Individual Identity In Brave New World

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“But every one belongs to every one else,” (pg 46) the recorded voice whispers to the rows of sleeping children. In this brave new world, the people are administrated and controlled by a unified government called the World State. The World State uses hypnopaedia, sleep teaching, to instill morals into one’s mind and condition the children at a young age. Hypnopaedia is one of the many methods the World State uses to control the people. To ensure the stability of the community, the identity of the citizens must be sacrificed. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huxley implies that stability is not as important when considering the value of individual identity. Huxley shows the importance of individuality through the society’s drug soma, and through Helmholtz and Bernard’s search to find their own individual value. …show more content…
It sedates and calms a person down, distracting the individual from the problems around them. By using the soma, the citizens never get to fully experience all the feelings a human is supposed to feel. The world state instills the idea, “when the individual feels, the community reels,” (pg 92) into everyone’s mind. By sacrificing your own thoughts and feelings, the citizens never get to feel pain and loss, but they also never get to feel love or understand what it truly means to be happy. The citizens get to live in what they think is a perfect society. But what is a “perfect society”? A perfect society is not one where the citizens are brainwashed and constantly in a euphoric drugged state. Although Soma may ensure stability in this “perfect society,” the stability it brings is not worth it with all the sacrifices tied with

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