InterestingArticles.com

The population is controlled very thoughtfully. It is limited to no more than two billion people and everybody is expected to be happy. Children are created in laboratories and they are divided into five groups: Beta, Gama, Delta, Epsilon and Alpha. Only Alphas can develop naturally. The members of the lower castes are intentionally limited in their intellectual and physical development. There is no family. The children are raised in Conditioning Centres. There is no love, only recreational sex. Marriage, parenthood, romance and pregnancy are considered too offensive to be mentioned in a conversation. The education of children is based on hypnopaedic process which permanently gives each child an appropriate self-image that has been chosen by the leaders. Because of such education, there is no competition. Everyone is satisfied with his/her own cast and nobody wants to change it.

To control the World`s State Economy for the infinite future, all citizens are encouraged from an early childhood to respect and cherish consumption. Every day, they hear overused phrases as ``ending is better than mending``, or ``more stitches less riches``. The State wants them to buy a new product instead of repairing the old one, because permanent consumption and almost universal employment are the foundations of economic and social stability for the World State.

This book has many characters who do their best in order to avoid confronting the truth about their lives. Almost everyone uses the drug soma, and this is the most important example of intentional self-delusion. This drug changes the realities of the present and substitutes them with beautiful hallucinations. Soma is a powerful device for securing social stability. It excludes the need for religion or other personal attachments outside the World State.

This novel describes a dystopia in which an all-powerful state controls the lives of its people because it wants to guard and maintain its stability and power. People`s lives are controlled by technological interventions which start before their birth and last throughout their lives. In fact, they change people`s desires. The government controls its citizens by making them happy and shallowly fulfilled and they don`t think about their personal freedom. That’s why they have no dignity, morals, and emotions. 

Wherever people in our world say Lord, people from the World State say Ford. When they say Ford, they think about Henry Ford, a famous founder of Ford Motor Company. This shows that religion was replaced by admiration of technology. Another motif is a frequent use of the word pneumatic. This adjective is used to describe two things: chairs and Lenina`s body. The use of the word pneumatic to describe the physical features of a human being and a piece of furniture, emphasizes that human sexuality is reduced to the level of commodity. Many characters in the novel are alienated from the World State. The motif of alienation presents a counterpoint to the motif of complete conformity which spreads through the World State. This motif is the major driving force of the story. It gives the main characters their fundamental motivations. Shakespeare is also a motif in  Brave New World. John understands the world through Shakespeare`s plays and sonnets. Shakespeare`s works represent humanity: love, grief, loss, intimacy, passion and intensity. The World State is determined to extinguish all these human emotions.The drug soma is one of the most important symbols in the novel. It symbolizes the use of immediate satisfaction to control the World State`s citizens. It is also a symbol of the great impact of technology and science on technology. It is a kind of ``rite`` and it symbolizes the use of religion to control society.  All citizens of the World State wear clothes that have zippers. Zippers symbolize an immediate and easy access to gratification because buttons would cause the loss of valuable time of nudity.