Literary Analysis of Brave New World; How Technology Controls Society

Aldous Huxley’s science fiction Brave New World is about a world with humans that are born from one parent, placed in different classes and learn what the government teaches them. The society bans family relation words such as “father” and “mother”. The author states the possibility of our world turning into a dehumanized state like the one in Brave New World, by describing how unfeeling and ruthless humans will become after a few decades with the use of technology. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley uses the element of people living in a dehumanized state to show how technology can control society; by twisting the meaning of family, placing people in caste systems and humans obsession with soma (resulting in the lack of spirituality).

Having the opportunity to create babies without needing two parents (resulting in a lack of love from family) and making people “coldblooded” (having no interactions with people, and emotions do not exist) in this society is all resulted because of the misuse of technology; causing the twist of the meaning of family. The way which babies are born in this society, which can be considered as “one egg, one embryo, one adult—normality” (Huxley, 8), shows how interactions and encouragement are decreasing in this society. There are no parents in this world because machines create the children. Without parents who act like a best friend to talk to no matter what happens, feelings become obsolete. In the twentieth century, children are considered as a “heart-blood”, which means the only thing someone will be willing to live for and die for. In this society, it is the total opposite. If one child dies, there will be machines creating identical kids to replace the old one in a few moments, proving family is not as important as other accomplishments. The twisted meaning of “family” can also be seen how the government believes and brainwashes its citizens that “parents were the father and mother…these are unpleasant facts” (Huxley, 22). The government believes that a family is unnecessary for kids, since a lack of family keeps the different castes in their place. Parents encourage kids to do jobs that they are not allowed to do in their castes. The effect of the government brainwashing citizens can be seen on page 193, “‘She’s my mother,’ he said in a scarcely audible tone. The nurse glanced at him with startled, horrified eyes, then looked away”. This quote shows how scared and terrified people can be after hearing the word “mother”. The citizens have been trained to react horrified, frightened after hearing family related words by the government. The thought of family had become a dirty and improper idea because of technology. Without technology, there is no chance that nonliving babies will exist in the world, causing the meaning of family to distort.

With the help of technology, the kids are placed in caste systems as soon as they are born, causing unfairness. Since it is “instinctive”, the babies have no choice. The government uses technology to avoid the wasting of resources. The electric shocks force the babies to be scared of something, for example books and flowers, “[t]hey’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives” (Huxley, 21). The quote illustrates that the government uses technology to force lower caste people to focus on their work such as labor, instead of wasting time, money and resources to do things they are no allowed to do in their caste, such as reading books. The society can be seen as a dehumanized world from this quote because in the modern world, people believe to follow and accomplish dreams; but in this world, the possibility of succeeding their goals are already destroyed before they try. Babies in the society learn by sleep-teaching, or hyponaedia, which means the babies learn knowledge when they are sleeping. The use of sleep-teaching creates a society full of the same kinds of person which makes no one unique, so they will not have the idea to change the society. The sate decides how and what the baby will learn, rather than parents, which can connect to the twisting of family. Children in the same caste “all wear green…all wear khaki…all wear grey…” (Huxley, 25). The children are same from job to clothing, avoid conflicts for the thought of inequality among the classes. Sleep teaching developed with the help of technology and the kids will never learn about knowledge that will cause them to change the society. They are also conditioned to think and act like a member of their class to avoid chaos and protests against the government.