Brave New World :: essays research papers

The Loss of Individuality The peak of a writer’s career should exhibit their most profound works of literature. In the case of Aldous Huxley, Brave New World is by far his most renowned novel. Aldous Huxley is a European-born writer who, in the midst of his career, moved to the United States and settled in California. While in California, he began to have visions aided by his usage of hallucinatory drugs. His visions were of a utopian society surviving here on earth. In his literature, Huxley wanted to make this utopian society as much a reality as possible. "In framing an ideal we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities." This quote, written by Aristotle, perfectly describes Huxley’s attitude towards the creation of his imaginary utopia. His only problem was establishing a value system that would not seem too unattainable. Huxley has two novels that have the theme of utopia, Brave New World and Island. Brave New World , which was written bef ore Island , has ideas that are quite far-fetched, but in Huxley’s eyes, still close to reality. Huxley’s first portrait of utopia involves having a controlled society of people all being alike. The year is A.F. 632 (After Ford; Ford is the equivalent to God in Brave New World ) and with the available technology, citizens are mass produced. Island is a product of the rethinking of Huxley’s utopia. The ideas are a lot more real because the people are just ordinary human beings. Both of these novels have an underlying theme in common. The stability of Huxley’s utopian societies are centered around the loss of individualism. Individuals are considered a threat in Huxley’s utopian novels. In the novel Island, the utopian society is on a small island, named Pala. The leader of the utopian society, Murugan, is an individual apart from the community. His plans are to modernize and charge the way the people of Pala live. The reason he has thoughts that are different from the rest of the community is that he was raised outside of Pala. He grew up in Switzerland and the neighboring island Rendag, both of which have been modernized and corrupted by the outside world. Therefore, Murugan’s mind has been corrupted by his staying in those two places. "Pala is thus threatened by the outside world," explains critic Frank Magill, because Murugan is introducing the modern way of life to this small island and it is damaging the stability of the community.