Preview

Negative Effects of Technology in Brave New World

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2651 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Negative Effects of Technology in Brave New World
“Brave New World” Essay

Technology has been used negatively in Brave New World to create a future where individuals are incapable of producing or affecting change. Discuss this statement and show HOW Huxley has demonstrated this idea to his readers.

Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” explores the extreme impact of science and technology on an unreal world. The novel fits the science-fiction genre as a dystopia to the reader. Huxley wrote the novel in1932 and presented his thoughts which were influenced by many key events taking place before and during his lifetime. The “Brave New World” portrays a “perfect” society possessing no flaws due to its extremity of control. This was possible with technology. The individuals in this society can neither alter the system of control, nor can they affect it. Rapid advances in technology have provided the society with this opportunity, which had unfortunately been taken for granted. Huxley has established the negative aspects of the use of technology in this world with the general theme of the novel being difficult for the reader to empathise with. Several contrasts have been provided to compare better themes with the worse which show the obvious difference between good and bad to the reader. There are allusions to sources as well as specific symbols and characters which have been portrayed with meaning. The clever use of these devices assists in developing a negative perception towards technology.

The use of technology has resulted in conformity. The “Brave New World” symbolises a dystopia to its readers, which is a society reflecting the negative aspects of current society in a futuristic time. The political powers breach the freedom of individuals, luring them into a completely controlled life without them realising. This whole world symbolises a test tube which has trapped everyone. People are born or “decanted” in test tubes in a process known as the “Bokanovsky’s Process” which is “one of the major

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Computers, telephones, cars, television---all these gadgets and inventions have only just come about within the past century. Being such recent additions to society, people surely survived before their creation; sadly, there are rarely any people today that understand what that was like. Hardly ever are people not on their smartphones anymore, whether they’re texting their friends, looking something up, or using social media. Whatever the reason, people are constantly relying on technology to do something for them nowadays. The author Ray Bradbury emphasizes this in his short stories, “The Pedestrian” ,“The Veldt”, and “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”, where the main characters rely so heavily on their technologically innovative houses to feed, entertain, and aid them in their daily lives that all the outcomes are anything but positive. Negative consequences like these aren’t fictional like most of the components of Bradbury’s stories, though; scientists have already found many…

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    tl guide DoubleHelixb 1

    • 2590 Words
    • 9 Pages

    postulated in Aldous Huxley’s classic Brave New World, but from the point of view of a…

    • 2590 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huxley thoroughly condescends the contemporary values of our society in Brave New World. He specifically uses point-of-view, allusion, and motif to create his ironic commentary for which his novel is best…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Society’s need for instant gratification is revealed through new technology being introduced. For instance, in today’s society when the newest piece of technology is available, everyone jumps to a conclusion that since the product is new, it must be better than the old, thus they go and purchase it. Huxley had feared that what someone loves would ruin him or her, which is accurate. Civilization today has become expected of instant gratification. Therefore, it is expected to have the newer, improved piece of technology when the original one has a simple defect. For example, the Gazette newspaper had stated that when the iPhone4 presale went on they sold out in twenty hours. However when the iPhone5 presale had been released it just took about sixty minutes. Also with new technology advancing, machinery and devices are increasing. NASA created weather satellites to help distinguish the weather patterns. Today weather satellites are vital in our everyday lives; they determine the weather for the day. If NASA had never created them, today’s society would be different because it has helped with instant access to many aspects of the world. Society today revolves around the…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Huxley grew up in a conservative, rich, and elite English family during the early 20th century. He lived through World War I, the roaring 20’s, and part of the Great Depression before he began writing Brave New World, giving him a wealth of issues to expound upon in the novel. As a conservative Englishman, Huxley feared both rapid progress and the growing communist and fascist powers in Europe, giving rise to his predictions about the future of art and the role of government. The terror instilled in him by nearby change and unrest likely lead to the inaccuracy and, in some cases, the reversal of his predictions. Huxley was able to see the importance of the issues addressed in Brave New World, but ultimately the predictions themselves are actually inaccurate due to the perspective of…

    • 1560 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    lalala

    • 890 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Final Essay 100 Assessment Points Rough Draft 50 Assignment Points Aldous Huxleys Brave New World is an example of a classic dystopia a nightmarish world often run by an oppressive totalitarian regime. It is also science fictionoffering a version of the future that often reflects the issues of the contemporary period. In this paper you will choose one of the prompts below to build a 750-word essay. General Directions Write an essay of at least 700 of your own words (not counting direct evidence) that has a clear, complex argumentative thesis, which addresses your chosen prompt. Your essay must contain multiple paragraphs with a clear introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. You will want to include both direct and indirect evidence that you have synthesized to support your thesis. Your essay must be in MLA format including MLA heading, works cited page, properly integrated quotes and paraphrases, etc. Moreover your essay needs to be double-spaced in Arial or Times New Roman 12 pt. font. Prompts Characters as theme In the dystopic world of Aldous Huxley, characters act as more than just 3-dimensional people, Huxley also uses them to build theme within the novel. Analyze how Huxley uses character to achieve his theme. Questions you may want to consider what is the role of the major characters within the book how does Huxley construct each character in the book and how do those choice help create the theme In order to be successful in this prompt you will not only have to analyze characters, but also assert a theme for the novel. Dystopias Abound The prevalence of dystopic fiction continues to permeate American culture. These projections of the future often say more about us at the present than what may happen one day. Compare and contrast how Aldous Huxley in his 1932 novel, Brave New World, and Andrew Niccol in his 1997 film Gattaca, each use a dystopic view of the future to comment on the present through their use of theme. In order to be…

