Bernard Marx is one of the most self-inflicting characters ever developed. In Brave New World Aldous Huxley, the author, has set out to create an Utopia that's so far out and different from the society he was currently living in to mirror our future society. Huxley has managed to develop a character that distances himself from the unorthodox society he is currently living in. Huxley through this novel warned us preaching through characters and the theme to not sacrifice your individuality in pursuit of social acceptance, because once you lose your individual imperfections you lose the basis of humanity.
Throughout the novel Bernard Marx is socially accepting the new world, but inward and consciously battling the acceptance. In this society, Patrons are taught to live in a state where stimulated drugs are popped to cure unhappiness, sex games are demonstrated among any age or gender on the normality, and castes, that differentiate, are out in place to distribute each individual's job and title. Bernard Marx deals with an inward battle constantly with conforming to the new world's expectations. He reminds himself when going out with Lenina, a young individual who has completely conformed to the new society, that he isn't warped into this utopia. Marx understands that happiness can be conceived just be the simplest things such as just watching water ripple a certain way. Beauty is in the nature, but Bernard struggles with expressing that to others conformed in the society.
The key ingredient to stability that the novel implies is that individuality must be absent. The government in Brave New World understands that fact and in the worlds of one of the ten controllers of the world states there is no civilization without social stability. The basis of humanity revolves around individuality and imperfections and that's something the new world lacks. Bernard struggles with issue concerning questioning himself inwardly. He once throughout the novel approached the director questioning the system which resulted in the Director himself leaking (or foreshadowing you can say) a prior incident revolving around the reservation. Marx only got scolded and threatened for his ambitions, but gained insight towards his theories concerning his inward questionings.
Emotions are controlled in Brave New World. Control and stability can best be achieved when everyone is happy. The government does its best to eliminate any painful emotion, which means every deep feeling, every passion, is gone. Huxley shows that the government recognizes the dangers of negative emotions when the controller states, "Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery." So is abnormal for a character like Bernard Marx to question his inward conscious? Only true human beings understand the importance of human-like qualities such as only feeling happiness when it is inherited unlike the individuals lacking those traits popping "happiness pills". Marx is a character developed to prove to the reader that even in the basis of a controlled society or world you can say, when a human is sought out to portray and obey rules that naturally don't abide to them the humans naturally instincts will always kick in and take control. Bernard Marx ends up being punished and exiled for his inward questionings, but is Aldous warning us in a sense that standing up for your beliefs is wrong and being exiled is a cruel punishment to stay away from or is the Utopia a world that should never be developed due to the fact that were human beings and there's always going to be those characteristics you can't take away from an individual?
No comments:
Post a Comment