Preview

Ideas of Escapism and Pleasure in Brave New World

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
746 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Ideas of Escapism and Pleasure in Brave New World
Brave New World
Explore the ways in which Huxley explores the idea of escapism and pleasure. Support your answer with details from the novel.
In the "old world" people had to deal with melancholy and abuse, and pleasure was received in different ways than in that of the new world. Huxley depicts this in his novel, Brave New World by establishing the idea of escapism and pleasure. He portrays some people as wanting to decamp from reality and explains that people in this utopian society get their pleasure from doing the same sort of activities as one another, including visiting the feelies. Huxley depicts that some characters try to escape from reality by taking soma so they can forget about all their fears and problems. When Lenina and Bernard are at the savage reservation they witness the consternation of a boy, Palowhtiwa being sacrificed. Lenina becomes aghast after seeing all the blood, "Too awful! That blood!" She shuddered. "Oh, I wish I had my soma." This quote emphasizes the importance of soma in Lenina's life. Huxley proves that if people like Lenina are to ajourn from these horrors they need to take soma.
Hypnopaedic teaching has taught people to ingest soma when they are feeling dismal. This is proved when Lenina says, "a gramme is better than a damn". The rhymes from her hynopaedic teaching prove that people such as Lenina are like automatons or machines, which are forced to devour soma when they are feeling disconsolate. When Linda is in the hospital she chooses to live her life on a soma holiday because life becomes too much for her in the real world. Linda does this so she can escape from reality and so she can go into her own state of mind. This is proven evident when she is described as having a "...broken and discoloured smile of infantile contentment." She is related to a delighted child because she is getting so much pleasure from her "soma holiday". Huxley presents that people, such as Linda try to evade reality by taking soma.
It is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Aldous Huxley uses the drug Soma to Shape and Control the entire utopian Society and The use of soma plays such a huge part in how the characters of the story live life.…

    • 57 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This passage is noteworthy as it offers insight into how soma is a device that removes individuality and suppresses emotions. Aldous Huxley comments on the issue of how ignorant bliss can result in easier manipulation. Soma, as described by Mustapha Mond, is “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant” (47). When taken, this drug offers instant relief and gratification without any consequences or side effects. When the user feels uncomfortable or starts to think on their own, they are programmed to take soma and forget about their problems, thereby removing any chance of an unhappy citizen thinking in unorthodox manners. This is representative of suppressing human emotion and substituting it with a faux reality until the user reverts back to…

    • 225 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is a satirical novel that presents grossly exaggerated and absurd constructs as the norm. This World State is described as the ideal place; it is the best thing that happened for humanity. It is civilized civilization. The World State is full of everything one could ever want: sex without commitment, easy access to drugs, and essentially guarantees a state of being content through conditioning. Moreover, death is no longer something to fear and feelings do not exist in their full spectrum. It is through Huxley’s use of satire and presentation of these ideals that made me aware of how those aspects form my definition of what it is to be uniquely human.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The argument that Huxley's is making for being an outsider in this chapter is that being unhappy doesn't mean that you have to take some medication to cure your unhappiness, seeing different things at seem wrong just because you come from a different living style. For example, on page 118 "stuff in the gourd was called mescal... Ought to be called soma", which meant the same thing that it takes the pain, loneliness away for a moment, yet it was a medication that was required where Bernard and Lenina come from was so that unhappiness doesn't get in the way, feel pain, or also have emotions. Huxley is also arguing that Bernard is the one that doesn't take soma, that he's feeling alone, which its stating on page 128 "so am I" and he believes…

