(no subject)
Anyone feel like offering criticism on an essay?
A roughly 500 word long piece on a three-page section of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and its relevance to the novel as a whole. For the most, it discusses the theme of the shallow, uniform existence lived by the majority of the novel's characters, using Lenina and Henry as case examples. Due tomorrow morning. Please comment, if you have the time or inclination.
Bottled: Life in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Early in his dystopian classic Brave New World, Aldous Huxley includes short episodes that, contrary to the opinions of critic Roger Ing, contribute greatly to the novel as a whole. Though Ing claims that they "contribute nothing to the development of [the novel's] themes and characters - in fact, scarcely touch upon the novel's major concerns and patterns of imagery", these episodes actually serve as opportunities for Huxley to illustrate his fictional landscape, to depict the puerile and uniform lifestyle enjoyed by its residents. Their lives are infantile and interchangeable, shallow and reeking of sameness; Huxley uses one section in particular to masterfully depict existence in the bottle in which Lenina Crowne and Henry Foster seem happy to remain.
On the latter half of page 75, Huxley begins the episode with the arrival at Henry's "forty-story apartment building", and Lenina and Henry's dinner with "loud and cheerful company", in the building's dining hall (75). The description of the close quarters, boisterous company and central area for meals suggests the youth-centric experience of university. Not only does Huxley illustrate a youthful atmosphere, but the sheer mass of Henry's apartment building reminds the audience of the high population of this fictional society, the dilution of human worth by sheer numbers.
So, too, does Huxley's world mimic the shallow nature of its inhabitants. Westminster Abbey, a church of the former England is no longer a place of spirituality, but now the "newly opened Westminster Abbey Cabaret", just across the street from Henry's apartment building (75). Nature itself cannot reach the souls of Huxley's population. Safe in the grasp of soma, Lenina and Henry are protected from the revelation of a "night without clouds, moonless and starry", aided by the electric signs. Technology blocks out nature, chases it away as naked light does darkness.
A crowd of four hundred couples dance, joined by Lenina and Henry, as "sexophonists" perform for the masses, their music imitating the sexual release that, in Huxley's novel, substitutes for emotional depth. The aptly-named sexophones, "[mount] towards a climax , louder and ever louder...the conductor [lets] loose the final shattering note of ether music", blowing the "merely human blowers clean out of existence" (76). They break into song, exchanging the pretense of sexual pleasure for the praise of sheer physical gratification and simplicity, singing about the perfection of embryonic life in the bottle. Huxley's world, in the novel, and in this section, is one of an easy and meaningless existence. Drugged with soma, "bottled", Henry and Lenina obediently toddle out into the night - a night they are barely aware of, in their intoxicated, infantile state (77).
Lenina and Henry's evening perfectly illustrates the shallow nature of Huxley's dystopia: its childishness, its sameness. Any of the 401 dancing couples could have been featured in this episode, any denizen of Henry's forty stories likely spent the evening shaped into soma-happiness with no depth, no maturity. This section depicts the falsified "nature" of life in Huxley's fictional landscape. It reveals it as the infantile and interchangeable existence Aldous Huxley means it to be, and thus perfectly captures the spirit of the work.
Thanks in advance, chaps and chapesses. I'm off to dig through history readings for a bit, before tackling the Classics beast.
A roughly 500 word long piece on a three-page section of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and its relevance to the novel as a whole. For the most, it discusses the theme of the shallow, uniform existence lived by the majority of the novel's characters, using Lenina and Henry as case examples. Due tomorrow morning. Please comment, if you have the time or inclination.
Bottled: Life in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Early in his dystopian classic Brave New World, Aldous Huxley includes short episodes that, contrary to the opinions of critic Roger Ing, contribute greatly to the novel as a whole. Though Ing claims that they "contribute nothing to the development of [the novel's] themes and characters - in fact, scarcely touch upon the novel's major concerns and patterns of imagery", these episodes actually serve as opportunities for Huxley to illustrate his fictional landscape, to depict the puerile and uniform lifestyle enjoyed by its residents. Their lives are infantile and interchangeable, shallow and reeking of sameness; Huxley uses one section in particular to masterfully depict existence in the bottle in which Lenina Crowne and Henry Foster seem happy to remain.
On the latter half of page 75, Huxley begins the episode with the arrival at Henry's "forty-story apartment building", and Lenina and Henry's dinner with "loud and cheerful company", in the building's dining hall (75). The description of the close quarters, boisterous company and central area for meals suggests the youth-centric experience of university. Not only does Huxley illustrate a youthful atmosphere, but the sheer mass of Henry's apartment building reminds the audience of the high population of this fictional society, the dilution of human worth by sheer numbers.
So, too, does Huxley's world mimic the shallow nature of its inhabitants. Westminster Abbey, a church of the former England is no longer a place of spirituality, but now the "newly opened Westminster Abbey Cabaret", just across the street from Henry's apartment building (75). Nature itself cannot reach the souls of Huxley's population. Safe in the grasp of soma, Lenina and Henry are protected from the revelation of a "night without clouds, moonless and starry", aided by the electric signs. Technology blocks out nature, chases it away as naked light does darkness.
A crowd of four hundred couples dance, joined by Lenina and Henry, as "sexophonists" perform for the masses, their music imitating the sexual release that, in Huxley's novel, substitutes for emotional depth. The aptly-named sexophones, "[mount] towards a climax , louder and ever louder...the conductor [lets] loose the final shattering note of ether music", blowing the "merely human blowers clean out of existence" (76). They break into song, exchanging the pretense of sexual pleasure for the praise of sheer physical gratification and simplicity, singing about the perfection of embryonic life in the bottle. Huxley's world, in the novel, and in this section, is one of an easy and meaningless existence. Drugged with soma, "bottled", Henry and Lenina obediently toddle out into the night - a night they are barely aware of, in their intoxicated, infantile state (77).
Lenina and Henry's evening perfectly illustrates the shallow nature of Huxley's dystopia: its childishness, its sameness. Any of the 401 dancing couples could have been featured in this episode, any denizen of Henry's forty stories likely spent the evening shaped into soma-happiness with no depth, no maturity. This section depicts the falsified "nature" of life in Huxley's fictional landscape. It reveals it as the infantile and interchangeable existence Aldous Huxley means it to be, and thus perfectly captures the spirit of the work.
Thanks in advance, chaps and chapesses. I'm off to dig through history readings for a bit, before tackling the Classics beast.