Critical Analysis of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: A Review

This essay provides a critical review of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," exploring the psychological and sociological factors that shaped the narrative. The analysis delves into the themes of totalitarianism, technological advancement, and the dangers of a society controlled by cloning and controlled substances. The essay examines the book's relevance to contemporary society, its critique of technological reliance, and the author's exploration of human freedom and responsibility. The review considers the book's classification as a dystopian novel and its portrayal of a world where happiness is manufactured at the expense of individual autonomy. The essay also touches upon the book's historical context, the author's influences, and the controversies surrounding its publication and censorship. Overall, the essay highlights the enduring impact of "Brave New World" as a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of unchecked scientific progress and governmental control over individuals' lives.

Running head: BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
Book Review – Brave New World
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1BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a futuristic scientific-fiction novel based on an
idea of the ideal society that is advanced in all aspects like technology and biology. The
purpose of this paper is to analyse the psychological and the sociologic factors that motivated
the story written by Huxley. The use of cloning and controlled substances is an integral theme
in the book as the author portrays the government having attained stability while projecting
control through these extreme forms as mentioned above. Brave New World revolves around
a prevalent theme of totalitarianism with the mention of test tube babies, various forms of
hypnotism that creates a hierarchy of class where the intelligent humans are placed in the
vital positions of the society and the others are programmed to do menial tasks (Franzén).
This essay will critically analyse the work done by Huxley and highlight the various
disadvantages that comes from a modern world. This book proves to be an exceptionally
complex read and would only be recommended for ages 14 and above because the ideas that
the author presents are complicated and the writing style contains complex sentences and
vocabulary.
The years in the book are denoted as being AF which stands for “after Ford” as when
Huxley had written the book, the assembly line invented by Henry Ford was the most
esteemed discovery of that time. It is also important to note the time during which Huxley
wrote this book, which was in the middle of WWI and WWII (Moran), where the technology
industry was booming in the West and this is where the author picked up the main theme that
is embedded in the book (Farag).
The author begins the book by giving a full scientific description of the nature of the
society (Huxley). The author then introduces the mechanics of the class system that is play in
the book, where the people are sorted from their embryotic stage into which class they will be
growing up in. At this embryotic stage, their future is already chosen for them in that they
will either be destined for the higher or lower class. Keeping in mind the technological

2BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
advancements at the time the book was written, the society was anxious about these new
discoveries and that is what drove the success of the book. According to the author, the blind
reliance on technology was too naïve and he wrote the book to criticize that view by taking
the ideas to their extremes (Franzén).
It is very important to note that the Brave New World was written in the year 1932
and it is an astonishing fact how relatable it still proves to be in today’s society. Huxley
successfully predicted the way that people would be obsessed with their televisions and
referred to it as a “plug-in drug” (Huxley). The author, in his book, describes the modern
world as a place where everyone seems to be content with their lives as they get to enjoy
numerous carnal pleasures, but are not able to do so without sacrificing their freedom and
their own responsibility. He portrays a society where everyone is happy because they are not
able to think on their own and are entertained and satisfied with consumer products and
various forms of entertainment that is available to them (Biedenweg, Kelly and Nicole). It is
interesting to see how Huxley is able to describe the dangers of technology and the effect it
has on the world and successfully concludes that technology will not be able to save us, all of
humanity (Biedenweg, Kelly and Nicole). Brave New World is considered to be one of the
classic, yet the readers are still able to relate to it in today’s time more than in the time period
that it was written in. Society as we know it at the moment is much closer to experiencing
such negative effects as the ones that the author describes in the book, as technology has
become almost a necessity for majority of the population. Brave New World is a very science-
heavy book, and that is because all throughout Huxley’s life he was surrounded by scientists
in his family (Holmes). After a disease turned him partially blind, Huxley had given up hopes
to pursuing the scientific path of his brothers and father.
The author also explores how far technology and scientific innovations can extend,
without being considered immoral in their practices (Tripp). The book pokes at the readers so

3BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
that they will be left thinking about what would their world look like if eugenics were to rule,
and everyone to be separated, even though they all have equal attributes, and living in a pot
hole of inequality and extreme unfairness (Holmes). The popular definition for the word
utopia is that it means a perfect world however, when looking at it through its Greek origin, it
can be seen that there are two meanings of utopia, which stand for either “good place” or “no
place”. This creates a cynical definition of the word where it can be concluded that the
perfect place does not exist and is impossible (Biedenweg, Kelly and Nicole). Many readers
would mistake this book to be describing a utopic place; however Huxley portrays the society
as more of a dystopia. Utopian and dystopian based fiction materials are usually not always
about the future, but more of an indirect perception of the present. The authors that write
these stories usually start with their own perceptions towards their society in terms of what
they like, dislike or their fears that motivates them to develop such extreme ideas. In
Huxley’s Brave New World, the readers are able to see their own society in a very
exaggerated but recognizable form. When Huxley had first presented this book, it was very
frighteningly believable but has not become more relevant since then. When the book was
revisited in 1958, Huxley addresses one of his regrets in the storyline which was his
assumption of it taking six centuries for the brave new world to be implemented. Since the
revisitation happened only a mere 26 years after the book was published, Huxley said he
would like to revise his estimation and make it to a timeframe that is less than a century.
There are some aspects of the book where readers might be a little uncomfortable
while reading as Huxley talks about the fact that from a young age, the children are being
given all sexual freedom and go through conditioning that continues to their adulthood. In
one part of the book, Huxley writes that, the character of Benito Hoover starts handing
around a chewing gum that promotes the sex hormones in the people who consume it
(Huxley). An interesting fact to keep in mind for the book in question, Huxley was accused of

4BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
plagiarising this text from the novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin called My which was published in
1920 (Tripp). Huxley had denied ever reading the book, and added that the similar theme of
the books was a result of the common fear and scepticism that was bubbling in their society
concerning the rapid growth of technological advancements (Ayar).
At the time that the book was published, it was received with a lot of negative
reactions because many readers were highly offended by how Huxley portrayed the future,
and not many were able to understand the deep-thinking implications of what he had written
(Bélanger). Brave New World ended up on the world’s banned novel list and still remains
under the censored section to this day (Rowsell, Ernest and Donna). Various libraries and
schools were the force behind the banning of this book because they believed that the book
motivated thoughts about self-harm, inappropriate promiscuity and basically, just an overall
negative impact on the minds of young readers (Chen and Yang).
The most disturbing thought that arises from the story of the Brave New World is that
there may be, perhaps, many people that would actually want to live in the society like the
one depicted in the book. Keeping in mind the way that the modern Western world works and
also the state of the society in America in the 1920s, with the invention of the assembly-line
technique by Ford followed by a sudden increase in consumerism and hedonistic tendencies,
Huxley was able to project his observations to the logical conclusions of the readers. The
book made the common man question what the reaction would be for a ‘sane’ man to such an
environment, and the result is the Brave New World.
Watching the news in the present time, it becomes very easy for the viewers to realize
that the world they are living in is in constant turmoil. However, with this realization, it is an
inert wish that everyone has for everyone to be able to get along with each other and we
question how easy it would be for the government to enforce this theory. In everyone’s

5BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
minds, it seems like a very menial problem with an easy solution however, Huxley’s Brave
New World is able to show the readers that dangers that arise when the government is allowed
to regulate the level of happiness in each individual of the society. Given the industrial
progress that was taking place at the time that the book was written, Huxley saw that it would
be soon that the time would come where humanity will possess the means of being able to
solve all its material and social needs to be able to achieve happiness that was universal.
However, this cannot be achieved without letting go of all types of freedom available to
people in the society. This book shows the readers how the creation of a perfect world can go
very wrong if the government is given full liberty to create a stable civilization where
everyone is always happy. Huxley also addresses the inherent need that people have to
express their intellectual and emotional stand on the direction of modern society.

6BOOK REVIEW – BRAVE NEW WORLD
Works Cited:
Ayar, Hilal. The subjected individual in late modern and postmodern fiction: a comparative
study of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
MS thesis. Namık Kemal Üniversitesi, 2016.
Bélanger, Laurent. "How does Aldous Huxley create a sense of control in Brave New World
to reflect social, economic and cultural changes in the early 20th Century?." (2015).
Biedenweg, Kelly, and Nicole D. Gross-Camp. "A brave new world: integrating well-being
and conservation." Ecology and Society 23.2 (2018): 32.
Chen, Yuyu, and David Y. Yang. 1984 or the Brave New World? Evidence from a Field
Experiment on Media Censorship in China. working paper, 2017.
Farag, Ahmed Ahmed Abdelaziz. "Enslavement and freedom in Aldous Huxleys Brave New
World." International Journal of English and Literature 7.4 (2016): 57-61.
Franzén, Martin. "Deconstructing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World’s Ambiguous
Portrayal of the future." (2019).
Moran, Sam. Control in WWII Novels: 1984 and Brave New World. Diss. Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, 2018.
Rowsell, Jennifer, Ernest Morrell, and Donna E. Alvermann. "Confronting the digital divide:
Debunking brave new world discourses." The Reading Teacher 71.2 (2017): 157-165.
Tripp, Ronja. "Biopolitical Dystopia: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)." Dystopia,
Science Fiction, Post-Apocalypse: Classics–New Tendencies–Model
Interpretations (2015): 29-45.