Buy essay on The two literary masterpieces – Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go

The two literary masterpieces – Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go – are known for their unusual plot, strong characters, profound ideas and messages of the authors. Both writings tell about the different manifestations of totalitarianism as a form of complete social control, however without direct critics or denunciations, rather through skillful usage of irony and allegory.
The writing of Aldous Huxley – Brave New World, which appeared in 1932, was claimed to be an example of “softer form of totalitarianism”, because it presented an idea of building a positive society with the help of engineered babies, grown from the bottles and further hypnotic persuasion, without direct brutality or oppression. In her review of this book, Margaret Atwood wrote, that this story was about “boundless consumption that keeps the wheels of production turning and of officially enforced promiscuity that does away with sexual frustration, of a pre-ordained caste system ranging from a highly intelligent managerial class to a subgroup of dim-witted serfs programmed to love their menial work, and of soma, a drug that confers instant bliss with no side effects” (Atwood., 3).
Critics couldn’t agree whether this writing could belong to utopia or dystopia, because the characters, presented in the novel are good-looking, not suffering from any serious diseases, don’t really have a lot of troubles and worries, but probable none of us would like to live the way, they did. Generally “utopia” is derived from the Greek word, meaning either “no place” or “good place”. In the Brave New World there is no good place, thus the author himself called his writing – “negative utopia”.
Brave New World is said to have a lot of literary works, written before, which could serve a basis for this writing. The list includes Plato’s Republic and the Bible book about the myth of Atlantis, certainly More’s Utopia. Actually, the nineteenth century brought a lot of innovations to people’s lives – sewage systems, new medicine, new transportation means and so on – this is its turn caused the raise of optimism in literary writings. “The first world war marked the end of the romantic-idealistic utopian dream in literature, just as several real-life utopian plans were about to be launched with disastrous effects. The Communist regime in Russia and the Nazi takeover of Germany both began as utopian visions” (Atwood, 4).
In his novel Huxley builds the futuristic picture of the world, taking John Savage as an outsider, struggling with accepted norms of life in this world. The author decided to split his narration approximately into three main parts in order to have a stronger impact upon the readers. In the first part the readers find the description of the London in the future, with all necessary details for having the picture of the world. In the second part of the novel the readers get the chance to travel to a different place – the Savage Reservation, which is certainly contrasted to the city of London. Here we also meet one of the key characters of the story – John. Finally, the third part presents the conflict between the set order of things in London and John’s life and ideas. The fact, that the author shows two “types” of world contributed to numerous discussions, whether his novel should be considered utopia or not.
The setting of the story is unreal, as the events happen in the future. Most of the important life spheres, like for example sex, birth, death are used to create the needed atmosphere, corresponding to the setting and the main message of the author. The setting itself is mostly used by Huxley with the aim of presenting the ways, how residents of the reservation are controlled, thus every detail of the setting described, has its sense.
Huxley wrote his novel in 1930s and he was “an “amused, Pyrrhonic aesthete”, as he said himself. This was probably one of the main reasons, why the author chose such kind of setting – industrialized sceneries, consisting of towers with electric lighting, unnatural cities and so on. Instead of normal clothes people wear viscose and imitation of leather, the music is artificial, even the natural process of child birth exists no longer, instead babies are kept in special bottles. Naturally the word “mother” lost its sacred and unique sense and became an obscenity. Free sex on the contrary is considered to be a norm: “He patted me on the behind this afternoon,” said Lenina. “There, you see!” Fanny was triumphant. “That shows what he stands for. The strictest conventionality.” (Huxley, 22). The theme of sex is so important because it has also its role in reflecting of the strict control over the citizens, even over their reproductive rights. There is a special authorization system created, aiming at sterilizing most of the women, whereas the rest are obliged to take contraceptives. In case the medicines don’t work properly – there are abortion clinics, unexpectedly with pink colors in their architecture. The usage of this color in this case is certainly the deep irony and even mocking in a way. The descriptions of sex also serve to show the readers the conflict between genuine values and those, implanted by the World State authorities, like for example in the situation with Lenina and John – Lenina is interested in simple sex relations without any further commitments, whereas John is looking for real love and feels despair, realizing that Lenina is not able to fall in love with him.
Very important for the main theme of the story is the problem of the new technologies, which put people at risk of getting under their complete control. This control is underlined by the description, how the birth is controlled with the help of technology and medicine. Another good example is entertainment machines, the harmless leisure they are able to provide, ensures the consumption and production, needed for progressive and stable functioning of the World State.