Brave New World

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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a dystopian book published in 1932, which gives an account of a frightening future set in London in 2540. Summary Of Brave New World This futuristic novel, set in 2540 AD (632 AF according to the book), visualizes a world where sleep-learning and a technological way of reproduction has taken over. Though it’s set in the future, Aldous Huxley explores the existent issues of the 20th century through the book, such as the Industrial Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the First World War. Aldous Huxley writes about a world where a greater part of the population has combined to become the World State. The state has a permanent population of two billion people. And while the State’s populace is restricted, its wealth and products are plentiful. The society is divided into five castes: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon. The five castes are designated to fulfill predestined positions in the State’s socio-economical divisions, with alpha caste being the best. Huxley then goes on to describe the State’s society as one that has no moral values; here, recreational sex is encouraged from a tender age, whereas love, family, and romance are considered obscene. Children are produced technologically through ‘decanting’, and they are born and raised in hatcheries. After providing a horrifying description about the World State, Huxley goes on to narrate the story of John the Savage. John is an outsider, a child born from parents raised in the State. He returns to the place of his parents only to find that he cannot adjust with it. He is repelled by everything that is happening within the State as it goes against his ideals. Aldous Huxley has indeed written this dystopian work wonderfully. The book, which is meant to be a parody of the then-popular Utopian futuristic works, is well-written and has ushered in lots of praise from critics. About Aldous Huxley Hailing from the famous Huxley family of Britain, Aldous Huxley was a humanist and pacifist, besides being a popular author. He started out as a farm labourer in Garsingston during the First World War, but moved to Italy after marrying Maria Nys, a Belgian. It was after he moved to Italy that Huxley began to seriously write. He completed writing his first novel at the age of seventeen, but it was only in his early twenties that he published his first work, a satire called Chrome Yellow. He then wenton to publish Antic Hay, Those Barren Leaves, and Point Counter Point. Huxley already had four successful books to his name when he published his most popular book, Brave New World, in 1933. It was also during this time that Aldous Huxley began to write and edit pacifist works - Ends and Means being the prominent one. Huxley then moved to Los Angeles, USA, with his wife, son, and a friend, Gerald Heard. It was Heard who introduced Huxley to Vedanta, which went on to become an integral part of his life. In Hollywood, Huxley earned some income as a writer, but didn’t meet with much success. As an author, he published another satirical book After Many a Summer, for which he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial prize. Huxley died in 1963, in Los Angeles, a few hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.