Brave New World Final Assessments
As we’ve been reading on Brave New World, we’ve focused our discussions and commentaries on addressing three questions:
- What is the world in Aldous Huxley’s novel like? Why is it that way?
- How do characters respond to living in this world? Why?
- How is Huxley's novel relevant to our world? How does Huxley use the world he creates and the character’s responses to satirize aspects of modern civilization?
The final assessments for the novel will give you an opportunity to address each of these three essential questions: analytically and creatively.
- EXPOSITORY ESSAY (1000ish words)
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory, first proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, which states that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. How might Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World be viewed as a satire of paternalistic technological utilitarianism*? In other words, how does Huxley use literary techniques—tone (achieved especially through diction and word play, selection of detail (description of setting, characterization, and dialogue for example), plot (especially how characters respond to the World State’s paternalistic technological utilitarianism and what happens to them)— to critique and mock the World State in which technology has made it possible for the vast majority of people to be happy nearly all of the time? How does he show the horrors of such a world? How does he show its limitations?)
* I’m defining technological utilitarianism as a form of nearly universal happiness that is achieved through various technological advances in industrial reproduction, pharmaceutical biochemistry, industrial production, transportation, even entertainment. The "technological utilitarianism" that Huxley satirizes is also paternalistic in that the technology is used by parent-like controllers who direct the citizens toward infantile contentment and pleasure, that constitute a kind of debased happiness. {For more on "paternalistic technological utilitarianism" check out the comment box.}
- DYSTOPIAN SATIRE (1000ish words)
Choose an aspect of modern American civilization to mock in a short piece of satirical dystopian fiction. Your tone (diction and word play), selection of details (setting, characterization, dialogue), and plot should be appropriate for satire. In the satire you should create a world, show characters responding to living in that world. Also, make sure that the aspect of our civilization that you satirize is worth critiquing. (In other words, choose to satirize something about which you feel strongly.)
You will turn in one of these assignments on Friday (2/15) and the other assignment on the Tuesday after we return from vacation (2/25). You are expected to meet these due dates even if you are not in school and even if you do not have English on these days.
1 comment:
A FEW WORDS ON THE PROMPT, ESPECIALLY "PATERNALISTIC TECHNOLOGICAL UTILITARIANISM"
After reading some critical essays about _Brave New World_ and doing some thinking, I think it might be useful to more carefully characterize the target of Aldous Huxley's satire.
In the essay prompt I've written that the target of his satire might be called "technological utilitarianism". I think I need to refine that a bit.
I propose a new term to characterize the target of the novel's satire: "paternalistic, technological utilitarianism".
The term "technological utilitarianism" gets at the idea that in the World State all technologies--from hatching to conditioning to hypnopaedia to soma to obstacle golf to blood surrogate--are designed to help maintain a kind of stable, low level, superficial happiness--sometimes in the form of physical pleasure, sometimes in the form of numb contentment.
But after reading an essay that emphasizes the "Fordean Paternalism" I think it's important to adjust the prompt a bit, since it is precisely the "paternalism" of the government and technology and the "infantilism" of the people that is the target of a lot of Huxley's humorous bitterness.
In other words, technology--directed by the controllers--becomes the parent and all orthodox citizens--the vast majority of the population even most Alphas--are children: amused, content, pacified, vaguely happy children.
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