Alesia Duran

April 20, 2022

p.1

BNW pre-reading and ch1

The human experience gets in the way of perfection: emotions, insatiable appetites (always want
more), basic survival (food, safety, shelter, greater purpose, families)

Making humans less human

Book cover predictions:

-clones/artificially made people

- loss of identity or individuality

-futuristic civilization/technology

-rebellion of the new society

-forfeiting individual freedom

-becoming large body of workers

- how we deal with the unknown and adapt to the future

- obsession with perfectionism

-humans and emotions

-mistakes/flaws and learning from them

-mortality/limited amount of time on earth

- relationships

-basic necessities and resources

- what it means to be human and how to be better humans

Title of Book: allusion to a Shakespearean play (The Tempest)

Article 1 notes: ‘Brave New World’ predicted today’s world better than any other novel
 New article
 How did it predict todays new world the best?: nightmare world, even intelligent people are
enslaved, moving towards this dystopia
 Dictatorship>freedom theme.
 Dystopian novel=imperfect world
  Everybody is perfectly happy, genetic engineering, Pavlovian conditioning
 Endless distraction & drug to keep people happy
 World State= the setting
 Makes humans faster, more jobs, jobs keep people busy and happy
 Crash during the great depression
 Henry Ford is considered God as well as Sigmund Freud (religion)
 Mass consumerism (buy buy buy), promiscuity encouraged, avoiding unhappiness
 Assembly line praised (religion)
 Will all fall apart
 Solitude is taboo, always out partying
 Abolished boredom, effects brain structure and mental health
 Using distractions to avoid all the other stuff
 Distractions are fine, but in moderation
 Addiction: soma (drug used for euphoria, hallucination, and even tranquillization),
 IRL: 1 in 8 americans on anti-depressents, anti-anxiety, tranquilizers. Drinking and weed
 Work force: no robots, everyone has a job, mass employment=mass consumption,
 Happy, consuming, not questioning the larger system
 The human experience gets in the way of perfection: emotions, insatiable appetites (always
want more), basic survival (food, safety, shelter, greater purpose, families)
 Making humans less human
 Higher concentration of wealth and power now
 Everything controlled by a select few powers/companies
 Propaganda being given out by media and television
 Educate people on what they're worshipping and putting a lot of faith in

Satire is a literary device for the artful ridicule of folly or vice as a means of exposing
or correcting it. The subject of satire is generally human frailty, as it manifests in
people’s behavior or ideas as well as societal institutions or other creations. Satire
utilizes tones of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation towards a flawed
subject with the hope of creating awareness and subsequent change.
For example, one of the most well-known satirical literary works is brave new world
by Aldous Huxley. In his novel, Huxley satirizes most of the social conventions and
institutions considered sacred and held dear by an “enlightened” Western society.
This includes religion, monogamy, social equality, and the blessing of childbirth. In
the novel, these conventions and institutions are turned upside down such that the
characters embrace drug culture, social class separation, casual sex, and
governmental control. Huxley satirizes contemporary society in order to expose for
the reader its arbitrary and often hypocritical moral structures.
 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Chapter 1
Focus: Introducing the World State
Two reminders:

 Please be try your best as a reader to do your own thinking and learning!!!
 Refer to the book as often as possible by keeping track of page numbers.
What is the World State? Add page numbers.
 Main building: hatchery and conditioning
for children
 Motto: community, identity, stability
(pg.3)
 Every worker dressed the same (pg 3)
 The director. Students follow director
taking notes (pg 4)
 In A.F. 632 (pg 4)
 Place where workers are created
constantly (pg 5)
Collect terms/vocabulary related to World State
 Makes gammas, deltas, and epsilons and define.
dumber by dousing them in alcohol when Add page numbers.
they're being created so they don’t  A.F= after ford (pg 4)
question their lives or rebel (pg 6-7)  Alphas, betas (perfectly fertilized, only 1
 Workers are how the society stays stable created, higher class,leaders) (pg 6)
(pg 7)  gammas, deltas, and epsilons (undergo
 Hand pick certain people to donate their bokanovskys process and 96 are made,
eggs. (alphas and betas) (pg 8) inferior, menial tasks) (pg 6)
 Steralize gammas deltas and epsilons  Bokanovskys process: from every gamma
because they don’t want them to delta or epsilon made, 96 are made. (pg
reproduce (pg 7 &pg 13) 6)
 People=worker
 Eggs predestined to work in tropic
 Podsnaps techniques (pg 8)
climates were put through heat tunnels
 Liners, matriculators (different jobs) (pg
and cool tunnels so they become used
9)
to that kind of weather (pg 16)
 What predictions do you have about the
potential issues/problems within the World State
creation? Add page numbers.
What questions come to mind as you read
chapter 1? Add page numbers that keep track of
when this question came to mind.  I predict that eventually a gamma, delta
or epsilon will become aware that they
are like slaves and try to rebel against the
 How “dumb” do the gammas, deltas, and world state (pg 7)
epsilons get when they are doused in  One of the students will question the
alcohol? (pg 7) process of “human” creation so much
 Does dousing them in alcohol affect their that they start to question if the world
working efficiency? (pg 7) state is even moral. (pg 4)
 Are there “humans” that come out with  People will start to question ford as a
defects? and if so what do they do with god, just like people question gods
them? (pg 7) existence in our world (pg 4)