Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) released his magnum opus in 1932 when he was 38 years old. The novel presented a dystopian (or utopian, depending on interpretation) vision of a future society known as the World State, where human beings are mass-produced in laboratories and conditioned to be content with their predestined roles in the strictly hierarchised society. Individuality and personal freedom are sacrificed for societal stability, with the government maintaining control through the use of technology and psychological manipulation. The story follows Bernard Marx, who is an outsider in the supposedly utopian world, and John the Savage, a man raised outside the World State who struggles with the shallow hedonism of the new world. The novel comes at a unique period in history where science seeped more and more into the lives and politics of the world. This essay will show how Brave New World demonstrates the dangers of approaches to incorporate science into the world.

Document Analysis

Brave New World stands as one of the 20th century’s best-selling novels, with translations in over 20 languages[^1]. By the time of its publication, Aldous Huxley had already established his literary reputation in novels such as “Crome Yellow” (1921) and “Antic Hay” (1923), and his thought-provoking essays. The story’s enduring popularity has led to adaptations in various formats, including movies, television shows, and comic books. The novel’s characters and its depiction of a dystopian society have become deeply embedded in our cultural consciousness and are frequently included in school curricula.

The document in question is a 2009 release of the Brave New World by Penguin Random House, under their ‘Vintage Classics’ series. Penguin Random House is a British Book Publishing house founded by Sir Allen Lane (1902-1970) after he could not find anything of quality to read on the train back to London after visiting legendary novelist Agatha Christie (1890–1976). Shortly after in 1935, Lane used his experience working for his uncle’s publishing company ‘Bodley Head’ and founded Penguin Random House, aiming to democratise high quality literature. Within a year of its founding, the company had sold over a million books with over 200 titles.[^2] Penguin Random House became one of the first English-speaking publishing houses to focus on making literature available to those outside of the upper classes. It stands as one of the most famous and esteemed publishing houses in the world.

Books published by Penguin are known for their quality, affordability and iconic design. Originally the books were colour coated to denote the genre, as the publishing company grew more comprehensive schemes of organisation were needed. Penguin Random House split its work into the categories with subsidiary companies managing each line, Pelican Books (non-fiction works), Puffin Books (children’s books) and Penguin Classics. The ‘Vintage Classics’ line, from which the document hails, is a subcategory within Penguin Classics that republishes the greatest works of classic literature featuring the likes of Jane Austin, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, James Joyce… The works are published with a red binding, uniquely designed covers and introductions from notable authors and scholars.
The document is 13 cm by 20cm by 2cm, containing 312 pages. The cover of the book features a red graphic of the earth with white swirls flowing out of it, denoting how Huxley’s world of control could spiral into our reality. Underneath the graphic is a blue quote from Margaret Atwood, saying ‘A masterpiece of speculation’. The book’s binding features the vintage classic brand of red with the author, written in blue, the title of the book, written in white, and the word ‘VINTAGE’ denoting the series. All the words on the cover are written in uppercase letters to attract readers attention. The back of the features a quote from novelist J.G. Ballard, emphasises the ‘uncannily prophetic’ nature of the novel. Beneath the quote includes a blurb written in grey outlining the narrative while re-emphasising the insight and warnings Huxley’s 1932 novel provides to the present. The presentation of the document is striking, communicating its evocatory nature. This copy was purchased in the world-famous Foyles bookshop in London for £9.99, with the price imprinted on the back of the book. Millions of copies have been sold in bookshops across the globe.[^3]

