2008년 4월 26일 토요일

Brave New World - Comments

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Soojin L. (3)
Steven Kim. (3) -ms.nelson's class

2008년 4월 7일 월요일

Brave New World - Significant Passage


* Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. Why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment on what you think about the passage.

I had hard time choosing the significant passage because everything was significant to me since they all described the differences between the new world and our world. I thought the major difference was the religion part.

“Feeling that it was time for him to do something, Bernard also jumped up and shouted: ‘I hear him; He’s coming.’ But it wasn’t true. He heard nothing and, for him, nobody was coming. Nobody-in spite of the music, in spite of the mounting excitement. But he waved his arms, he shouted with the best of them; and when the others began to jig and stamp and shuffle, he also jigged and shuffled.” (pg.84)

This was very similar to Christian worshipping services. Their god, Ford, represented Jesus of Christianity. People praised and worshipped Ford as if he created the world. When twelve people gathered there, they began their praise by having somas. Everyone consumed somas and it made them to hallucinate as if Ford was coming toward them. People danced and harmonized each other, making twelve of them as one.

From the research, I found out that Ford was a person who first invented the car and merchandised cars. (It might be wrong but…) Anyway, it showed that their first priority was the development of technologies. Also, they used After Ford as a time measurement just like After Death that we use nowadays.

This paragraph was about his feelings when he attended the solidarity service. Although everyone was praising Ford, he saw nothing. He just did not know what they saw. However, in order to harmonize with them and look normal, he had to lie to himself that he saw Ford. It was a little odd that everyone except for him were “seeing” Ford.

At first I thought people were tricking him because he did not look like an alpha man. However, I found out that they really “saw” Ford that they truly worshipped him. Then, I found out that there was something special for Bernard. Since he had questioning and curious minds from the beginning, I thought he would be the one who will change the world with his innocent thoughts.

Overall, this paragraph was significant that showed people’s priority was to invent and develop technologies as well as the fact that there was something noteworthy difference to Bernard from other people.

Brave New World - Climax


* What is the climax of this novel? What happens? How do the events of this novel make you feel?

I think there were a few climaxes in the story that built up as one climax, which was the explosion of John’s feelings toward the brave new world. To describe the conflict throughout the story, he struggled with the society and people of the new world. At first, he was curious at them and thought they were cool with the whole new technologies. However, as time passed on, he started to feel sad toward their apathetic attitudes. Thus, he felt a strong sense of need to rebel against their laws and enlightened people to pursue real freedom.

The first climax started when John was irritated by Delta kids who were getting trainings for death. They kept asking if Linda were dead or not. John, annoyed by their indifference toward one’s death and emotionless attitudes, chided them to get out. Because the Delta kids did not do what John asked them to do, John finally stood up. When someone was distributing the somas, John took the somas and trashed them. He explained that the somas are the drugs that make you physically and mentally ill. However, Delta kids did not what he was talking about, which they got angry at him. To analyze this part of the story, this was John’s first time to actually rebel against the people. He was eager to enlighten people but he could not. This event ensured readers that he had this strong and indomitable will that he will enlighten the new world.

The second climax was when John talked to Mustapha Mond, one of the ten world controllers. They had a conversation about literatures, arts, religions, and other things that these people did not have. From the conversation, Mustapha Mond concluded that in order to pursue happiness, people have to give up them. However, John thought it was better to feel unhappy and have them. Throughout this dialogue, which was his second action, he showed his strong feelings toward literatures especially Shakespears, arts, and religions. This made him to leave the new world.

The third climax was when John whipped Lenina when she came to see him at the lighthouse. Although Lenina tried to understand him as much as she could, John’s thought, which was people living here are all emotionless, did not change. Even though he tried to refresh people, he could not endure his deep sorrow toward these apathetic people. Eventually, he hanged himself.

I thought his actions were all significant that they should be considered as climaxes that built up the solutions for the conflict. It was sort of sad for me that he committed suicide even though he tried his best.

2008년 4월 5일 토요일

Brave New World - Theme


* What is the major theme of this novel? Why is this theme important to a teenager living in 2007?

