Please explain how listening/watching the author himself changed your perspective on the work and the essay you turned in.
I feel like now that I have heard from Huxley the novel does not seem to extreme. What I mean by this is that he is “Normal!” He thinks the same way many people think about our world. It is Overpopulated, Over-organized, advanced with technology, full of propaganda, and drugs. At first I though Huxley was exaggerating, in it is arguable, but in a way we do not see it as an exaggeration because we are a part of it, it is all we know. If we take a step back to think about what Huxley has suggested about our world and where it is heading there is an astonishing amount of truth in it.
The 1997 AP Essay I wrote on BNW was focused on how a character’s actions alone were evil or immoral and why the character drew sympathy from the reader. I would say that Huxley did an excellent job because by putting certain attributes of our world today into the world state we (the readers) are able to identify with John the savage. I felt like John the savage was a representation of us right now and the world state “people” were a representation of what we are heading to as a society.
Notes from In-Class
Overpopulation
- reproduction is popular = BNW no parents
Over- organization w/ tech.
- In our world tech. is advancing and getting better & better as time goes by
- In Huxley's this over-organization is the making of the clones/ppl
- Huxley believes TV is a distraction
SOMA
- Same effect as some drugs in our world today
Propaganda
- brain washing
- breaking down a person/society & training them to believe new ideas = the BNW way...flowers/ books ....electrified/shocking
- Russia- idea for totalitarian world state
- Passion for power- common in people
- Power is dangerous
- freedom is necessary for a productive society
