In Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley the narrator describes a future world state, and in this society people are conditioned and influenced from the minute they’re created to the minute they die. In this 'Brave New World ', the population is parted into five main castes- Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilons, with the Alphas being the highest and Epsilons the lowest. When it comes to the main characters in this novel, there is a pretty wide variation of who belongs to what caste. Despite how the conditioning is supposed to work, some of the characters behaviors don’t follow the typical guidelines of the system. Something that frequently occurs, is a lot of challenging the way things stand and questioning how much free will the characters
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She uses soma to suppress any feelings that would be considered inappropriate and she acts how she is supposed to. The only thing she does that is unorthodox is she sees only one boy at a time. Bernard Marx, an alpha, on the other hand doesn’t quite fit into his caste because his weaker physical appearance. Alphas are typically much larger, and they say that Bernard is small due to an accident with alcohol and his blood-surrogate that left him slightly stunted His conditioning seems incomplete. He sees things completely backwards when it comes to community events, sexual relationships, and sports. Unlike everyone else in the world state, Bernard is often angry, resentful and jealous. He also really likes Lenina. Then there is Helmholtz, who is a good looking, fruitful Alpha-plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering. He is a perfect example of what the people in his caste should be, but yet he feels that the stuff he does is empty meaningless and would prefer to use his writing abilities for something purposeful. In the beginning of the novel the director says “And that, that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you 've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny” (Huxley 15). That quote points out Helmholtz’s flaw in …show more content…
They can all make decisions, but the difference between decision making for most of them and John is, when John makes choices it’s based on what he wants not based off what people are telling him to want. Bernard even recognizes this when he’s talking to Lenina and he says "yes, 'everybody’s happy nowadays. ' We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn 't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else 's way." (Huxley 91). Unlike most people Bernard doesn’t think that being happy means being free. Lenina on the other hand, says that she is free and happy because she is told that she is free and happy. That’s why in the novel it’s hard to believe that the majority of these people actually have any free will, because unlike John they really have no individuality. They do things based on how they’ve been conditioned to do them, not how they think that it should be
She uses soma to suppress any feelings that would be considered inappropriate and she acts how she is supposed to. The only thing she does that is unorthodox is she sees only one boy at a time. Bernard Marx, an alpha, on the other hand doesn’t quite fit into his caste because his weaker physical appearance. Alphas are typically much larger, and they say that Bernard is small due to an accident with alcohol and his blood-surrogate that left him slightly stunted His conditioning seems incomplete. He sees things completely backwards when it comes to community events, sexual relationships, and sports. Unlike everyone else in the world state, Bernard is often angry, resentful and jealous. He also really likes Lenina. Then there is Helmholtz, who is a good looking, fruitful Alpha-plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering. He is a perfect example of what the people in his caste should be, but yet he feels that the stuff he does is empty meaningless and would prefer to use his writing abilities for something purposeful. In the beginning of the novel the director says “And that, that is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you 've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny” (Huxley 15). That quote points out Helmholtz’s flaw in …show more content…
They can all make decisions, but the difference between decision making for most of them and John is, when John makes choices it’s based on what he wants not based off what people are telling him to want. Bernard even recognizes this when he’s talking to Lenina and he says "yes, 'everybody’s happy nowadays. ' We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn 't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else 's way." (Huxley 91). Unlike most people Bernard doesn’t think that being happy means being free. Lenina on the other hand, says that she is free and happy because she is told that she is free and happy. That’s why in the novel it’s hard to believe that the majority of these people actually have any free will, because unlike John they really have no individuality. They do things based on how they’ve been conditioned to do them, not how they think that it should be