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    We’re fascinated by the terrible things character's face and for years now, authors have evaluated and ridiculed the “perfect” society to share their concerns about humanity. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley presents a dystopian, emotionless and controlled world where all individuality is masked by their false understanding of “happiness”. Soma, is their armament against the effects of conflict and the only way to indulge in their inescapable life. True happiness is only possible through the perception and feeling of emotions, soma simply provides a distraction from the truth of a world gone wrong. In fact, it appears the plot, tone and characters from the novel all display examples of soma and the belief that happiness is achieved within.…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Huxley’s fictional Brave New World happiness is associated with sex, drugs, and no personal freedom. In our country, we can have happiness without all of those things. In Brave New World sex is one of the primary sources of happiness, along with soma. Brave New World promotes having lots of sex, and is very against having just one sexual partner. People aren’t worried about personal feelings in Brave New World. Whenever they feel depressed, sad, or bad at all, they take a drug called soma.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her investigative essay entitled “Alienation in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World,” Josephine McQuail explores the recurring theme of alienation in Huxley’s dystopian classic, touching upon “psychological, sociological, sexual, biological, and even aesthetic” (McQuail 32) alienation for several major characters. She expresses her belief that Huxley’s main message in the novel, “only the alienated individual… can achieve true happiness” (McQuail 31), is flawed. While this claim has its merits, the four main characters of the novel, all iconoclasts in their society, meet some kind of unhappy end, invalidating Huxley’s message. However, all other people but the four main characters-- Bernard, Helmholtz, Mustapha, and John-- are incapable of any emotions besides those conditioned to them.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the excerpt from chapter 3 of the speculative fiction, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, the narrator at the moment, Mustapha Mond, explains to the students in the garden about the past life before the World State was created discussing how it differed in social relationships. Mustapha Mond enters the book when The Director Of the Central London Hatchery is disturbed by a young boy crying because of the sexual activities the kids were encouraged to engage in. The boy is then sent to a psychologist and the Director starts to discuss reproduction when he is interrupted by Mustapha Mond, who is one of the ten World Controllers. Huxley creates a tone of irony…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Brave New World intrigued me, even before I began reading because it has been said to be complicated, provocative, and prophetic. In Huxley’s vision of the future, humans are produced the same way consumer goods are produced on an assembly line. It was hard to imagine a world without childbirth, where human reproduction became solely about maximizing efficiency. I felt pity for the students because they felt no positive connotation to the words “parent” and “home”. They no longer had a personal connection to family, feeling no love or emotion at all, which to me is the entire basis of humanity. They feel lucky to be spared all the pain and suffering that come with emotions, and although many of us probably feel it would be easier, with pain comes the understanding of real happiness. Even the traditional taboos about sex have been discarded; children engage in erotic play because they have been conditioned to believe that sex has no emotional or moral…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Huxley novel, Brave New World, the themes in the novel relate to the political developments of the 1930s. Huxley wrote his novel between the world wars. British society was at peace, but the social effects of World Ward 1 were still in effect. Huxley wrote about the changes in national feelings, questioning of long-held social and moral assumptions, and the move toward more equality among the classes and between the sexes. During this time there was an expansion of transportation and communication. Brave New World, reflects the widespread concern about the world of the 1930s. Although he novel is set in the further it is about what was happening in the 1930s. This was a period of great change, and Huxley created a world in which all the present worrying trends have produced terrible consequences. The movement toward socialism that occurred in the 1920s becomes in the novel the totalitarian World State. Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, relates to events that were happening in the 1930s.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Within contemporary American society, there is a large focus on self pleasure, and being able to stay happy throughout the hardships and struggles of life. Our lives shift in different directions as we change as people, but our end goal is always happiness, whether immediate or requiring investment. Within the shallow society of Brave New World, the people constantly search for pleasure and release, much like our own world. However, they are heavily inclined by the government to search for the short-term solution to curing their desire for pleasure. Through Brave New World, Aldous Huxley provides a relevant warning about a society focused purely on short term pleasure solutions, whether sexually driven, or driven by drugs, and the extensive…

    • 1361 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the famous 1930’s novel, Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, a huge theme within deals with happiness. Soma, a drug used to create simultaneous happiness, is referred to numerous times throughout the…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Soma, a drug created as a result of technological advancements, is used in the Civilized society to help people get over their problems; if people can overcome their problems, they will be progressing themselves, thus progressing society. The purpose of soma is demonstrated when Lenina is in the Savage Reservation with Bernard, and they are watching an enticing young Savage “sacrifice” himself to the Gods Pookong and Jesus. Lenina is completely appalled by this and needs something to take her away from this horrific scene. To get through this tough time, she “‘[wishes] that [she] had [her] soma’”(Huxley 116). This example stands to show that soma is used to help Civilized people escape difficult experiences. While this form of technology helps Lenina get through difficulties and make them , will it improve her mentally and make her a better person? It will not. The use of soma gives people an escape…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Set in the year 2540 in London, Huxley presents a society that promotes happiness through technological advances, promiscuous sex and drug use. There is no more war and poverty, there is only happiness. From the very beginning of the novel, we are introduced to a cold and inhumane setting. Huxley uses the metaphor “The light was frozen, dead, a ghost, (Huxley, 3),” in describing the laboratory in which humans are produced in the masses.…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Soma - Brave New World

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    "if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training”…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays