Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:
What do you feel is the most important word, phrase, passage, or paragraph in this work? Explain why it is important.
So, it may not be the most important, but this week I want to share some of my favorite little quotes and shocking lines. "He put away the soma bottle, and taking our a packer of sex-hormone chewing-gum, stuffed a plug into his cheek and walked slowly away towards the hangers, ruminating." So I can't remember, nor clearly tell what this novel's full take on sexuality is. I'm inclined to think that because it is such and open and rampant part of Huxley's society that, along with the class separation and everything else, Huxley is attempting to paint promiscuity in a negative light. This is disheartening to me as I feel the opposite. I feel that modern society has most definitely evolved to include a large amount of material in this text, but perhaps not all of it is bad. Obviously the government's usage of sex is troublesome--the orgies to maintain control and blindness, but whether Huxley was truly anti-sex is tbd. It would interesting having this conversation with the right, mature class. The great thing when teaching topics that tend to divide the class is that as a teacher, you never really have to fully weigh down on a specific side--you can let the students battle it out after prodding them. It would definitely be difficult to teach this text without spending a fair amount of time on the issue of sex/society's pleasure. But I assume that you can teach this entirely with a Marxist lens or something of the like, but at the risk of overteaching I would still want to introduce the different lens and interpretations; Brave New World is just so dense and able to be unpacked from so many different angles.
The sex-hormone chewing-gum slays me. While it's not marketed or called the same thing, we definitely sell similar products nowadays. Caffeine chewing gum, "Horny Goat Weed", whatever else you can find at the nearest convenience store. It would be fun to focus on the little details of their society, like these products and drugs, and start off having the class find and compare them to things in their own life. I like the idea of ending the process by having students create their own dystopian product, with a short ad campaign or poster to present to the class.
Huxley's view of sex is something that I have been troubled with as well. When we started reading I assumed that this society had no need for sex because all of the children were produced in factories. Now, there is this view that everyone has sex with everyone. I think that Huxley is against this mentality because he is trying to make an argument against collectivism and is using the prudishness of his society at the time to get an emotional response from the audience and to make collectivism include promiscuity.
ReplyDeleteThe date this novel was published never ceases to amaze me. I taught this novel with seniors twice, and we viewed this text through multiple theoretical lenses--historical, feminist, and yes, Marxist. This novel does speak truths--and I think that is why it is so often banned--hits too close to home? I am not sure if it is anti-sex as much as it is offhand sex--and that is very close to home. Like Rosenblatt, I don't think teachers should avoid ethical issues, and I wanted my students to think about issues relevant to their world--sex, drugs, and science--
ReplyDeleteJulian,
ReplyDeleteEven though I have never read this book as a whole, I can remember the deal with Soma! I think the fact that you can use this novel to this day and it is so relevant makes it somewhat of a concern to be taught within the classroom, don't you think? I agree with Will when he states that Huxley is against collectivism and his way of relating that is so important to the development and understanding of the text. One thing that concerns me with BNW though is the readability--I would love to teach this text, but wouldn't want it to go over my students' head.