Showing posts with label Suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suicide. Show all posts

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Final Words on Brave New World


Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World as his prediction of what the future may hold. He used well rounded characters to tell the story of a world in which almost every aspect of life was controlled. The settings of the book were very detailed and intricate, from the factory where new members of society were made to the deserts of the Savage reserves. The futuristic characteristics of the society were also very intriguing. These included the different castes of people, from Alpha to Epsilon, the helicopter transportation systems, and the drug soma, which offered escape for distressed members of society. Huxley's opinions on personal freedoms were very evident in the novel. He seemed to feel that governments were on a path that would lead to the destruction of personal liberties under the ideal of "happiness." The novel suggests that government only desires complete control of its own citizens and it will try to gain this control through any means necessary, including taking away the natural right of birthing and parenting a child. Huxley may have acquired this view of government watching the Nazi fascist machine come to power in the early 1930's. At the end of his novel, one of the main characters commits suicide because of the pressures of "civilized" life. Aldous Huxley may have been trying to communicate that if a government ascertains the amount of control it did during the novel, modern ways would perish and all traces of the past erased by the new regime. Brave New World serves as a commentary to what would become if a world government successfully gained an unimaginable amount of control and changed life as we know it.
Picture: http://bookcoverarchive.com/images/books/brave_new_world_revisited.large.jpg

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Quote from Brave New World August 3, 2010 Page 259

"Thew door of the lighthouse was ajar. They pushed it open and walked into a shuttered twilight. Through an archway on the further side of the room they could see the bottom of the staircase that led up to the higher floors. Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet."
-Brave New World Page 259
The weight of the "Brave New World" that the Savage was thrust into finally crashes down upon the Savage. The new lifestyle thrust upon the world by the maniacal government has finally driven a man to take his own life. The pleasure-centered ways of the new world does not sit well with the Savage. He feels life should and needs to be tough to make it worth living. These people living in such sin angers the Savage because of the beliefs instilled in him by the natives back on the reserve. He cannot stand living with such filthy people.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Brave New World August 3, 2010 Pages 236-259

The Savage attempts to purify himself from the evils of the civilized world. He moves away from the civilized world, preffering to live alone. He purifies himself of dirty thoughts. He makes himself physically sick and whips himself to gain purtity. He becomes a sort of hermit in a future world. The society finally finds him and uses him as a form of entertainment. The society turns even the most driven individual to act impurely and participate in an orgy. Because of his actions, the Savage decides to commit suicide. The skewed and perverted views of civilization caused a pure and work-oriented man to commit suicide. The pressures of civilization were too great to handle for someone who was not conditioned to live in civilization. Is it really civilized when you have to be condtioned before being able to conciously think to be able to survive? That kind of life would be entirely unbearable.