The novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, portrays a dystopian society that completely limits the citizen’s lifestyle. Like many other dystopian societies, it is under the guise of being utopian. The residents are born into a permanent caste system, all the citizens are at the absolute mercy of 10 World Controllers, and they are conditioned and brainwashed into emotionless cyborgs.
The readers are introduced to a strict caste system early on in the novel which outlines the conditioning for each members of the hierarchy. The castes are divided into Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each individual caste is then broken down into sub levels, for instance (from lowest to highest): Alphas can have Alpha minus, Alpha, Alpha Plus, and Alpha Double Plus. The lower castes, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilons, are to undergo the Bokanovsky Process. The process is applied during the late stages of embryological development as the egg is being split into two identical twins. The purpose of the cloning is to create a huge work force of low level citizens. Their high level counterparts will undergo normal fertilization and development, resulting in tall, handsome, intelligent, and strong breeds of Alphas or Betas.
The World State is in an absolute dictatorship society, where everything is being manipulated according to the wishes of each respective Controller. This alone outlines the general characteristic of a dystopian society, where a small handful of men govern the entire world according to their beliefs and values. The Controllers will decided on the rules and laws, they also have the ability of creating propaganda and censorship. The purpose is to make sure everyone is happy, and prevent the ebb and flow of the economy. Despite their efforts, there are still men and women who are capable of reaching an intellectual level where he/she may realize the cons of the society. These “threats” are then sent off to a lonely island where they will study there interest without harming the “good” of society.
During the psychological conditioning of the World State residents, cruel, and disturbing methods are utilized. The conditionings are all exercised on infants and they includes loud noises, electric shocks, and hypnopaedia. These experiments are done to prevent children from having the love for books and flowers (nature), thus every time they see one, they will either loathe or fear them for they are conditioned to expect the horrible consequences of getting too close to a book or flower. The purpose is to force the citizens to consume as much goods as possible and at the same time not increasing their intellectual abilities beyond a certain extent. If an individual decides to take a stroll in the woods, there will not be any consumerism, hence no money will be invested into the economy. The banning of books is to restrain the citizens from obtaining enough knowledge as to revolt the actions of the World Controllers, thus causing havoc and undermining the motto of the World State “Community, Identity, Stability”. The citizens are brainwashed into an invaluable part of a stable economy.
All in all, the setting of the novel is definitely a dystopian society. It has a very strict caste system, all civilians are physically and mentally under the control of 10 World Controllers, and the citizens are conditioned as to not having too much personal freedom and the ability of free thinking.
