Brave New world The Conclusion

1. isaacb2.blogspot.com Brave New world The Conclusion

2. Chapter 17 • Focus is on the discussion of religion, in abstract and metaphysical levels. • We finally get to the heart of Huxley’s dystopia… • What is at the heart of this? • The lack of religion • Page 240 – What is John the Savage really claiming? How can we classify this list– put them all in one basket – what would you call it? • Free will • PERSONAL EXISTENCE & THE LACK OF GOD • People see no purpose of life past instant gratification – there’s no need for a religion or a God • Mond suggests that people only need religion when they are in complete chaos; they need religion for a “larger purpose” like growing old and worrying about an afterlife. Chapters 17 and 18

3. Focus is on John’s departure from society, the self-flagellation, the need for truth above slavery, and pressure. • He attempts to recreate his life on the reservation (in touch with nature) with disastrous results. • LENINA CROWNE • Acts as the pressure John consistently fights against (his sexual attraction to her is overwhelming) – she’s the key to push him over the edge • Her arrival is the last straw. • He loses all resolve, and then succumbs to what he was most against, which is? • What drives him to take his life? • Shame and the fact that there is no where for him to go. LANGUAGE • A mixture of satire, farce, and Shakespearean language. • The final image is deeply ironic. Chapter 18

4. A comic dramatic piece that uses highly improbable situations, stereotyped characters, extravagant exaggeration, and violent horseplay. Farce is generally regarded as intellectually and aesthetically inferior to comedy in its crude characterizations and implausible plots(Encyclopedia Britannica). What is farce?

5. What do we make of this image? Let’s look at the last few sentences…

6. The four directions are integral to native spirituality. When a Native American prays to the four directions, it is a prayer to the spirits of the world, to life and the Great Spirit that encompasses the four directions and everything that is. Four directions

7. Aldous Huxley's writings express the disillusionment of the 1920s, the cynicism of the 1930s, and the questioning of the 1940s. Huxley was the product of the times, and his novels and essays are the expressions of his beliefs and concerns (Monarch). The questions is, does his work still speak to today’s audience? Huxley’s vision

8. Huxley to be a more accomplished essayist than novelist. Some critics have insisted that his characters are characters are spokespeople for particular ideas and beliefs. They feel his plots are “rigged” and his characters salespeople for his version of truth. Some feel that Huxley is too didactic a novelist and his preaching is overbearing. Opinions? What does Huxley’s want us to see? Perhaps that science and technology should be the servants of man - man should not be adapted and enslaved to them. What do we think? What do we expect and require from our novels? (If you like the “novel of ideas” you may enjoy Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead..) Some consider…