The theme of this novel was the eternal happiness. Can there be an eternal happiness? “Call it the fault of civilization. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That’s why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They’re smut. People would be shocked if …” (pg. 234) According to this quote of Mustapha mond, he claimed that in order to live with universal happiness, he had to give up everything else except for the technology and scientific medicine. Is it really impossible to make everything coexist peacefully? Because people have different values, characteristics, sexes, and other differences, they cannot act the same. However, in this novel, a drug called soma could make people calmed down and feel good. Perhaps, this is the biggest reason why they could live without arguments.

Also, the hypnopaedia method, which was the principle of sleep-teaching made people brainwashed. It made people to adapt everything without any hesitation. That was why people, no matter what their castes were, could be happy and consider themselves as fortunate. For instance, Lenina, who was a beta woman, was keep saying, “I am glad that I am not an Alpha. I don’t have to work that hard. I am glad that I am not Gammas, Deltas, or Epsilons because they are stupid.” Everyone could labor hard because they were happy to get grams of soma for their payments.

To me, they were machines that worked spiritlessly for their goal, which was to get grams of soma. They did nothing painful. They did not have to learn because they learned everything through the sleep teaching. They did not have to feel sorrow or scared of death because they were educated to feel nothing even though one passed away. They did not have to become old and ugly because the soma made them immune to getting old. Lastly, they did not feel love because they did not know what a true love was and they did not have parents who cared for them with love. They were just apathetic.

I did not think this matters to nowadays teenagers but I did think that this would be a problem after a century. I was a little scared that the world will become like this. Although people were feeling happy, indeed, they were feeling nothing because they were just used to it. It cannot be a brave new world because it was just a dead world. The title was definately a paradox.

Brave New World - Characters


* Who are the main characters in the novel? Do you like them? Why or why not? What is special about them? What do they reveal about the universal human experience?

Bernard Marx – Although his caste was Alpha, he was always ignored by other castes because of his weak and inferior body. He liked Lenina that he went to the Savage Reservation with her. Before he found John, the Savage, he was always an outsider who was lonely and depressed. When he brought John and introduced him to the new world, he became popular as well as arrogant. He satisfied his grudge of being inferior to other Alpha men. As soon as he brought John, people started to admire him but some people were worried at his exaggerated arrogance. His popularity totally changed him. However, his fame did not last long. When John refused to meet other people, people criticized Bernard that he was so irresponsible. After that event, Bernard started to be corrupted and returned to his original state.

At first I liked Bernard’s thoughts that were pretty unique. He was questioning about their lives. Also he did not want physical love with Lenina. However, as he got famous, he trashed all of his unique thoughts and acted like a typical Alpha man. I did not like his attitude as the time passed. At first he was somewhat thankful to John. However, when John refused to meet others, Bernard became furious about the fact that John is not obeying his commands.

John – The Savage, John is a son of Tomakin, the director, and Linda, who was lost during the savage trip. When Bernard and Lenina found John, they brought John and also Linda to the new world. John, at first, was very curious about the new world that he agreed to go without any hesitation. When they arrived to the new world, John became very famous and was asked a lot of questions from the reporters. However, as he lived there longer, he felt awkward and soon hated the world. He could not understand why they were not allowed to read books, why they flirted with a lot of people, why they were so merciless, and so on. He tried to rebel and enlighten people that he argued with Mustapha Mond, who was one of the ten world controllers. He could not endure this awkwardness, which he left the new world and lived in the lighthouse by himself. However, people soon found out and interviewed him. He also saw Lenina but due to his loath of the new world, he whipped and killed her. Finally, he committed suicide.

John was a significant and the most dynamic character here, who destroyed the utopia so far. He could not adapt himself to this world. He tried to persuade people to live with feelings but they denied.

Lenina Crowne – A typical Beta woman. She flirted to almost every man but was strongly attracted to John the Savage.

Fanny Crowne – A typical woman in the world state. She was a roll model who followed the rules. Thus, she persuaded Lenina that it was right to flirt with many men.

