Brave New World: History, Science, and Dystopia PDF
Preview Brave New World: History, Science, and Dystopia
1 New Brave World History, Science, and Dystopia Robert Baker S. in mi linn mi i muni hi ii mini mi i i Hill lllllllll | nun i ii 1 muni mi i HI H I I I I I I I I I i •"-,—. -™_ ; • - » --. - . 0-8057-8077-7 In 1932, Aldous Huxley, fascinated with his- tory, science, and the collapse of traditional values following the Great War, expressed his concern about the dangers ofaccelerated tech- nological progress in Brave New World, a futuristic dystopian narrative that depicts a world that rampant social and scientific ad- vancements have begun to create. As both a political novel and an antiutopian satire, the work was greeted with both outrage and ad- miration from Huxley's contemporaries. In the quintessentially modern Brave New World, Huxley employed his own narrative innovation, contrapuntal form, to fulfill his aim of combining the personal and social to write what he called a novel of social history. His work stands as a lasting contribution to modernist literature and the dystopian genre. — In this landmark study the first to present a detailed treatment ofHuxley's assessment of the course ofhistory in relation to the ideas of such thinkers as Max Weber, Bertrand Rus- — sell, and Sigmund Freud Robert S. Baker offers a thought-provoking analysis of Brave New World, particularly emphasizing the novel's historical and social context. Baker focuses on the political implications of Hux- ley's novel, for he views Brave New World as a serious political novel as well as a futuristic fantasy that becomes more relevant and inter- esting in the morally and technologically com- plex period of the late twentieth century. He examines the role that Freudian and behav- iorist psychology play in the novel's themes and provides sophisticated discussion of Hux- ley's views ofAmerican and Soviet societies of the 1930s as models of future technocracies. This volume also explores Huxley's attack on the unrestrained use of advances in genet- ics and bioengineering and their links to the industrial mentality that he perceived as one (continued on backflap) BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY NEW WORLD BRAVE History, Science, and Dystopia Twayne's Masterwork Studies robert lecker, general editor NEW WORLD BRAVE History, Science, and Dystopia Robert S. Baker TWAYNE PUBLISHERS A DIVISIONOFC. K. HALL & CO. • BOSTON 1 Dudfry Brmnoh Lferwy 96 W*rrai Str#trt F**ki*y,MAt2119 Brave New World: History, Science, and Dystopia Robert S. Baker Twayne's Masterwork Studies No. 39 Copyright 1990 by G. K. Hall & Co All rights reserved. Published by Twayne Publishers A division ofG. K. Hall & Co. 70 Lincoln Street, Boston, Massachusetts 0211 Copyediting supervised by India Koopman. Book production by Janet Z. Reynolds. Typeset by Huron Valley Graphics, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Printed on permanent/durable acid-free paper and bound in the United States ofAmerica. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Baker, Robert S., 1940- Brave new world : history, science, and dystopia / Robert S. Baker. — p. cm. (Twayne's masterwork studies ; no. 39) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-8057-8077-7 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0-8057-8121-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963. Brave new world. 2. Utopias in ture. 3. Dystopias in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PR6015.U9B6725 1990 "SiJ'.yii—dc2TT- <* 89-15503 CIP otri-y-fr 1 Contents Note on the Text vii Chronology: Aldous Huxley's Life and Works ix 1. Historical Context 1 2. The Importance of the Work 7 3. Critical Reception 1 A Reading PART THE BOUNDARIES OF UTOPIA 1 : 4. The Modern Utopia: Huxley and H. G. Wells 21 5. The Modern Dystopia: Huxley, H. G. Wells, and Eugene Zamiatin 36 6. Historical Progress and the Liberal Dilemma: Utopia and the New Romanticism 46 7. Ideology and Power in Huxley's Ultimate Revolution: The Case of the Marquis de Sade 56 8. Science and Utopia: Bertrand Russell, Max Weber, and Huxley's Technocratic Dystopia 63 PART 2: BRAVE NEWWORLD 9. Huxley and Henry Ford: Chapters 1-2 79 10. History and Psychology in the World State: Chapter 3 88 11. Time, Love, and Bernard Marx: Chapters 4-6 100 12. Huxley's Retrospective Utopia and the Role of the Savage: Chapter 7 106 13. Sigmund Freud, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and John's Autobiography: Chapters 8-13 116 Brave New World 14. Mustapha Mond and the Defense of Utopia: Chapters 14-18 126 Notes 143 Bibliography 149 Index 154 About theAuthor 156 VI
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