Brave New World - Blade Runner # Introduction to Brave New World # Brave New World (BNW) is a fable set in 614 AF in a universal state where science is used to create a stable conformist society through test tube incubation, eugenics and memory induced conditioning. The themes include the detrimental effects of science and technology disempowering and enslaving mankind rather than freeing them to enjoy wide ranging human experiences and emotions and enriching their lives.

Characters Brave New World: # Most are undeveloped – stereotypical rather than full-complex. As a social satire, Huxley caricatures the Director and shows him up as misguided. His opening lecture (an exposition or orientation for the reader) and the dialectical conversation between Mustapha Mond and John Savage near the end are contrivances. (Deus ex machina) Mustapha Mund: Chief controller of London, Articulates the central dogmas of the ideology of BNW.

Themes Values, Issues, Concerns: # The meanings of a novel emerge indirectly or implicitly via the vicarious personal involvement or identification and empathy of us the responders. Meaning can also be derived from recurring Motifs which unify the plot and provide clues to the composer’s underlying concerns in creating meaning through patterns of design. Huxley is warning us about future trends; mind numbing assembly production, overly organised societies, totalitarian control via, mass persuasion and conditioning creating apathy.

Brave New World # Language: Parodies: Mass production lines – baby assembly line. Religious services – Solidarity Service. ‘T’ replaces Cross as symbol – Bradbury T, Charing T’ ‘Our Ford’, ‘ Big Henry’ Even Blasphemy: Oh Ford!” (22) His Fordship Mustapha Mond Platitudes, slogans and clichés: ‘history is bunk’ ‘no leisure from pleasure’ ‘ending is better than mending’ (consumerism) “more stitches less riches” Soma: ‘All the advantages of Christianity; none of its defects’, ‘a gramme is better than a damn’ ‘one cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments’

Huxley’s Exposition or orientation device is contrived; a guided tour by the Director ostensibly directed at students orientates the responder into the culture and ideology of the year 632 AF. We are informed about the situation and how the conditions came about. Characterisation # The director appears aloof, composed and authoritative, only later his indiscreet admission of abandoning a yellow haired woman in the New Mexico Reservation, proves to be his ruin as John, the Savage calls him Father, humiliating and destroying his career.

George Orwell - Eric Blair # Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. The first half of the 20th century saw two competing visions of the future from British authors George Orwell (1903-1950) and Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). Though it came 17 years later, Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 is better known; however, Huxley’s Brave New World has proven more relevant. Written in the shadow of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, 1984 shows a world ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship with perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance and incessant public mind control.