Homogenization In Brave New World

Overriding the Power of the Individual, or the Dawn of Homogenization: a Research Assignment Aldous Huxley’s satirical novel, Brave New World, rationalizes the fears of individualistic entrepreneurs cowering in the face of Big Business and Totalitarian dictatorships, yet provides a sense of hope when facing adversity through the wonderment of Shakespeare’s texts. Under the law of industrialization, all cottage-industries fall. As yield increases, price drops, and the purpose for the existence of small-business owners dwindle as they face bigger, better, and more affordable corporations. The commoner is also susceptible to authoritarian regimes. Tyrannical despots are prophesied through Huxley’s dramatization of the World Controller, and
“Under a dic-tatorship the Big Business, made possible by advanc¬ing technology and the consequent ruins of Little Busi¬ness, is controlled by the State -- that is to say, by a small group of party leaders and the soldiers, police¬men and civil servants who carry out their orders” (III, Huxley). These state authoritative figures are represented by the character of Mustapha Mond. During his entrance into a Brave New world, Mond instructs the students on the “dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers- was therefore full of misery, full of mothers- therefore of every kind of perversions from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts- full of madness and suicide” (39). The concept that family is a bad thing is an interesting one, but is used to allude to the fascist idea that the state is all you need. It is your family, it is your God. Fathers are often symbols of the leadership of a house, but in Brave New World, they are an adversary to the state-system. They pose a threat to the rulers as other forms of authority- that is why fathers have been taken out of the equation. To create a void, which only the ruler can rule- in this case, Mustapha Mond. He fills it as the supreme leader of the
John is portrayed as the concept of any normal person who may find himself in a distant utopian society- but with a “Shakespearean consciousness” (Beauchamp 62). “It would upset the whole social order if men started doing things on their own” (Huxley 236). The irony of this line, is expressed by the fact that man has been doing things on his own for eons ! Yet, in Brave New World, the overbearing control of the governmental authorities halts all individual ideas. The societal standards of Mond’s world directly contrast with John the Savage’s and our own. Where individual liberty serves only as a distraction- it is the very basis of the United States’ Constitution. Likewise, Shakespeare’s plays are all about the power of the individual, even individuals who go against the norm or the social order. During Elizabethan England, cross-dressing was practically sin, yet many of Shakespeare characters- and actors, partook in the action. Shakespeare’s work has always been a symbol of breaking the standards which have been set up for us. Therefore, John works to breakaway at Mustapha Mond’s World state, as a call to action for people to do