Dystopian Theme In Brave New World

Although high school curricula exposes students to numerous novels of high literary merit, many students still begin college without having read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The book describes a highly disciplined society in which everyone’s happiness is guaranteed by complete submission to science and government. Reading and analyzing Brave New World is critical to teaching students, specifically those in Depaul’s Honors Program, the significance of free thought and the abstract development of human identity.
Conformity, a dominant theme in Aldous Huxley’s novel, is explored through the elaborate construction of a “utopian” society, the World State, in which human emotion is scientifically controlled in order to maintain social order. In this dystopia, the passion of human emotion and the consequent conflicts are to blame for society’s problems and thus are eliminated through conditioning and biological intervention in order to ensure happiness and safety. However, although these are worthy causes, the sacrifices made to achieve them do not justify the loss liberty and free will. For example, all life is predetermined in a lab full of test tubes. There is no climbing of the ladder or underdog story, just a
Understanding the pitfalls in our humanity is just as important as acknowledging its inevitable chaos. Because of this novel, I have actively challenged different points of view, including my own, and in doing so, I have grown from a student with classes to take to a person with opportunities to learn. Transitioning from an essentially sheltered life to the real world, and all its implications, is a daunting prospect, but any student that has read Huxley’s Brave New World prior to entering Depaul’s Honors Program is significantly more prepared for the mental rigor that is expected in order to succeed and make that