摘 要

英国作家阿道司·赫胥黎的《美丽新世界》是一部著名的反乌托邦式批判小说，主要刻画了一个距今600年的未来世界。在这个世界，物质生活与科学技术都高度发达，人们安于现状，可以尽情享受欲望的满足，不必担心生老病死的痛苦，并且心安理得地接收着主宰者的制约和教育。然而在这样一个一切都被标准化的社会中，机械文明已然凌驾于人性之上，传统的概念如家庭、自由、道德、情感等都已消失，人的个体性在机器的碾磨中荡然无存。

作为知名的乌托邦三部曲之一，赫胥黎所描绘的“美丽新世界”对现代社会的生活困境是一个有力的警示，因此本文着重于在分析赫胥黎如何通过写作《美丽新世界》解构乌托邦幻想的同时，揭示这部近一个世纪前的小说已经预料过的人类被科技异化、非自由的尴尬处境，诸如科学技术支持下更高效的极权统治、消费主义的肆意蔓延、物质利益驱使下人的精神信仰的缺失等等。

本文内容包括五部分。第一部分对小说及作者进行简单的介绍；第二部分概述国内外研究现状；第三部分析反乌托邦主题的发展以及在《美丽新世界》中的呈现；第四部分通过对现代社会发展的现象和《美丽新世界》的互文性来探究这一小说在现代仍具有的警示性；最后，本文得出小说的反乌托邦主题具有时代性和前瞻性，通过对《美丽新世界》的阅读，可以更好地反思当代人类生存困境这一结论。

关键词：反乌托邦；幻灭；对比分析；现代警示

Abstract

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a famous dystopian critical novel, depicting a future world that dates 600 years after his time. In this world, the material life is abundant, science and technology are highly developed, and people are satisfied with the status quo and enjoy a desultory life without worrying about the sufferings and pains caused by illness, old age and death. They accept all the restrictions and education with full content. However, in such a society where everything is standardized and unified, the mechanical civilization has already overridden human nature. The traditional concepts such as family, freedom, morality, emotion have been erased, and human nature is destroyed by the grinding of machines.

As one of the well-known Dystopian Trilogy, Huxley's Brave New World is a powerful warning to the dilemma of life in modern society. Therefore, this paper focuses on analyzing how Huxley deconstructs the utopian fantasies through his writing, and revealing the awkward situation of human beings alienated by technology, which has been expected in this novel nearly a century ago, such as a more efficient totalitarian rule supported by science and technology, wanton spread of consumerism, and lack of spiritual beliefs driven by unlimited pursuit of material life and so on.

This paper consists of four parts. The first part is a brief introduction to the novel and its author and the literature review. The second part analyzes the development of dystopian theme and its presentation in Brave New World. The third part explores the warning features of this novel through exploring the intertextuality between modern society and Brave New World. Finally, the thesis draws a conclusion that the fiction’s dystopian theme is forward-looking and always keeps with the time. Through the reading process, the reflection on modern people’s living predicament can also be built.

Key Words: dystopia; disillusionment; comparative study; modern warnings

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 3

3. Dystopia Theme 4

3.1 Development of dystopia theme 4

3.2 Analysis of dystopia theme in Brave New World 5

3.2.1 Deconstruction of Utopia -- an absurd new world 5

1) Birth Control 5

2) Hypnopaedia, or sleep education 5

3) Satisfaction of all desires 6

4) Control on culture and nihilizing of history 6

5) Soma 7

3.2.2 Alienation of characters 7

1) Bernard Marx 7

2) Savage John 7

4. Modern Warnings 9

4.1 Culture surrenders to technology 9

4.2 The entertainment era with overloading information 9

4.3 Criticism of consumerism 10

5. Conclusion 12

References 14

Acknowledgements 16

Brave New World: Disillusionment of Utopia and Its Modern Warnings

1. Introduction

Aldous Huxley (1894--1963) is a British novelist, essayist, social critic, playwright, poet, and mystic. His Brave New World, together with 1984 by Orwell and We by Zamyatin, is considered as the renowned "dystopian trilogy" in the 20th century. It has a strong philosophical speculation and political significance and has exerted a profound influence in the literary and ideological circles in the world.

The title is inspired by the character Miranda's line from Shakespeare's The Tempest: “O Brave New World, that hath such people in it.” The background of the story is set in the human society in the year 632 of Ford Era (year 2532 of Common Era). It is a cosmopolitan country, known as a "civilized society". In the contrary, there are "Savage Reservation", inhabited by some Indian tribes. When the protagonists of the novel, Bernard and Lenina, visit the reservation, they meet John, a savage, and his mother Linda, a former inhabitant of the new world who accidentally falls down a cliff and stays there till now, and gives birth to John. For his own purposes, Bernard brings Linda and her son back to the new world, where Linda dies soon after taking an overdose of soma (a stimulant). Finally, John's admiration for the new world turns to disgust, and he hangs himself after fierce conflict with the new world.

In this World State, everything requires "community, identity, stability", strict hierarchy predetermines the functions and social roles of people; each class has a uniform clothing, which means that their identity is fixed and cannot be exceeded. People have only the right to observe, not the right to speak for themselves. Language is also restricted, and words such as "born", "father" and "mother" became obscenities. The police act as state machines, and when there is an emergency, they come in with soma sprayers. In terms of education, the restriction imposed is essentially a policy of fooling the people, depriving the lower classes of their right to be educated and thus their freedom of thinking. Pyramids, historical museums, Shakespeare and other historical and cultural things no longer exist, historical consciousness is abolished and traditional culture tends to disappear. Unrestrained consumption and entertainment have replaced reading and thinking, and human beings have become soulless and devoid of rational thoughts.

Brave New World has caused a lot of discussion later, because it is widely regarded as prophetic, and some people even think that the future would coincide with the content. It draws heavily on contemporary science and technology, creating a science fiction world full of sociality and vigilance. Shrouded in the haze of totalitarianism, the wide application of science and technology in the new world has accelerated the overall alienation of human society and brought great damage to the progress of human civilization. The decline of human nature has become a common phenomenon. Huxley ’s prophetic novel has a positive practical significance, reveals the terrifying phenomenon of universal alienation in the real world, expresses a deep sense of worry about the crisis of human nature under the totalitarian mechanism, and attempts to awaken people to the contemplation of critical social problems. It calls for a fully understanding of mankind’s self-value and the return of humanism spirit.

2. Literature Review

After the novel’s publication in the earlier half of the 20th century, various discussions are made through different methods, such as Huxley’s dystopia vision, gender studies and so on. Ronald T. Sion (2010) comments in Aldous Huxley and The Search for Meaning that Brave New World is a masterpiece that raises question about what humanities will be like in the future with technology free from human ethics. Margaret J. Daniels and Heather E. B (2012) give a thorough research on the question of women’s leisure through Brave New World and other three dystopian novels.

In China, the studies of Brave New World mainly concentrate on analyses with literary theories and comparative research concerning Brave New World and other dystopia classics. The thesis by Ying Zhang (2017) employs the intellectual theory and cultural hegemony by Antonio Gramsci to explain the loss of intellectuals’ individuality in Brave New world. In “A Biopolitical Study of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four”, Zong Tang (2019) makes a comparative research between the two dystopia works. Yiran Wu’s thesis in 2016 discussed the novel’s inheritance to the European literary tradition to find the ethical dilemma and the moral predicament that haunt the European civilization.

To conclude, many scholars and critics have studied this novel from various aspects, with different emphasis on Huxley’s writing techniques, literary thoughts, dystopia vision, and relations with other novels which share the same dystopia theme. They all come as the literary analysis on text and are mainly concerned with the book itself. As a supplement of the research, this essay will focus more on the latest technology and social issues and their relations to Huxley’s Brave New World.

3. Dystopia Theme

3.1 Development of dystopia theme

"Utopia" comes from the novel Utopia by Thomas More, the founder of British utopian socialism. The Latin word is "outopos". The former "ou" means "no", and the latter "topos" means "place". "Things not found anywhere", that is, "the homeland of nothingness". This word is pinned on the yearning for the ideal world.