Mustapha Mond – One of the ten controllers of the world state. He understood John but persuaded him to follow the rules of the world state, which promotes the happiness. He claimed that he gave up arts, literatures, religions, and others in order to pursue the happiness.

Helmholtz Watson – An alpha lecturer. However, he was too intelligent for his job. He was a friend of Bernard. He thought it was meaningless to live a life like this because he thought it was very boring.

Linda – She used to be a beta woman but when she was lost in the Reservation, she had a baby, which was considered as perverted in the new world. Thus, she was very hesitated to go back to her home.

Director (Tomakin) – He was a powerful character who commanded people. However, when John revealed the secret that he was Tomakin’s son, he became opened to attacks from others.

Brave New World - Current Situations

* Are there any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? What are they, and how do they relate? Does the novel shed any light on how current situations could be resolved or “fixed”?

At first when I thought about the caste system, the first thing that came into my mind was the ancient India. The Indian caste system was very similar to this. With rigid hierarchies, Brahmins and Kshastriyas ruled the country while Vaisyas and Sudras (untouchables) labored and had inferior jobs. They could not argue with their varnas nor change them. Also, they could not marry with the different castes from theirs. In addition, their marriages were unlawful too. A man could kidnap a woman and marry. This was considered as legal, which women were treated as objects.


Also, I could compare to the polygyny. According to the polygyny, a man could have more than one wife and this was legal too. Although people in the new world did not marry, the idea was the same, which a person loved more than one person. People from the new world did not feel true love but a fake and physical love, sex. Since that was what they were like and they were educated to be, there were no solutions.




To compare to our modern world, this brave new world resembled today’s North Korea. North Koreans were brainwashed from their birth that their president, Kim Jeong Ill, is the mightiest person ever. Also, North Korean commoners were not allowed to use Internets, books, and other internationally associated things. Even though people were curious at what was going on outside of their world, people had to obey the rules because if not, people in higher position would murder them. Perhaps, internationally associated people were the ones who isolated commoners from the outside. If they knew how different outside people were, they would absolutely begin the riots. Although Kim Jeong Ill is dictating his people, maybe he was trying to create a utopia. According to the research, socialism was the ideal system to form a utopia. Socialism was a similar government as communism, which used the idea of distributing properties equally. However in North Korea, it didn’t work because there were a huge gap between the rich people and the poor people. In this sense, the new world and the North Korea were very alike.
Image:http://www.sodahead.com/poll/49230/

2008년 4월 4일 금요일

Brave New World - Settings


* Are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? or disturbing? or memorable? describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.

『A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and , in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.
The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables』

This passage was the most significant setting throughout the story. Starting the whole story, this setting was the most descriptive and memorable. The first paragraph depicted the state’s motto, which was community, identity, and stability. Later on the story, people kept saying this phrase, “Every one works for every one else. We can’t do without any one.” This represented the community of the world state. Also, identity was the caste system, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Lastly, the people from the new world stabilized themselves by artificial incubation of human embryos using the fertilized ova and male gametes.


The second paragraph described the mass production of human beings. The description was so realistic that I could easily believe in. However, I felt somewhat bitter because human instinct of developing technology was so infinite and brutal. These days, scientists are obsessed with cloning and genetics. I was a little scared that there would be this “brave new world” after a century. Maybe this book is foreshadowing our future lives but I hope not. Living without true love, mercy, and other feelings would be terrible. The last three sentences of the second paragraph described human’s endless inspiration and curiosity toward the scientific and technologic development.

Throughout the story, the author, Aldous Huxley, excelled at every department such as biology, sociology, literature, and so on. I heard at that time when he was writing, people were inspired by the technologic inventions such as cars and radios. Also, it was the time when people started to question traditional morals and sex. Thus, I believed he himself was also curious that he made the setting as an imaginary future. However, although the content itself was very exaggerated, he conveyed what he believed in very well. The distopia is occurred by human instinct of development. With detailed descriptions from the beginning, the story was so credible to me that I was kept thinking about the future world.

Overall, this passage made me fall into this novel when I first opened the book cover. I thought it was very unique to write about the future. Since the descriptions were so true and detailed, I could make a movie in my head when I finished the book.