Story Summary and Style

. The first 4 pages contain a short biography, comments on the work by notable newspapers, authors and pundits and licensing information. This is followed by the introduction which features two passages from Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood (1939-present), known for her dystopian novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, and philosopher David Bradshaw (1944-present). Atwood provided a more semantic interpretation of the work, commenting on how the ideas/themes and how permuted society as well as an homage to his literary prowess, Bradshaw offers a more traditional record of Huxley’s life and his impact on literature. After the introduction, there is a short forward from Huxley himself written in 1946, detailing some amendments he would make to the book given 14 years of rumination.
Finally, the text itself begins. The text itself is split into 18 chapters, denoted by Roman numerals, spanning 230 pages. The first 3 chapters (I-III) introduce the World state and the lifestyle of its citizens as seen through the main characters. The following 3 chapters (IV-VI) cover Bernard Marx dissatisfaction of the world state and longing for individuality. The next 3 chapters (VII-IX) detail Bernard and Lenina Crowne’s visit to the savage reservation, where they meet John and serve as a contrast to the depravity of absolute individualism. The 4 chapters following that (X-XIII) catalogues John the Savage’s experiences in the World State and his conflicting views of the society. After the death of his mother, the next 3 chapters (XIV-XVI) demonstrate the conflicting ideologies of John and the World State. The last 2 chapters (XVII-XVIII) form the climax of the book with John’s debate with the world controller on emotion vs societal stability, in essence the value of Millian higher vs lower pleasures, as well as John’s eventual suicide following his experience of absolute freedom.
Huxley’s Brave New World is first and foremost a satire crafted with a tapestry of symbols, allusions, and metaphors. The novel is in a sense a satirical dialectic with the hypothesis of the World State, a society driven and ruled by unshackled science and materialism, the antithesis of life on the Reservation and John. Huxley drew heavily upon the events of his time without obfuscation, such as the deification of Ford or the use of political figures as character names. The writing is not subtle, Huxley transports the reader to the dystopian world and continually rams the message down the reader’s throat.

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was born on July 26, 1894, in Godalming, Surrey, England, into what could rightly be called ‘intellectual aristocracy’. His grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895), was a prominent biologist and the most fervent supporter of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) following the publication of “On the Origin of Species”. Known as “Darwin’s Bulldog”, Thomas Henry Huxley was a formidable force in the scientific community of his time. Aldous Huxley’s granduncle, Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), was a noted Victorian poet and author, adding another layer of intellectual heritage to his lineage.

Aldous was initially intended to follow in his family’s footsteps and pursue a career in biology like his brother, Julian Huxley (1887–1975). However, an eye infection in Aldous’s teenage years led to a significant loss of vision, ruling out a career in the sciences. Instead, he channelled his intellectual vigour into writing and would become one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.

Huxley’s education at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a First in English Language and Literature, coupled with his scientific background, uniquely positioned him to merge these two worlds. Throughout his life, he worked as a schoolmaster, tutor, and finally a full-time writer, producing novels, essays, and poems that satirised society and illuminated broader truths about humanity. He married Maria Nys (1899–1955), a Belgian refugee he met while working on a farm during World War I, and together they lived in Italy, France, and finally the United States.

Huxley’s exploration of human consciousness, pacifism, and potential dangers of unchecked technology resonated worldwide. His later years were marked by an interest in mysticism and spiritual exploration, including the use of psychedelic substances. Despite being a lifelong smoker, he continued his robust work routine until his death from laryngeal cancer on November 22, 1963, a date overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. His work, straddling science and literature, continues to inspire and provoke thought, emphasising the need for a careful balance between scientific progress and humanity’s innate needs.

Despite the change in career, Huxley retained a lifelong love for science, which found its way into his literary work. This passion for science did not dim as he grew older. In his final piece, “Literature and Science” (1963), published two months before his death, he stated: “the precondition of any fruitful relationship between literature and science is knowledge.” This belief served as his guiding principle, and he strove to ensure art was not ignorant of science, and scientists did not forget humanity. His fear was that ignorance on either side could lead to a dystopian society akin to the one he depicted in Brave New World.

