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ALDOUS HUXLEY (1984-1963) - Coggle Diagram
ALDOUS HUXLEY (1984-1963)
LIFE
educated at Eton and Oxford, left medicine due to his eyesight problems
He married, lived in Italy and France and travelled in the East and in America
he supported the Peace Movement and he wrote pamphlets against the Spanish Civil War in 1936
he lived the rest of his life in California
WORKS
SHORT STORIES AND
NOVELS OF IDEAS
rejection of modern civilisation
1921
Crome yellow
1923
Antic Hay
frank treatment of sexual matters
much in common with T.S. Eliot's
The waste land
people try to forget the atrocities of war by living a crazy life
1925
Those barren leaves
1928
Point counter point
SECOND PHASE
1932
Brave new world
the true enemy of mankind is ordinary human selfishness
1936
Eyeless in Gaza
1939
After many a summer dies the swan
1937
essay
Ends and Means
THIRD PHASE
mysticism and metaphysics
1948
Ape and Essence
1962
Island
Brave New World
PLOT
Set in A.F. (After Ford - the inventor of the assembly line in the car industry) 632 (2540), a new world has been created where the State controls everything and the private property has been abolished.
People are classified according to their role for the future society. Generation and birth are artificially produced and people are brainwashed into a happy state. Soma is a synthetic drug used to solve any problems.
In New Mexico, people live naturally and people have desires, fall in love, marry, die.
TITLE
taken from Shakespeare's
The tempest
, when Miranda sees other human beings for the first time revealing utopian ideals
JOHN THE SAVAGE
A natural man initially attracted by the new world but disgusted by the Fordian society, traumatised by his mother's death for soma abuse.
After causing a riot, he discusses the merits of civilisation with Mustapha Mond, the Resident Controller for Western Europe
Mustapha's goal remains happiness, while the Savage insists on freedom
In the end, John becomes a victim of scientific experiments and commits suicide, as symbol of Huxley's pessimism about Western civilisation
THEMES
a revolt against the horrors of the imaginary world described by
Herbert G. Wells
A modern utopia
(1905)
Men like Gods
(1923)
STYLE
ironic, allusive
flashbacks
shifting of viewpoint
free indirect thought
readable but sophisticated, humorous and witty