Antidepressants In Brave New World Essay

The use of antidepressants, such as soma, is essential to life in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Anti-depressants and other “feel-good” drugs are becoming increasingly popular in the world. I believe that this continued increase in use, as well as lack of concern for actually treating the sick, may be leading the world to become rather brave and new. The widespread prescription of antidepressants is numbing society to the actual problems at hand, people are getting crazy. Society thinks it’s okay, though. Just pop adderal and xanax all day and the world is rainbows and sunshine. Real disorders and real problems are ignored because society is content with getting people high and being done with it. Large pharmaceutical companies are more concerned with profiting from a person’s ailment than actually making them better. This is similar to the way that the government of Brave New World does not care about …show more content…
The characters in the book are so dependent upon the drugs that someone even says “You do look glum! What you need is a gram of soma.” (P.52, l.31) In much the same way, people today smoke pot and pop pills to get away from the stress of school or paying bills. “Being the target of bullying is a serious problem for many of today’s teens. It can lead to significant emotional pain and trauma, and isn’t something that a teen merely needs to ‘get over.’ The emotional impact of bullying can leave lasting scars. Sadly, some teens turn to alcohol and drugs as a way to cope.” This causes teens to develop a potential dependency on the drugs, not for any other reason than to get away from their problems, exactly the same way that people in Brave New World do. With that level of dependency rooted within the citizens, a government is free to do as they please by using the drug as a sort of weapon, almost as mind