Government Control In Brave New World

Just like 1984, Brave New World also derives a theme from government control. Brave New World''s theme is destruction of human instincts and nature for happiness and control leads to ignorance and unhappiness. First, on the baby-making-tour, Mr. Foster says, “Reducing the number of revolutions per minute, […] The surrogate goes round slower; therefore passes through the lung at longer intervals; therefore gives the embryo less oxygen. Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par. […] The lower the caste […] the shorter the oxygen. The first organ affected was the brain. After that the skeleton. At seventy per cent of normal oxygen you got dwarfs. At less than seventy eyeless monsters” (14). In the process of making a baby, the officials reduce oxygen to determine the baby's social
The children are told to hate lower castes and without questioning it, they do. Another ignorant case occurs when the Controller explains, “No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy–to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having emotions at all” (44). Everyone in Brave New World is mostly devoid of feelings. Without feelings they cannot experience sadness or anger or terror, the emotions that shape humans. To control their emotions to make the people all happy is making them ignorant to what real life is and what the people in John's village experience. Even when the humans do experience emotion, it is quickly cured: “You look glum! What you need is a gramme of soma […] One cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy” (60). Instead of experiencing the real emotions, they take drugs to wash away any negative feelings. In doing so, they once again are made ignorant to real life and real emotions, such as the feelings John's village experiences. Lenina is the best example of soma's