Morally Ambiguous Characters in the Brave New World

Jacob Martinez
Mrs. Malott
English 12
19 August 2013
The Brave New World
Writing Prompt: Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Brave New World is a book in which several morally ambiguous characters play a pivotal role. Eventually, you will write an essay (for now, a detailed outline) in which you explain how one character from this novel can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the meaning of the work as a whole.

Thesis: In the novel, Brave New World by Aldus Huxley, an example of a morally ambiguous character is Mustapha Mond; although he is only in one scene, it is his attitude and philosophy that helps to not only explain everything in the end of the story, but to best illustrate the main theme of the novel: (insert the theme).
1. Topic Sentence: Mustapha Mond protects his people from living a passionate life that has the potential of ruining their life, according to the value system of the World State, which prioritizes stability over joy.
a. Soma Helps protect their feelings
i. “There’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears—that’s what soma is.” (238)
b. Happiness is overrated
i. "Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand." (221)
2. Topic Sentence: Although some might argue that Mustapha is a bad person for choosing to enforce ignorance upon his people and not allowing them to live meaningfully life, he would argue that he is doing it for their own good and it has made society more stable.
a. Happiness vs. High art.
i. "You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art." (220)
b. People can have everything the want.
i. “The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!" (220)
3. Topic Sentence: In the World State, Mustapha Mond sees a benefit for his people in almost everything.
a. The World State is a world, which human beings have only one way of behaving.
i. “My love, my baby. No wonder those poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorse, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty—they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable? (41)
b. Society is supposed to disregard history, and learn from the progress they have made.
i. "You all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk." (34)