Historical Context

1932 was a tumultuous year. The horrors of ‘The Great War’, the opulence of the roaring 20s and the pain of the great depression were fresh in humanities collective consciousness. In conjunction humanity was on the cusp of eugenics zenith and its subsequent fall. These events and wider historical context bleed throughout Brave New World. This section will elaborate on the context of the time that would go on to inspire Brave New World.
The Great War (1914-1918) showed the world the destructive power of science. Nicknamed the ‘Chemist War’, it featured devastating innovation such as Fritz Haber (1868 –1934) mustard gas and Walther Nernst (1864 –1941) twisting of thermodynamics to create devastating bombs[^4]. WW1 from an epoch of science’s relation to the state. Science changed into warfare, shaped science from just being the tool of entrepreneurs and academics but a fundamental organ of the state. Scientists were no longer curious academics, but the needle politicians used to inflict mass destruction and murder.
The state’s relationship with science extended beyond their arsenals and into population control. When Thomas Malthus (1776-1834) released his infamous Essay on the Principles of Population in 1798 economics, science and politics changed. Malthus posited, “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second⁵. At the time, this meant the repealing of the Elizabethan poor laws, an early form of welfare, to promote Kampf (struggle).
Malthus began to articulate the natural superiority of beings stating in chapter 9 “it does not, however, by any means, seem impossible that by an attention to breed, a certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might take place among men.”[^5]. While Malthusian population theory was accepted as an axiom of the consequences of uncontrolled human reproduction, though not uncontested such as the critiques from Henry George[^6] or Karl Marx[^7], his views on what we now understand to be positive eugenics were not revisited till Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) provided the tools of evolution, natural selection and sexual selection. Darwin’s new science dethroned humanity from its précised divine providence. Darwin showed humanity it was merely its place pre-eminent position on the scala naturae was a product of lowly fornication and not bequeath to them by the lord. This empirical analysis of our species scared many, but to others it provided the methodology for perfecting humanity through “good breeding” or, to use its Latin translation, Eugenics.
Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), Darwin’s half cousin, was the first to attempt to formalise traits as hereditary. Galton was a rare genius in history, at the age of 2 he knew Greek and Latin and by 6 he was quoting Shakespeare at length. He breezed through his education, attending King’s College at 16 studying medicine. After finishing his medical degree he attended Trinity College in Cambridge where he studied mathematics and went on to revolutionise statistics, with some even going so far as to call him the ‘father of statistics’.
Galton said “On The Origin of Species formed a new epoch in my own mental development”.[^8] Once coming to grasp with evolution, he thought that humanity could artificially eradicate criminality, poverty, stupidity… and promote genius. His ideas were elucidated in his two seminal works Hereditary Genius (1869) and Inquiries into human faculty and its development (1883). Galton’s eugenics was self-described as “the science of improvement stock”[^9], through studies in the deranged, such as the Juke Family in Inquiries into human faculty and an examining 300 ‘notable families’ in Hereditary Genius he deduced that hereditary was the leading factor in determining the virtue of a human. These revelations became very popular, with Eugenic societies sweeping through the developed world. Aldous Huxley’s brother Julian Huxley, was a prominent member of one of these, specifically the influential (surprisingly still) British Eugenic Society (now Adelphi Genetics Forum) along with Galton himself[^10]. Other prominent Eugenicists include one of Aldous Huxley’s contemporaries and idols, fellow man of literature and science H.G Wells (1866–1946). Wells’s eugenics eclipsed even Hitler in severity, demanding for the extermination of the “inferior races”, in which he included the “very ugly Jews” and “those swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people…will have to go”[^11]. This was not an unpopular opinion, racism was given an academic justification and ignited a fire that would go on to burn Europe.
Eugenics was further developed by the founding president of Stanford, David Star Jordan (1851-1931). Jordan popularised the idea in the new world and helped to put it into official negative eugenics laws in place, forced sterilisations, and inspiring academics such as Madison Grant (1865–1937) to teach classes and produce more literature on the topic. Grant went on to write The Passing of the Great Race (1916) which was described by Hitler as his ‘bible’. In fact, when the Nazi’s began to pass and act on their first forced sterilisation laws (1934), American doctor Joseph Dejarnett (1866-1957) said “The Germans are beating us at our own game”.[^12]
In addition to the depressing wave of Eugenics sweeping, the world was in economic turmoil and about to be plunged into another world war. The roaring 20s and the great depression provide the economic backdrop to Huxley’s novel. In the twilight years of the second industrial revolution, Huxley recognised the opulence of the time by its “overproduction of strictly saying unnecessary things”¹¹. The invention of the Model-T also came with the invention of the assembly line, igniting the productive capabilities of industry and structuring the zenith of consumerism (for the time being). This decadence came crashing down at the end of the 20s, plunging the world into what would now be called The Great Depression. In response to the calamity, economists such as John Maynard Keynes (also a Malthusian[^13]) proposed not less consumption, but artificially creating more, “if the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again… there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.”[^14]. In this Keynes shows that any form spending, even unproductive, is good for the economy and thus for humanity. Huxley, along with other philosophers, criticised this position for promoting/accelerating hedonism and alienation.

