An Analysis of Satire in Brave New World

Gavin O’Leary

Ms .Clark

AP English

3/2/06

An analysis of satire In Brave New World

While reading Aldous Huxley’s Novel Brave New World readers experience a world unlike any other. A world where being promiscuous and the use of drugs are not only legal but considered a “must” for a fully functional member of society. This world isn’t a world full of democracy or the democratic process, it’s a world where a virulent caste system dominates. A world where people are bred to be workers or leaders. The people of this society believe that they live in the perfect world. All these images are satirically portrayed through the authors use of Mockery and parody.

These ideas and practices seem very harsh to our 21st century ideals , however in the early 1900s society was trying to perfect itself into a utopia. The societal wishes of a future without pain or disease , a world where wars are frivolous because everyone loves each other, and where technology aids us in every task sound good to the general public. However Huxley was afraid of these perfectionists. The world that he saw developing was one where thought is limited by the government. As a writer he decided to show what the world of the future was really turning into, a world of dictators, a world of totalitarianism . A major part of any culture is the way the passage of time is marked. In our neo-Christian society we say a time is either BC or AD, ( equated with the birth and death of Christ) . The followers of Judaism have a calender that is based off of the year they believe the earth was created (approximately 5767 years ago). As You can see the passage of time is generally based on religious events. The people in Huxley’s new world idolize technology in a theological way. This being their calendar is based off of the year that Henry Ford began selling the Model T truck. This is a major example of Huxley’s use of parody satire in this novel.

By placing the start of the calendar at this year he makes a parody of our modern neo-Christian calendar. Henry Ford was an industrialist and though he worked tirelessly to make his fortune he never claimed to be a spiritual person. So by replacing Christ with Ford’s invention the whole meaning of religion falls apart leaving these people open to and susceptible to what the world controllers want them to believe. This also gets rid of the god given right of free will.

Entertainment is a huge part of any society. When people get bored and want some thing to do they read books, go to movies and play games. Each one of these activities are just as important in Huxley’s new world. A Book is composed of an author’s thoughts put to paper in a methodical manner in which a story is told. These thoughts are closely monitored in this “utopia”.Control is what every world leader of this time desires, and they hold that total control by limiting the reading material of the population. Any book that is has ideas contradictory to the world government, is not released for the peoples reading enjoyment. With the belief that the past is of no great importance, the writings of great authors like Shakespeare, Homer and Socrates are not even in circulation. The only place a book by one of these authors can be found is under lock and key in the personal collection of a world leader. This principal of limiting the knowledge of the general populace is what lead to the quick rise of dictators like Adolf Hitler, who is exactly the person that Huxley mocks in this portion of the novel. During Hitler’s reign book burning was a very commonplace thing. The burning of books with ideas that were contradictory or critical of the Third Reich’s ideals were burned. The feelings of the world government and the Reich are very similar, a population that does not know about pain can feel no pain.

In Brave new world people go to see Feelies instead of movies. A feelie is relatively the same thing as a movie except that you not only see the movie you can feel, smell,