Brave New World: Analytical Essay Example

Literary devices are the tools and techniques of written language that authors use to convey meaning. Skilled use of literary devices brings richness and clarity to a text. These help to make a simple narrative beautiful, striking, and memorable in some way or another. Like in all quality literary works, the literary devices used in “Brave New World” are purposely put there by the author in order to provide support for subsidiary ideas. All the literary devices in a novel are intricately connected to one another as they cannot exist, or at least not with the same strength, on their own. In ‘Brave New World’, Aldous Huxley made use of various symbols and motifs in order to further develop his characters, theme, and setting. Two of the major themes in Huxley’s novel are the use of technology to control society and the dangers of an all powerful state. The first one of these two is evidently supported by the symbol soma. Soma, one of the most significant symbols in ‘Brave New World’ is a drug created and distributed in massive quantities thanks to technological advances. As a large quantity is ‘available in the market’ due to technological instruments which make this possible, the state is able to provide its citizens with sufficient drug doses. While the citizens of ‘the world state’ are drugged they become easier to govern as soma provides a mindless "happiness" or an empty escapism which makes people comfortable with their lack of freedom. The drug also heightens suggestibility, leaving its users vulnerable to government propaganda.
"The warm, the richly coloured, the infinitely friendly world of soma-holiday. How kind, how good-looking, how delightfully amusing everyone was! " As all their citizens become addicted to this substance, they become dependent on the state because they are the only ones who are allowed to control the drug distribution. In fact, they are the only ones allowed to control anything and everything that goes on in the world