In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley depicts how people sacrifice their relationships, specifically family, in order to have a feeling of happiness. The people only have a temporary, self-centered, kind of happiness instead of true joy or strong emotions. They do not realize how much they are missing out, because they have never been around anything different; they are only told of the horrors of strong emotions or attachments and they are conditioned to think everyone is happy. Today’s society is similar in the way that people are focused on the here and now, feelings, what makes you feel right, what you want. Though everyone is conditioned to some extent, you can be glad that you experience love, real joy, pain, or suffering, real emotions, not just temporary ones. You need to choose two decisions that will lead to true happiness. Learning to deal with the hard things in life is what allows you to grow, to experience true joy, love, and relationships. In Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, characterization and theme lead you to a deeper understanding of a manufactured world where everyone puts on a mask and teaches you to never sacrifice true emotions for artificial ones.
Henry Foster is one of Lenina’s many lovers. “He expects nice girls to sleep around just as he does” (Mitcham 1). He is a perfectly conventional Alpha male, casually discussing Lenina’s body with his coworkers. His success with Lenina and his casual attitude about it infuriate the jealous Bernard. He is loyal to society and reinforces its artificial lifestyle as he “explains how the hatchery functions and how the average citizens are supposed to act” (Mitcham 1).
Brave New World is full of characters who do everything they can to avoid facing the truth about their own situations. The almost universal use of the drug soma is probably the most pervasive example of such willful self-delusion. Soma clouds the realities of the present and replaces them with happy hallucinations, and is thus a tool for promoting social stability. However, even Shakespeare can be used to avoid facing the truth, as John demonstrates by his insistence on viewing Lenina through the lens of Shakespeare’s world. He first views her as a Juliet and later as an “impudent strumpet.” According to Mustapha Mond, the World State prioritizes happiness at the expense of truth by design. He believes that people are better off with happiness than with truth. It seems clear enough from Mond’s argument that happiness refers to the immediate gratification of every citizen’s desire for food, sex, drugs, nice clothes, and other consumer items. It is less clear what Mond means by truth, or specifically what truths he sees the World State society as covering up. Everyone “has been conditioned from the time they were embryos to accept unquestioningly all the values and beliefs of the carefully ordered society” (Themes and Construction: Brave New World 2). From Mond’s discussion with John, it is possible to identify two m...
