End of BNW Work in Two Parts

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

Chapter 10-end

PART ONE (TWO TRANSCRIPTS)

Roles:

Choose one of the following major roles: Helmholtz Watson from the Falkland Islands; Bernard Marx from Iceland; Mustapha Mond; Lenina Crowne.

Choose one of the following minor roles: a Delta at the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying; a policeman who helped subdue the crowd at the soma riot; Primo Mellon, representative of The Hourly Radio; Darwin Bonaparte, the Feely Corporation’s most expert big game photographer; Henry Foster; another perspective that you think would yield interesting perceptions of John.

Audience:

The board of World Controllers who will use testimony about John the Savage’s behavior to determine why his experience in the World State ended the way it did.

Format:

Transcriptions of formal testimony in front of the board of World Controllers, one from a character who knows John well and another from a character who knows John less well. (Write the testimony as if the characters are speaking. You can blend them together or do one at a time.) Each “transcription” should be ten or more sentences, should include details from the text, should offer analysis (from the character’s point of view) of John’s behavior and actions, and should include at least three underlined vocabulary words.

Topic:

Perceptions of John from two perspectives that might help the controllers understand John’s life and end. What did John do and why did he do it? (You might even have the characters judge John’s behavior and actions, or speculate about whether or not another outcome was possible for John if he or others had made different choices.)

PART TWO: A LETTER TO ALDOUS HUXLEY

Role: Yourself

Audience: Aldous Huxley

Format: Letter. Include details, analysis, and evaluation.

Topic: What do you see in Huxley’s Brave New World? (Link its message to details and technique.) What does it have to say about modern life that is relevant in 2010? (Link Huxley’s vision of the future to aspects of modern life in 2010 and to the future you foresee. Does he get anything wrong? Does he miss anything important? Explain.) How effective is the way that Huxley presents his vision of future and satire of the present? (Think of the description of setting, presentation of characters, unfolding of events, use of allusion and puns, etc. Is Huxley’s use of literary elements effective? How so? How not?) The main purpose of the letter is to analyze and constructively evaluate what you see in Brave New World and to communicate your vision to Aldous Huxley.

Chapter 5 part 3 through Chapter 9

Imagine you have spent several days observing rituals and daily life in Malpais, New Mexico in the year 632 A.F. You have also met John, Linda, Pope, Mitsima, as well as Bernard and Lenina. Write a diary entry or letter to someone describing your day. Be sure to describe rituals and daily life. What values and beliefs can be inferred from the rituals and life there? (You might also compare these to rituals and daily life in the World State.) Be specific. You must quote a Malpais inhabitant at least once. (You might also talk about your encounters with and/or observations of some of the characters who appear in these chapters.) Be sure to also include personal feelings and ideas about life in Malpais.


Post your responses in the comment box. (You might even make reference to what your peers have already written in the comment box.) Due by class time on Monday, February 8.

Chapter 4 to Chapter 6 part 2: Bernard in the World State

A scene is a passage in a work of literature that occurs in one place at one time.

What is the most important scene in chapter 4 (page 57) through chapter 5 part 2 (page 99) of Brave New World?

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Describe the scene with detail including any of the following literary elements: characters, setting, events, allusions, puns. Then analyze how the scene is significant.

(In other words explain how the scene contributes to the satirical, dystopian society; or in other other words (wink, wink) how the scene fits in with Huxley making fun of where he thinks modern life is heading.)

Post your response in the comment box.

Was Aldous Huxley a racist?

If you'd like to follow up on our discussion about Huxley's views on race you might be interested in this review of a biography on Huxley. The title of the article is quite long:

Back to the future. Aldous Huxley was very much a product of his time: racist, snobbish and superior. But he was also a visionary, a chronicler of our disturbed modernity.

If you'd like, respond in the comment box.

Brave New World Chapter One

Responding to chapter 1

Imagine that you spent yesterday touring the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre in the year 632 A.F. Write a diary entry or a letter to someone describing your day. Record details about the Centre and your feelings about the Centre. Use many details. Be thoughtful.

Midyear Exam Essay Prompt (Updated)

O.K. After talking to a few of you I have decided to amend the writing prompt:

"I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature."
William Golding

"Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick."
from Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Each of the works we have studied during the first semester explores the relationship between heroism and monstrousness. Choose three works we have studied. Compare and contrast how the authors of the three works use heroes (and/or heroism) and monsters (and/or monstrousness or what Simon sees as "sick[ness]") to reveal something about being human.