Analysis

The Malthusian struggle is seen through the Reservation, a libertarian wasteland where life is a contest. A world stunted in scientific growth where scarcity, “viviparous” humans live a life of moral depravity and permanent struggle. In this way Huxley presents control, through technology as a necessity as who wrote in his 1958 essay Brave New World Revisited, “In the second half of the twentieth century we did nothing systematic about our breeding; but in our random and unregulated way we are not only overpopulating our planet, we are also. It would seem, making sure that these greater numbers shall be of biologically poorer quality”[^15]. It is a society deeply rooted in tradition, individualism, and emotional depth and can also be seen as a satire of the artists/poet’s romanticised view of the world. While one can see the ideas of a romantic poet like Lord Byron or John Keats seeping into John, the most influential figure is Shakespeare. John the Savage represents Hamlet’s alienation in straddling two worlds, Othello’s inability and Romeo’s love across different worlds and values. However, the most important figure is Miranda from The Tempest, with the line “O, brave new world That has such people in’t!”[^16]. John, much like Miranda, is marvelled and then disillusioned with “civilisation”. The tragic ending of John represents the danger of being so lost in romanticism and what a complete rejection of technology can lead to.
In Brave New World, chemical warfare is seen as an item of the past, with the state now employing chemistry to manipulate and control its population biology. Huxley took an opposite approach to the population control of Galton, Wells or Hitler in creating Brave New World both in method and motive. Huxley’s eugenics was not breeding the best, as in most virtues in an Aristotelian sense, but best citizens for a functioning society. Taking into account the warnings of Malthus, all natural procreations are banned, or as he calls it ‘viviparous’ the scientific word for natural production to accentuate its animalist and inhumane nature. Population is regulated, in proportion to the resources available. Like Galton, the World Controller understood society to be stratified by their genetics, the Desirable, Middle Class and Undesirable of Galton were expanded into Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons in Brave New World. Each class is bread and conditioned for a certain purpose, artificially breeding good or bad stock for a particular end. For the lower classes, the embryo is selected from a mentally deficient population and cloned using ‘Bokanovsky’s process’. For the upper classes,“high stock” egg and sperm are artificially merged to create the basis for the best human. Huxley went beyond the restricted view of Jordan and understood humanity as more than its genetics. For this, he appropriated the weaponization of chemicals from WW1 and changed its goal from destruction to control (homogenization). Through “Pavlov’s Conditioning”, Huxley showed how science could be used to change the cognition of humanity. Through adding standardised chemicals and artificially recreating environments, the foetuses were conditioned to serve a specific function. Examples include, limiting oxygen, adding alcohol to decrease the cognitive abilities of the “subject”. In addition, the embryos were “morally conditioned” with negative and positive stimuli, like electrotherapy and “Hypnopaedia”, playing propaganda during sleep, to standardise the values of its society, creating a docile, drug loving overconsuming society of hedonists. This satirised the prevailing Keynes economics of the time, showing how consumption disintegrates humanity. To this end, Huxley also introduced “soma” as a risk-free replacement for drugs to reinforce the docility of its citizens.
While this society may seem idealic to some, it is without vitality, and individuality. Huxley’s views on the danger of science eclipsing humanity is heavily inspired by his friend Bertrand Russel’s work Scientific Outlook (1931) and in a sense is an amplification of his previous work Crome Yellow (1922), while also paraphrasing H.G. Wells utopia Men Like Gods (1923). However, the novel stands alone from their works by presenting itself as a satirical dialectic. Men Like Gods is analogous to the society of 632 A.F (after ford’s model T) in Brave New World. The crèches (scientific moral indoctrination) and genetic control (Eugenics) in the Well’s novel mirror Huxley’s conditioning centre’s and hatcheries. This utopian view of Huxley’s dystopian society is further represented by the character of Scogan in Crome Yellow, who describe a “Rational State” where “rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires,” and prophecies “the system of family with disappear”.
In conclusion, we see through Huxley’s life he attempted to balance “Literature and Science”, Brave New World elucidates how close society is to letting science control us and strip us of all humanity, while also showing the dangers of a humanity without the comforts of science. Brave New World shows how alone, they derive into moral depravity or failure.

