A New Historicist Approach to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Huxley's Brave New World presents a dystopian society created by the abuse of science and technology. The novel portrays a society stripped off individual freedom and conditioned to abide by the laws of the World State without expressing dissent. Through this novel, Huxley demonstrates the incompatibility between long cherished human values and a society created by the advancement of technology. His novel presents a seemingly perfect society using the advancement in science and technology such as eugenics. He is even considered to be a prophet for his idea of using eugenics in creating a Utopian society. In the novel, the people are always happy, and never experience old age poverty. But the New Historicist approach to this novel brings out Huxley's criticism on the contemporary society for the loss of human values and purposeless living. Huxley criticizes the contemporary society which resembles the society of the World State in many aspects. The old values no longer find a place in a modern, materialistic society which believes that pleasure is the ultimate end of life. Constant entertainments and mindless distractions of the citizens benefit the World State to sustain the condition of the masses. Huxley warns us of the ill effects of totalitarianism and the creation of a popular culture for its survival.