    • 890 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World there is a widely apparent stark contrast between the Utopian Society in London and apparent dystopia of Malpais(the Savage Reservation), that provides a meaningful impact both on how the story unfolds, and on the overall meaning of the book. The divergences between the two places become extremely relevant to not only the plotline of the novel, but also to the themes revealed throughout the book. Without a detailed effort to showcase the distinctive qualities that each side possess, both on opposite ends of the spectrum, the values in the book are lost. The differences that can be distinguished go beyond the surface ranging from civility and ignorance, love of others and love of materials, and the use of technology as a means to subjugate people to the government’s will.…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huxley’s literary work of “Brave New World” creates an almost reflective image with our world today. Many elements in his writing have an over whelming similarity to today’s society because our worst features are drawn out and exaggerated, but still based off the similar concepts and values. One feature that could be comparable with our society to that of the World State would be holding technology at religious standards. During the era of the novel, Henry Ford had just…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a work of science fiction, but it is not a work about the dangers of science. Huxley himself says in the forward to the novel that "the theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals" (Huxley xi). In the novel, Huxley shows that science itself is dangerous and that the true goal of the World State’s research is to advance consumer technology—the aspect of science that directly affects the State’s citizens.…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Of all the works that Aldous Huxley has produced the most intriguing and philosophical one would have to be Brave New World. Throughout his carrier Huxley has written many satirical novels about the flaws of society but none can compare the symbolism and depth that this novel presents. As the above quote suggests the citizens of this futuristic society known as the World State chose to live a life of hedonism devoid of emotions and beliefs rather than suffer any pain. Both Huxley's focus on the tragic flaws of this society and satirical development of the utopian scheme, lead us to believe the hypocrisy of such a utopian state. Furthermore there are many parallels that can be drawn between our way of life and the society portrayed in the book; these parallels include soma, hynopaedic messages and sex. Huxley uses this parallelism to warn us that the path that our society is taking will lead us to damnation.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1932, Aldous Huxley wrote a book entitled Brave New World. It was a novel of a dystopian future where persuasion and science were effectively combined to control the population. Huxley warns his readers about the problems associated with the advancements of subconscious persuasion techniques because he saw people becoming susceptible to them during the Age of Television Addiction. He critiques this by setting a character contest between John the Savage and Mustapha Mond, which reveals the characters opposing values between freedom and social stability. The novel argues that stability can be achieved through subconscious manipulation, but is not morally suitable.…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Society’s fist clutches its followers. There is no escape from conforming to the standards set. Throughout Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, the author demonstrates the dangers of our rapidly developing civilization. With advances in technology, science, mathematics, and basic understanding of the world, and allows for certain people to advance further than others, and consequently, leaves those behind in danger of becoming an ignorant piece of a much larger game.…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get...they are so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave” (Huxley 198). Many people speak and dream about a perfect world, for the problems which we face in the present world to simply just go away. Brave New World is a novel which shows an example of what life would be like in a utopian society. It shows the differences that civilization has against the savage world, which is how we live in present day. The characters in Brave New World all experience the controversy between nature vs nurture ultimately leading to their unhappiness.…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    As members of society struggle for individuality, an overpowered and technologically advanced government will continue pressing for stricter censorship and less privacy. One thing that will remain constant is the impact of Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World, in large part due to it’s widely relatable characters and concepts. Helmholtz Watson is sure to prove his worth as a role model to every intellectually determined student searching for something in themselves that separates them from their peers. Unlike Helmholtz, Bernard Marx’s blue collar personality may leave a bitter taste in the mouths of students; who will also be turned off by his self consciousness and know-it-all attitude. When the time arrives twenty years from now, government handouts, instant gratification, and emotional numbing will be at an all time high, and continue to intensifying exponentially. Hopefully, in the state of a reconstructed educational system, students and scholars will continue to view Brave New World as the cautionary tale it intended to be; and not as the blueprints to a rapidly approaching human…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the history of the United States, there has been a continuous debate about which threat is the most severe for the American people: foreign invaders and terrorists, or a national government with too much power and without the best interests of its people in mind. It is apparent through the creation of the Bill of Rights, as well as the general purpose of limiting the powers of the national government within the Constitution, that the framers believed that an overly powerful national government was the greatest threat to the American people. In order for the people of a nation to debate an issue such as this, it is essential for them to support the exercise of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is more than just a positive…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics