“You would have to tear your life with tears. And then everything is too cheap here …”, advises Savage, one of the heroes of the dystopian novel O Brave New World. It was written by the English writer Aldous Huxley in 1932, and published only after 26 years.
About people subordinate to progress
Many years have passed since the release of the novel, but only now, in the 21st century, it becomes clear how far and exactly forward Aldous Huxley looked. This book is about a society built on the principles of technocracy. It would seem that this is not bad, equipment and technologies are developing, a variety of machines replace manual labor. But what does humanity give in return, what pays for a prosperous, relatively well-fed and calm life? Huxley just shows in the novel "Brave New World" that a person paid for this, probably, the most expensive: by what, in fact, made him a person - his humanity.
In his novel, society has a clear hierarchy: from the intellectual elite to the lower caste, from alpha to epsilon. Half-humans, half-robots, some signs, soulless substances, live every day according to the script once and for all. There is no possibility of moving from a lower caste to a higher one - a place is once and for all assigned to everyone. The heroes of the novel rush to work in the morning, work as expected, then rush home in the evening, again in a crowd. And their whole life is socialized, everything is common: women, pleasures. This is a world of people who do not know love in all its manifestations, friendship and even death do not scare them, because children are specially brought to the wards of the dying for this purpose and treated to sweets. Like, death is not very bad and even very funny. The novel is thoroughly saturated with cynicism and indifference.
New people, “cubs, ” appear in a society drawn by Huxley, not by natural means, but from a test tube, because in the society of Ford, which is God for new people, a man and a woman must unite for some period only for a fleeting carnal mutual satisfaction. The institution of marriage is abolished as unnecessary, it is wrong to have one sexual partner and is condemned by society.
Another type of entertainment and pastime is the use of soma - a synthetic drug. Soma was invented so that this magic "pill" could help a person to be forgotten. She is handed out at work. Emotions were initially dulled by the inhabitants of the “brave new world”, but after trying catfish, they forget about everything, there remains only lightness and joy. And it’s easier for the authorities to manage, because the crowd of thoughtless rams is easier to direct in the right direction than people who think and think.
All the more acute in such an environment is the position of the Savage, who is a man of another world. He is not alien to feelings and emotions, he quotes Shakespeare, and the most important thing that distinguishes him from Ford society is that he thinks. However, Huxley leaves him no chance - Savage hanged himself in the finale of the novel.
