“Community, Identity, Stability.” This is the motto of the dystopian world Aldous Huxley has so brilliantly crafted in Brave New World. The slogan perfectly captures the structured and purposeful society that the government in Brave New World has made great efforts to maintain. However, some characters throughout the book rebel against the norm of passive obedience and try to find a more meaningful and personalized existence, which is when the main conflicts of the book unfold. Brave New World takes place in a future where people are scientifically engineered and conditioned to fall into their given place in society. Every person and action in their world is meant to serve a purpose, and there is little room for citizens to decide the course of their life. As mere fetuses, their air supply and nutrition is regulated, so that their intelligence as newborns, and later adults, can be controlled. This micro-management of every aspect of a person’s life leaves no place for individualism. All negative emotions and doubts are diminished by the use of the drug soma, which instantly makes people forget their pain and be transformed into a state of calm contentedness. According to their supreme leader, Mustapha Mond, “There’s no such thing as divided allegiance; you’re so conditioned you can’t help doing what you ought to do...And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts.”

Huxley’s precise use of advanced language that leaves little to the imagination blends perfectly with the stiff and controlled environment he has written for readers. Throughout the novel Huxley uses the third person omniscient point of view, which is really essential for the type of book he has written. Brave New World contains many different storylines within the main plot that each involve interactions between different characters. Huxley divides paragraphs and chapters in an unusual way. One paragraph may contain dialogue between 2 people, and then the next paragraph will contain a completely different conversation with a transition or explanation. Despite this, Huxley still manages to form a personal connection between the characters and the reader, as he has created believable characters that are far from shallow.

One of the protagonists of Brave New World is Bernard Marx, a higher class man who has trouble fitting in with his society’s norms. Bernard is depicted as having moments of extreme self-doubt, contrasted by moments of confidence and success. At one point Huxley describes Bernard by saying “He had emerged from that crimson twilight into the common electric glare with a self-consciousness intensified to the pitch of agony.” This sentence shows a completely different character than when the author writes “success went fizzily to Bernards head, and in the process completely reconciled him to a world with which up till then had found him unsatisfactory.” Clearly, Huxley makes a point to display Bernard as a strong willed yet fragile character whose self esteem and happiness is always on the line. This rapid change in confidence is a very relatable feeling for young adults trying to define their own identity, which makes the reader have a deeper connection to the book.

The female protagonist, Lenina, is constantly crossing over the social norms expected from people in their society. In their world, the concept of family has been eradicated, as it leaves too much to chance in terms of the development of citizens. They instead have conditioning centers and hatcheries, where people are born and mature fully by the age of 1. Everyone is expected to have multiple sexual partners, and there are very weak emotional ties between people. As Mustapha Mond would say, “The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much.” Lenina, however, falls stubbornly in love with John, the “savage” who comes from the uncivilized part of their world that closely resembles modern day life. Huxley shows the gradual process of how Lenina becomes enamored with John, which is very relatable for young adults even though their love takes place in a dystopian world. Huxley presents Lenina’s growing passion in a series of stages. At first, it is dismissed as a crush that has just momentarily drawn Lenina away from other men: “Somehow, I hadn’t been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately. There are times when one doesn’t.” Later, she because more sure of her emotions, and the tone of Huxley’s writing became more heavy handed and serious: “Well, now there’d be a real chance, she thought, as she scented herself after her bath. Dab, dab, dab- a real chance. Her high spirits overflowed in song. Hug me til you drug me, honey, Kiss me till I’m in a coma, Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny, Love’s as good as soma.” Then, as the the book drew to a close, her love developed into a thirsting desperation that weakened her once strong character. When John did not reciprocate her emotions, she could not handle the negative feeling that had been so shunned by society, and what once was love turned into violence: “The savage pushed her away with such force that she staggered and fell. ‘Go, get out of my sight or I’ll kill you.’ He clenched his fists. Lenina raise her arm to cover her face. ‘No, please don’t John...’”

Through these characters, Huxley brilliantly analyzes the repercussions of a society that fears deep emotions and individuality because it is not stable or predictable. Through out this book are adult themes - love, trying to find your identity, not fitting in - all of which still apply to current day. Brave New World was written in 1932, truly showing that Huxley was well before his time. Huxley looked at how technology and scientific advancement are not compatible with human emotion, which is just now starting to bud in the real world. Face to face interactions are diminishing with the rise of technology, and our lives are now full of many distractions that could keep people from seeing real meaning or facing their thoughts (which takes the form of Soma in the book). Now that social media has been popularized, social interactions have been redefined and can be a lot more casual. In a way, this could be seen as a washed down version of the Brave New World’s saying, “Everyone belongs to everyone else.”, in that people are very accessible nowadays. The social pyramid in Brave New World is also surprisingly similar to that of today, despite the fact people were a lot more classist during the time the book was written. In Brave New World people are labeled as either “Epsilons, Deltas, Gammas, Alphas and Betas”. the first 3 titles are given to lower caste workers, and the later 2 titles are save for the more privileged members of society. Interactions between the classes are non existent, and the distinctions between the classes extend past money and also concern their behavior, jobs, relationships, and what people expect of them. Brave New World displays a modern view on what it means to be born into your status instead of gaining it, which holds true to both extremes: poverty, and great wealthiness. The themes within Huxley’s novel are a more exaggerated or intense version of some of the issues that could start to arise in our society, which is one of the things I find most appealing about Brave New World.

While the content in Brave New World is extremely well written and intriguing, the structure of Huxley’s writing can be very confusing. Huxley does not follow the usual progression of dystopian fiction, as his novel contains many different storylines full of conflicts that do not all get resolved. There really is not a specific climax in Brave New World, and it contains several different morals/themes. This makes it more difficult for the reader to analyze what Huxley is trying to convey through his novel. Because his thoughts were so scattered throughout the book, Brave New World received several negative reviews when it first was published. Without being able to see how Huxley’s futuristic world has many similarities to our current day, people could easily think that his writing is random and simply difficult to read. One reviewer even wrote “He has money, social position, talent, friends, prestige, and he is effectively insulated from the misery of the masses. Of course he wants something to worry about- even if he has to go a long, long way to find it… Mr.Huxley must have his chance to suffer and be brave.” Brave New World is the work of a true visionary, yet certain aspects of the story may only have made sense in Huxley’s own head.

Brave New World has received mixed reviews ever since its release 83 years ago. However, the one thing no critique can deny is that it provided a unique outlook on what has started to emerge in present day: a scientific and technologically run society and the negative side effects it will have. This lingering reality is brought to life by the myriad of characters in Brave New World that Huxley has beautifully narrated. Huxley captivates the reader through his dedication to the themes behind this book (which he writes about is several other of his works) and creates a rich world that the reader can fully picture. Despite the messy structure of his writing, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will continue to be a cherished book that keeps our society in check as we delve further into our advancing technologies.