Be careful. Make sure you go beyond merely identifying and describing heroes and monsters. Make sure you compare how the authors use monsters (and monstrousness) and heroes (heroism) to suggest something about human nature.

To analyze how the authors use monsters and heroes think about how the monsters/heroes are characterized, how they develop, what they do, what is done to them, what they think, what they struggle with inside and out; also, think about what the images, symbols, motifs reveal about monsters, monstrousness, heroes, and heroism.

Avoid merely showing what is monstrous and what is heroic. Avoid plot summary. Have something bold and insightful to say about the similar and different ways the authors make use of heroes and monsters to reveal their insights.

Then, in an epilogue use first person to carefully explain and fully develop an insight into human nature you have developed while studying heroes and monsters this semester.

Lord of the Flies Practice "Quest" for Review

Practice "Quest" for Review.
Write down your answers and bring them in on Tuesday (1/19).

Looking at Lord of the Flies through an anthropological model for a balanced society by William Irwin Thompson, Kathleen Woodward, and your intrepid English teacher…

In the novel…

1. ____________________ and ____________________ are both ideational.
2. ____________________ and ____________________ are both operational.
3. ____________________ and ____________________ operate best on a subconscious, irrational level.
4. ____________________ and ____________________ operate best on a conscious, rational level.

5. In the society, Piggy fulfills the role of ____________________.
6. Jack fulfills the role of ____________________.
7. Ralph fulfills the role of ____________________.
8. Simon fulfills the role of ____________________.

*** The model originally referred to a successful Kalahari society as seen in John Marshall’s anthropological film The Hunters. Why then is the society of marooned boys so unsuccessful in Lord of the Flies? (In your answer refer to the roles, the characters, and the events of the book.)


Author’s Biographical Context
9. What two experiences may have influenced William Golding to write Lord of the Flies? Briefly explain how the experiences may have influenced the novel.

Symbols & Motifs

10. ____________________ seems to symbolize democracy, rationality, order, authority.
11. ____________________ is paradoxically a symbol of destruction and a symbol of hope.
12. ____________________ is a “sign [that] came down from the world of grownups,” representing the consequences of violence in the adult world beyond the island.
13. ____________________ helps Simon understand the true nature of the beast.
14. ____________________ frees the boys from “shame and self-consciousness,” compelling them to do things they otherwise would not.
15. To what does the title literally refer? ____________________
16. How does the answer to #6 symbolically represent what happens to the society?
17. What does the title refer to in translation? ____________________
18. Piggy is most closely associated with what symbol? ____________________
19. Simon is most closely associated with what symbol? ____________________
11. Who says, “‘This head is for the beast. It’s a gift?’” ____________________
20. Roger is most closely associate with what motif? ____________________
21. Who discovers the “beast from air”? ____________________
22. Name four things that at least some of the boys think of as “the beast” at one point or another in the novel.
23. In the quotation, “‘What I mean is…maybe it’s only us;” who is peaking and what is it?
24. “____________________ was the only boy on the island whose hair never seemed to grow.
25. After he reminisces about home in England, many readers are surprised to read that “____________________ too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh.

• Explain how one motif evolves or changes in three different scenes in the novel.
• How might the conch shell and the long hair be seen as opposing symbols?
• How might the scar, the fire, the storm, and the rock be connected as symbols?
• What is the symbolic significance of Piggy’s name?
• What is the relationship between the pigs, the pig’s head, the beast and Golding’s statement that “man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature.”

END OF PRACTICE "QUEST"
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More to review:

Lord of the Flies:
characters and motifs

Characters
Understand the significance of Golding’s characterization of each, the significance of each character’s development, the significance of each character’s role in the plot. When thinking about significance think about allegory and theme.

Ralph, Piggy, Sam and Eric, Jack, Simon, Roger, littluns (Johnny, Henry, Percival, mulberry-colored birthmark, etc.)

Motifs
Motifs are objects, ideas, etc. that are repeated in a work of art.
Understand the literal and allegorical (symbolic) significance of each motif as it develops through the novel.

PHYSICAL OBJECTS
• scar and other symbolic descriptions of the island:
o the island as alive;
o as an inanimate object: car, boat, bomb, etc.;
o as light or dark, calm or stormy, etc.
• conch/shell,
• glasses,
• fire,
• rock,
• pig/boar,
• monsters/beasts/animals (other than the pig/boar),
• uniforms, painted faces, masks, hair and other descriptions of the boys’ appearance