Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Today, the modern world represents a great unbalance and can be seen as unstable. Society is separated by growing technologies and personal beliefs. Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932, describes a society that is based on three words; Unity, Stability, and Identity. These three principles create the Utopian (perfect) society setting that citizens could only wish for in 1932. Brave New World describes eugenics, pharmaceuticals, love and marriage, and technological advances that come very close to what society uses today. In his writing, Huxley presented ideas that were not realistic in his time, but are most certainly realistic in modern time. In 1907, the state of Indiana passed the world’s first mandatory sterilization law. It applied to “inmates of state institutions who are insane, idiotic, imbecile, feeble minded, and epileptic, and who by the laws of heredity are the probable potential parents of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted” (Stern 29). This law was later repealed in 1974, long after Huxley’s book was published. In Brave New World, Huxley uses eugenics in a similar way. The World State government has control …show more content…
The drug provides an escape to citizens from their surroundings, and it relieves them from any depression they may or may not have. Soma can be compared to any modern day antidepressant in a similar way. According to Brendan O 'Neill, a journalist from Australia, psychiatrists are worried that antidepressants are being given out not to fight serious depression, but to “get rid of unhappiness” (2). Just like in Brave New World, modern society can find access to these antidepressants fairly easily. Drugs such as Xanax, Hydrocodone, Adderall, and Morphine are all examples of abused prescription drugs. These few drugs are ‘feel good’ drugs, which essentially, get rid of unwanted feelings and