Citations

“About Penguin Random House.” About Penguin Random House, April 5, 2023. https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us.

“Our Story: Penguin Random House.” PenguinRandomhouse.com. Accessed November 27, 2023. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/about-us/our-story/.

“The 100 Best Novels Written in English: The Full List.” The Guardian, August 17, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list.

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species (1859). London: Penguin, 2009.

Freemantle, Michael. The chemists’ war, 1914-1918. Cambridge, UK: The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2014.

Firchow, Peter. “Science and Conscience in Huxley’s ‘Brave New World.’” Contemporary Literature 16, no. 3 (1975): 301–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/1207404.

Galton, Francis. Inquiries into human faculty and its development (1883). London: Macmillan, 2004.

George, Henry. Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy (1879).

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World (1932). London: Penguin, 2007.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited (1958). London: Penguin, 1994.

Huxley, Aldous. Island (1959). London: Penguin, 2005.

Huxley, Aldous. (1963). Literature and Science. Harper & Row.

Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan, 1930.

Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principles of Population and Other Writings (1798). London: Penguin, 2015.

Marx, Karl. Das Kapital (Vol 1) (1867). London, Penguin: 1998.

Miller, LuLu. Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.

PARTINGTON, JOHN S. “H.G. Wells’s Eugenic Thinking of the 1930s and 1940s.” Utopian Studies 14, no. 1 (2003): 74–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20718547.

Shakespear, William. The Tempest (1611).

[^1]: “The 100 Best Novels Written in English: The Full List.” The Guardian, August 17, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list.

[^2]: “Our Story: Penguin Random House.” PenguinRandomhouse.com. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/about-us/our-story/.

[^3]: “About Penguin Random House.” About Penguin Random House, April 5, 2023. https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us.

[^4]: Freemantle, Michael. The chemists’ war, 1914-1918. Cambridge, UK: The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2014. P5, P162-170

[^5]: Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principles of Population and Other Writings (1798). London: Penguin, 2015. For the law see P16, For his early positive eugenics see P75-77, for its effects on society see xxxi-xxxvi

[^6]: George, Henry. Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy (1879). See chapter 6 and 7

[^7]: Marx, Karl. Das Kapital (Vol 1) (1867). London, Penguin: 1998. See chapter 26.

[^8]: Miller, LuLu. P119

[^9]: Galton, Francis. Inquiries into human faculty and its development (1883). London: Macmillan, 2004. P17

[^10]: Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World (1932). London: Penguin, 2007. See Introduction

[^11]: PARTINGTON, JOHN S. “H.G. Wells’s Eugenic Thinking of the 1930s and 1940s.” Utopian Studies 14, no. 1 (2003): 74–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20718547.

[^12]: Miller Lulu, 132

[^13]: Malthus. Essay on Population Growth. Introduction

[^14]: Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan, 1930. Chap 10

[^15]: Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited (1958). London: Penguin, 1994.

[^16]: Shakespear, William. The Tempest (1611). Act 5 Scene 1 FTLN 2181-2182