Self-Conditioning In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Self-Conditioning Brave New World was written by Aldous Huxley in 1932 and expresses his ideas of the world 600 years from the invention of the first automobile. It explains how people are not naturally born, but put in a lab and given specific treatment depending on the class the controller, want them to become. They are conditioned to like and dislike certain things and given drugs everyday that eventually kill them. Huxley introduces John or, as he is often called, the savage. John was naturally born and raised away from modern civilization. When he joins the rest of the population, he is overwhelmed and appalled by the way they are living. He argues they need to be freed and attempts to spark a revolution with his two friends Bernard and Helmholtz, though their minds are far too tampered with to register what he is saying. He wants to prove that conditioning young children is wrong but in his own way John has also been conditioned by living with the savages. John comes to this new world and takes an …show more content…
She is often found chanting “a gramme is always better than a damn” (88) or “everyone belongs to everyone else” (48) when confronted with a comment she doesn’t completely understand. In one instance John becomes angry and Lenina responds by wearily saying “a gra-amme is be-etter…”(177). When John is put in the same situations he quotes Shakespeare, one of the only literary works he’s ever read. He uses these plays to express himself when his own thoughts aren’t good enough. At one point John, in conversation with Helmholtz and Bernard is “reading Romeo and Juliet aloud—reading… with an intense and quivering passion” (167). He substitutes Shakespeare for the hypnopaedic sayings incorporated into civilization's daily life. John conditions himself to live by Shakespeare’s words and uses these as a substitute for his own