BNW ESSAY DRAFT 1

Brave New World Essay

“Often it seems that those who are quiet, stoic, reserved, are often those with the most to say.”

Some may call them “outliers”, others “introverts”, since society’s construction there have been those who, for better or worse, harbor a fundamental sense of disconnect, feel as if they do not belong within their society’s structures. From Holden Caulfield to Christopher McCandless, there is many an introvert in literature, individuals dissatisfied with their respective culture, their society’s expectations, its morals, those unable to find a place in society for themselves. Undoubtedly gleaning from his own deep-seated disposition, personal experiences, Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World provides a porthole in to the perspicacity of one such an introvert, one decidedly alienated, self-isolated from the world of the World State. Whether it be a marker of emerging individualism or even a sign of surfacing rebellion, the arguable “protagonist” of Brave New World, Bernard Marx, is not only an introvert internalizing his cultural dissatisfaction, disconnection, but so to a means by which his surrounding society’s beliefs, its values, are identified, characterized.  

An utterly efficient, emotionless, utopia, a man made machine manned by the manufactured machinations of mankind, a human hive with its assorted hierarchy, worker bees and queens, with its castes, the society of the World State functions on three foundational tenets: Community, Identity, Stability.  Yet, what of those with their own identity? Bernard Marx is the answer, an individual where there should be not.  Bernard from the beginning of the novel and beyond depicts a peculiar proclivity towards introversion/internalization, quickly becoming dissatisfied with his pre-designated caste, societal station. Contemplative, if not completely sentimental, Bernard’s individualism, his growing disillusionment with the World state is perceived as a stigma in such a uniform, utilitarian society. He is alienated, a threat to communal singularity, stability as true stability, as is the assumption of Bernard’s society, cannot exist without ultimately non-competitive, wholly identical uniformity. Bernard’s thoughts and actions enable us a contrasting perspective, a critical eye on his society.  While his culture, his caste, is conditioned for materialistic consumerism, Bernard finds no real contentedness in objects, inanimate baubles and “things”. Ford jettisoning Jesus, industrialism and mindless mechanical industry propagated, assembly line occupations proliferated not unlike some kind of hynpopaedic propaganda; Bernard resists so to his culture’s compulsions of unconditional dedication to machinery. Even against threats of exile, exportation to Iceland byway of the Hatchery director Helmholtz for endangering the World State’s rationalistic ideology, Bernard bites back with a marked level of emotional identity. Wanting to watch, see, inflict intangible but all too real damage, Bernard confronts the director, forces him to confront his own societal stigmas in the form of the naturally conceived John. He did this as a strike of emotion, a strike to Helmholtz and World state society, striking damage all to real via human introversion, such emotional futility dubbed fickle. He rebelled against a society who could not and would not facilitate him, a society who valued only uniformity in the fears of the uncertainty that comes with illogical, imperfect individuality. Bernard, thru his alienation, thoughts and actions, illustrates that most inherent dogma of his society’s values: unequivocal fear, fear of fear itself, fear of uncertainty, of the variable, erratic and incalculables… the unknown. Indeed amongst all others Bernard is a variable, an individual threatening all of the ideals of his own culture, a lone voice in a sea of collective consciousness.  

Mother, father, family, such familial, nuclear relational sundries of old are deemed as pornographic, purposeless and inefficient in the eyes of World State society. From an early age children are conditioned to sexual promiscuity, openness, the World State encouraging, perpetuating multiple “mutual beneficiaries”, anything but sexual solidarity, emotional connectivity, romance. As Lenina, a symbol/representative for sexuality in her society at large, loads on Soma, is sent to thoughtless, worry-less, numbing euphoria, Bernard (AT LEAST INITALLY IN THE NOVEL…) abstains from her inter--… her “course”. Bernard depicts in this action a snippet of surviving sentimentality that his society has attempted since test-tube immaculate inception to snuff out. His lack of leaning towards mindless libido, his surfacing individualism contrasts with the promiscuity perpetuated by his society as he, if only ever slightly, leans closer to the romance, traditional relationships conventions of old, of our times. Subsequently Bernard juxtaposes from the World State’s ideas of sexuality and relationships, yet again alienated, yet again unique amongst the uniformity.

A modernist magnum opus peeking over the perilous precipice of post-modernism, Ford interchangeable with Freud, Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World serves as a fictional fable of foreseeable fallibility, a cautionary tale, however seemingly hyperbolic, very well a possibility. With content comes over-indulgence, indulgence lending to need for persisting indulgence until apathy arises from said numbing content. The World State’s ideology is founded upon this ideal, the tenets of community, identity stability that subdues any uncertainties that emerge from individuality. Bernard Marx provides with his societal alienation, introversion a perspective, a threat to The World State assumptions and values. While the world state prefers universal uniformity, Bernard’s introversion staves such efforts, his individuality surfacing so far as to blatantly rebel against his society byway of forcing Helmholtz to confront John. While Lenina promotes her society’s sexual promiscuity, Bernard abstains from the thralls of Soma, if only briefly. Bernard Marx, thru his internalized thoughts and actions, his alienation and introversion further depicting his introverted schemata, exposing the schemata, the values of his own society.