decided for

them while they are nothing more than an embryo floating in a test tube. There is no real

fulfillment to life they work, they take soma at night, and eventually they will be lead to their

deaths and become fertili!er. "here is the value of a person# "here is the idea that people

should care about each other# These values get taken away when there isnt an understanding of

what it means to be a part of a community. $ut where does this idea stem from# In Brave New

World and Wall-E, society may have lost the idea of family, and what it means to be loved and

loyal, but in order for them to grow, they must first learn how to form proper bonds.

"hat good comes from family# "here does the idea of family even come from# In times

forgotten, family was this group of people who loved and supported each other. It could be as

small as a three man pack or as large as a twenty man clan. %ither way, everyone within this

group would look out for each other. &amily sets the precedent for what it means to love, to have

loyalty. "ithout family, how are these values learned# InBrave New World, it is easy to see

where these are absent. $ut how does this affect society# 'oes it even really appear to bother the

citi!ens of the "orld (tate# In Wall-E, he is the last of his kind, yet through archaic technology

he develops an idea of what he is missing through watching the scenes fromHello, Dolly. He

knows that he needs someone else to make himself complete, or at least thats how he feels.

In order for it to appear that something is missing, that thing must first be in place. &or

the citi!ens of the "orld (tate, this idea of a family was never a real concept. In the old world,

the time before )&ord,* there was family, and love and loyalty were present. In the world in

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which $ernard and his peers live, there are no parents, no generations. %veryone is formed in a

test tube and is essentially related to everyone else. In a world full of twins and siblings, there is

no idea of real love. These people are +ust more cogs in the machine and have little to no

personality. ur main characters, of course, are shown as a )diverse* group of people. $ut the

background characters make it obvious that unless they step out of their boundaries, they will

never be different. &or Wall-E, he had others that were exactly like himself, except for the fact

that they didnt develop a personality like he did. However, the development of his personality

may have stemmed from the fact that he was the only one left, and he needed something to keep

him going. $ut what helped him to maintain it#

This is another aspect where it is obvious that family is missing. &amily helps to develop

personalities, traits, even hobbies. "all%s trait are reinforced at first by the cockroach that

comes to claim "all% as his own. Then through %ve and the other robots on the ship, he comes

to see that what makes him different from them is a good thing. He has a personality, and

therefore people come to find compassion for him. The people in the "orld (tate do not develop

their personalities for themselves, rather they have them assigned to them or +ust pick up what

seems to be the most in style thing to do. "hereas "all% falls into the worker drone aspect of

things, he is still able to put his own uni-ueness into his work. &or the betas and people like

them, they literally operate only on a hive mentality and do as they are told. In a setting where

there is love, development, nurturing of talents can be present. This is not always the case,

however, at least if the possibility was there, there might be a chance. This is where art comes

from, literature, things of that nature. However, in the world that Aldous Huxley has spun for the

reader, these things only exist with ond and those who live outside of the "orld (tate.

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/ohn knows of (hakespeare, and has the ability to -uote his works verbatim. /ohn also

had a mother, and was aware of the fact he had a father. In /ohns world, parents were a very real

institution, and people had a loyalty to one another. In $ernards world, +ust the word mother is

seen as an obscenity. It is made clear throughout the text0 ) 1The (avage, wrote $ernard, 1refuses

to take soma, and seems much distressed because the woman 2inda, his m,*. 3Huxley 4567

They cant even use the word mother, which makes the line between /ohn and the members of

the "orld (tate that much clearer. f course, /ohn and 2inda were outcasts even in the society of

the reservation, but /ohn was still exposed to how the people would come together as a

community to pray and hold rituals. He learned to stand up for what he believed in, and how to

turn his actions into words. He understood loyalty, and what it meant to stand by someone else.

%vidence of this is clear in such cases where he stood by his mother, even up to the point where

she was dying. He wanted her to be accepted and to have a smooth transition into their new

environment.

An interesting point to bring to this is how a character like Helmholt!, or even 2enina,

could come to know loyalty. Helmholt! seems to have it from the beginning, standing by

$ernard even though he is somewhat of an outcast in the "orld (tate. 2enina possibly learns it

through her love for /ohn. In her world, it was seen as usual to stay with only one person. (he

was a socialite, and could have any man she wanted and did. /ohn turned things around for her,

and she began to experience a feeling of love for him. "ith this feeling, she learned to be loyal to

him, and not want other men. %ven when he pulled away from society completely, she still

wanted to be involved with him. 2oyalty may have already been there for Helmholt!, but /ohn

cemented it for him. Helmholt! was able to find a kindred spirit in this strange young man, and

wanted to stand by him even when he got them both into trouble with the law.

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In an odd way, the main characters of this story find themselves making a family within

the four of them. $ernard, /ohn, Helmholt!, and 2enina have the ability to come together and

support each other even without really understanding what they are doing. However, the

presence of /ohn shows that there needed to be someone in their mix who understood what it

took to make a family. It in a world of civili!ed people, it took a savage to understand that it was

okay to stand with friends and to have a loyalty to each other. 2enina even found that it was

possible to love one person, and one person alone. This is where the similarities betweenBrave

New World and Wall-Ecollide. In both storylines, the main character finds himself wrapped up

with this strange group of people. They dont seem to have that much in common, but by the end

of their stories, they have all effected each other and have learned something, be it positive or

negative, from the others. "all% has his gang of broken robots and disabled humans, and

$ernard has his cast of outsiders. It is through the people they surround themselves with that they

begin to find the means to form bonds and find that things like love and loyalty can exist in their

worlds.

%ven with this being understood, that in a world likeBrave New World, there could still

be a familial structure, there is not a happy ending to this novel. "hereas Wall-E ends on the note

that things can only get better from where the view leaves him, the novel takes a different route.

Things dont suddenly revert to back the olden ways. /ohn dies, its implied that he may have

killed 2enina, and Helmholt! and $ernard are banished to the island of outsiders. $ut is this

ending totally hopeless# 8erhaps $ernard and Helmholt! can take what theyve learned to this

island and help the society of people already living there. They can learn what it means to have

real connections with people, and to be loyal and loving towards each other. aybe then they can

start their own world, and this world could one day become the )new* version of the "orld

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(tate. &or "all%, he will be helping his new family rebuild their home, while developing new

relationship after new relationship with each inhabitant that he encounters. aybe the "orld

(tate would have been different if they had a "all% in their midst# Instead, they will +ust have

to learn on their own what it takes to relearn loyalty and love.

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9eferences

Huxley, Aldous. $rave :ew "orld. :ew ;ork0 8erennial . 8rint.

?"all%.? 'isney ovies. :.p., n.d. "eb. 6= ct. @64.

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Brave New World Analysis Paper

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