Imagine a world without war, sadness, disease, and untimely deaths. A utopia, guaranteed to provide all the comforts the world has to offer, guaranteed to provide happiness, or at the very least enough pills to ensure no one is ever sad for long. But what would you have to give up to gain stability and peace, and would it be worth it? Brave New World is seemingly a utopian society free from the problems that plague the real world, a freedom purchased by the loss of truth, beauty, art, and religion. Despite the allure of earthly pleasures, such as sex, soma, and comfort, there is no real happiness or fulfillment in the World State. Huxley’s portrayal of a God-less society and the subsequent unhappiness of the characters Bernard, Lenina
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As such, the drug Soma was introduced to ensure that anytime a citizen of the World State felt slightly upset, they could pop a pill and immediately be relieved of any suffering. After having forgotten her Soma pills when she went to the Malpais Savage reservation, Lenina “felt herself entitled…to a complete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma (140)”, Lenina could not face even the slightest discomforts without relying on soma to bring her out of the darkness and into happiness. It was also used to enhance already happy events, to endeavor to fulfill the desires within the human heart for something wonderful and great. When Henry and Lenina went dancing it was in a soma-filled room that was, “infinitely friendly (77)”, the prospects of dancing and later having relations was not enough to satisfy them, they had to supplement the feelings with Soma. Likewise, when Lenina is about to have sex with the Arch-Community-Songster, she states that she had, “better take a couple of grammes of soma (178)”. Regardless of the synthetic happiness brought on by the soma, like sex it could not fulfill the desires. Soma brought happiness only for a short time and when it wore off, the person either had to take more, or suffer from reality …show more content…
They could no longer have beautiful things, because beauty is attractive and they did not want people to be attracted to things beyond what they needed to fulfil the duties of their caste (219). Along with beauty art was sacrificed to make way for stability. Science and truth were also victims of the quest for a utopia because, “truth’s a menace, science is a public danger (227)”. The masses cannot have knowledge or truth if the elite wish to control them to maintain a stable environment. The greatest sacrifice, was to give up religion and God (230). The desire for God is among the most natural desires that human beings feel, as John insists, “It is natural to believe in God when you’re alone (235)”, even if you never allow people to be completely alone, such as in the World State, the desire for God is not destroyed. Rather the desire is hidden and man attempts to fill this desire by gorging himself on the pleasures of the world, forever wondering why he can never eat his fill. Huxley frames a difficult question in Brave New World. Is it worth it to have a utopia, if one must give up beauty and truth, science and art, knowledge and God? The answer presented in the novel is no. Without God there is no completion, without completion there is no happiness. No matter how much comfort is presented in the world, the absence of God will be felt more
As such, the drug Soma was introduced to ensure that anytime a citizen of the World State felt slightly upset, they could pop a pill and immediately be relieved of any suffering. After having forgotten her Soma pills when she went to the Malpais Savage reservation, Lenina “felt herself entitled…to a complete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest house, she swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma (140)”, Lenina could not face even the slightest discomforts without relying on soma to bring her out of the darkness and into happiness. It was also used to enhance already happy events, to endeavor to fulfill the desires within the human heart for something wonderful and great. When Henry and Lenina went dancing it was in a soma-filled room that was, “infinitely friendly (77)”, the prospects of dancing and later having relations was not enough to satisfy them, they had to supplement the feelings with Soma. Likewise, when Lenina is about to have sex with the Arch-Community-Songster, she states that she had, “better take a couple of grammes of soma (178)”. Regardless of the synthetic happiness brought on by the soma, like sex it could not fulfill the desires. Soma brought happiness only for a short time and when it wore off, the person either had to take more, or suffer from reality …show more content…
They could no longer have beautiful things, because beauty is attractive and they did not want people to be attracted to things beyond what they needed to fulfil the duties of their caste (219). Along with beauty art was sacrificed to make way for stability. Science and truth were also victims of the quest for a utopia because, “truth’s a menace, science is a public danger (227)”. The masses cannot have knowledge or truth if the elite wish to control them to maintain a stable environment. The greatest sacrifice, was to give up religion and God (230). The desire for God is among the most natural desires that human beings feel, as John insists, “It is natural to believe in God when you’re alone (235)”, even if you never allow people to be completely alone, such as in the World State, the desire for God is not destroyed. Rather the desire is hidden and man attempts to fill this desire by gorging himself on the pleasures of the world, forever wondering why he can never eat his fill. Huxley frames a difficult question in Brave New World. Is it worth it to have a utopia, if one must give up beauty and truth, science and art, knowledge and God? The answer presented in the novel is no. Without God there is no completion, without completion there is no happiness. No matter how much comfort is presented in the world, the absence of God will be felt more