Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: A Case of Dehumanization

Abstract

This thesis basically analyzes Aldous Huxley’sBrave New Worldtofocus his fear of possible dehumanization that may take place in future world. His fear was not baseless, widespread fear of Americanization which has been current in Europe since Second World War was root cause of his fear of loss of humanity. So called power holders of his time like Hitler and Mussolini are the representatives of future world controllers. He, along with George Orwell, inNineteen Eighty Four,foresees the controlled future world with handful of power mongers. He finds the rapiddevelopment of science and technology a possible threat to humanity. The Advancement of Genetic Engineering, by which disease, aging, pain and the likes can be eliminated, which may produce only the superman and intellectuals is disgusting and terrible. His strong character spokesman, John the savage commits suicide in the end, is his fear of so called utopian world. He satirizes modern people’s thought and hope of utopian world, for him such world seems rather dystopian because utopian world possesses not humans but automatons. His extension of Pavlov’s conditioning theory to the conditioning of human in Brave New Worldis just to show the possible dehumanization. Soma, the ultimate drugs releasing every pain, gloom and fear makes him worry of loss of human nature. He has put all such fears in theBrave New World. So, his central concern inBrave New Worldis the dehumanization of human beings.